comment #1

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

See Mamma Mia! or the terrorists win!

comment #2

TedM says ...

Considering that Rita Wilson was dying to play the lead, anyone would have been a better choice. That it's Streep and she's letting go and having some fun on screen is merely a plus. Also, if it makes money and she pockets a good part of the profits, maybe she'll finally get her butt back on a Broadway stage. (And I don't mean a short run in a Shakespeare in the Park production)

comment #3

EOTW says ...

[Comment deleted by editor for excessive bile, lack of wit or thought, and a tone of deliberate cruelty.]

comment #4

Jody says ...

I know you are going to have a firled day with what I am about to say, but so be it. Do you ever get tired of being so unbelievably negative? You guys all seem to love to trash every film that may just want to give people some joy for a couple hours. The comment about Merly Streep being a jillionaire and boo hoo...wow I am really glad I don not know you.
Not every film, play, novel, or painting needs to rip us apart and make us despise something about ourselves. Sometimes it is nice to just to be entertaine and I for oe look forward to seeing Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia.
Ok go ahead..shoot.

comment #5

scooterzz says ...

saw this last night and found it to be delightfully abysmal.... once the shock wears off it will most likely make my 'bad movies i love' list (if just for the absolute surreal nature of the whole thing and pierce brosnan's complete inability to carry a tune)......
it actually brought back memories of 'sgt. pepper's loney hearts club band', 'popeye' and 'paint your wagon'......
that said, streep has two songs/scenes back-to-back that will probably rip the hearts out of academy voters (if they can get that far)......

comment #6

tophertilson says ...

Or maybe she just wanted to sing and dance and make a fool of herself for a change. I used to have a bootleg of her audition CD for the EVITA movie. Needless to say, she sang better and with more emotional conviction than Madonna.

comment #7

D.Z. says ...

scooter: But how does it compare to Xanadu?

comment #8

scooterzz says ...

dz -- jeeze, how did i neglect to mention 'xanadu'?!?.......it's right there alongside of it........

comment #9

Arizona Joe says ...

Bravo Miss Streep. I think it is wonderful that we live in a western society that had an ABBA and has a "Mamma Mia" musical. And if it cheers children, and puerile adults, that's absolutely fine.

I mean, when did Saudi Arabia or Iran produce a song like "Dancing Queen?"

"Mamma Mia" is frivolous, but I am glad we live in a culture which allows frivolity. And I don't say this in a jingoistic sense, but the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

I was thinking about this the other day: what would John Lennon say about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? What would he say about terrorism from repressive Arab states?

All things considered then, what would Lennon think about "Mamma Mia?" I think he'd like it.

Also, Miss Streep's comment, "The past is just a miasma," is profound. Her past is a miasma, and everyone else's too.

It reminds me of James Joyce, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." In the meantime, why not put on some ABBA.

comment #10

brendan says ...

I thought that "oh my god" was illegal Jeff.....

comment #11

Bocephus says ...

"it actually brought back memories of 'sgt. pepper's loney hearts club band', 'popeye' and 'paint your wagon'......"

If it's half as good as The Apple, I'm there.

comment #12

nemo says ...

Hey, despite (or perhaps because of?) all their forehead-slapping moments, Popeye and Paint Your Wagon are actually good movies! (Unlike Sgt Pepper. But Xanadu is pretty entertaining.)

Who can't love Lee Marvin grumbling and growling his way through I Was Born Under a Wanderin' Star?

And oh my god ! (If I may use that highly appropriate phrase.) Clint Eastwood warbling I Talk to the Trees, But They Don't Answer Me. That's the hardest I've ever laughed when I wasn't drunk, high, or 8 years old. We had to rewind that scene over and over again.

I haven't laughed that hard since I watched a young Jack Nicholson try to play a Napoleonic soldier opposite Boris Karloff in Roger Corman's The Terror. "I command you to open this door in the name of France!" We had to rewind that scene over and over again while laughing our asses off.

When Clint or Jack receive a lifetime achievement Oscar, they should make sure to include those scenes in the film of memorable career highlights.

comment #13

diesel says ...

miasma?

comment #14

scooterzz says ...

bocephus -- 'the apple' resides in a class and a world all it's own......

comment #15

televisiontears says ...

Arizona, I'd hurry up and apply for the copyrights to "WWJLD" (What Would John Lennon Do?) bracelets and t-shirts. Next in the line could be "Lennon Is My Copilot" bumper stickers and "My Reward is in a Yellow Submarine" coffee mugs.

comment #16

Edward says ...

I have to concur with Nemo; Popeye is sorely underrated.

comment #17

Walter says ...

Thank you, Jody. Couldn't have said it better myself. It's good that Meryl has a balance this year: fun, frothy ABBA musical vs. serious, melancholy Catholic school drama.

comment #18

nemo says ...

"WWJLD" (What Would John Lennon Do?)

"Lennon Is My Copilot"

Sounds brilliant! A neighbor of mine already has a bumper sticker reading "I Follow a Jewish Harmonica Player" with a picture of the young Bob Dylan.

comment #19

Arizona Joe says ...

FYI: I was a big Beatles fan, but I was too young to see them. And I never purchased a John Lennon solo album.

I was just thinking how the tenor of US politics would be different if Lennon was around. I was wondering if we would see more activism, or more protests in the streets about U.S. policy.

I also wondered how JFK, Jr's presence would have affected the presidential race.

And if you really wanted to make money, you would not apply for the copyrights to such words, you'd apply for the rights to the trade name and trademarks. And then you'd get sued by Lennon's estate, dumbass.

And why am I defending myself against a know-nothing, apathetic shnook like you.

comment #20

Michael Cavayero says ...

I still think Streep's choice to do this film is like an art-piece itself. she even talks about it as something natural and intuitive. this is the way most contemporary painters will describe their work and what they choose. im a painter and I would say it like this. The idea of "putting things back into culture" Turning culture on its head.

Doesn’t Meryl Streep's casting in this film, rather her choice to do this film, make the movie itself, almost like a Ready-made art object? A piece?

Meryl Streep choosing (and I emphasize the word 'choosing') to do this movie, to me, makes the film important to see. Streep more than ever, after her consistent recent career, built on top of a career already defined by three decades of grown credibility and prestigious, and unique choices, makes her a living Canon – untouched as a figure both in cinema and in culture.

There are many 'living Canons' in Hollywood, a Canon meaning an individual with a truly unique career, not just professionally but ichnographically as well, someone who becomes a cultural object, good or bad. I think Tom Cruise is one of them--someone tell me who else represents all of the male ambiguity plus the paradox of Macho-mania and misogyny but still-attractiveness and main-stream accessibility that he represents. Even in his self-alienation and with all of the scientology that has turned him even further into an enigma, he still holds one of the most iconic cultural positions in the U.S. He doesn’t even own himself yet still does in a way. So my point is, a few weeks ago when he launched a website devoted to HIMSELF and the last 25 years of his career, I equated that to Meryl Streep signing on to do Mamma Mia the movie. Both as critical gestures, and ones made by individuals (Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep respectively) who wanted to turn their career decisions into a
rt pieces. And they did, and those two events, not the first time or way people have done this by any means, only worked and became art pieces simply because these two are who they are, and therefore are the only ones who could do these two things and have them mean what they mean. Who else like Cruise could have created a website devoted to himself, sure in conjunction with the anniversary of the film that made him famous, and have it seen and feel as harmless yet as intriguing as Cruises?
For Meryl, I think the famous Annie Lebowitz photograph of her pulling her face with that white Marcel Marcel mask that was on the cover of Rolling Stone some years ago says it all, "I am all of these things, I am what I am, I am Meryl Streep, a void, a clown but also a vessel who can take any form and who re-establishes the hierarchy of art with all that I choose to do.'

For Cruise I think making himself a website says, 'I am a cultural icon, owned by culture, but still with a heartbeat, I am a living man but also am myself a mask for the public. I embody desire but also all of the fears of men, and women, and all of these fears and triumphs are instilled in the roles that I choose, and how I with my loaded meanings, react and look in those roles. I and my ambiguous sexual representation and how that has been stretched and flipped across the course of my career, and has take form and shape in all of the different and often contradictory roles that I play. I am myself a play.

And the variety and confusion exists through: the ultimate heterosexual roles, (Risky Business, Cocktail, Top Gun, Days of Thunder, etc. the more curious possibly closeted characters, Jerry Maguire, Interview with a Vampire, Magnolia. etc. and the blatant action stars who again could border on harboring impotence, Mission Impossible’s Ethan Hunt, in Mi:I 2 and 3."

So, Tom Cruise, by acknowledging himself, makes a statement about his own lack of ownership on his own life. His self-created self-referential mirror of a mirror website turns the system of access on its head, it happens in a non-way, in an a-aggressive way, an a-political way, like art. It becomes so loaded and multidimensional as a gesture, that without looking at how the site operates, what it looks like, how it is designed etc. The fact that it was made becomes the importance of it.

The same goes for Mama Mia! I don’t think its about what it feels like, how it looks, those are all embedded into its world, and the “oh…my..god” yes stupid is part of its inherent language, and like a painting, one can do nothing but seek to understand the ‘it’ inside of it. If the film is true to the show, it is going to feel the exact same way, as vapid, as light, as 'FUN!’ Somewhat pointless and shallow. But I don’t think that’s the point. If it was then Jasper Johns flag would feel American and Patriotic and its not. Then you would pee in Duchamps Fountain. Then you would look at John Water’s Female Troubles and say, this looks cheep! I say, ‘Duhhh!’ The point is the art of it comes from another source. Look beyond the literalness. The art of it, the importance comes in the casting, the other choices.

comment #21

Michael Cavayero says ...

"I just want to do things that are valuable to introduce into the culture,. This film [Mamma Mia!] is a valuable thing. I knew it when I saw it."

She is talking like a painter. I swear.

comment #22

televisiontears says ...

I doubt you'll read this, Arizona, but I wasn't intending to take a shot at you. Thought it was all in good fun.

There's no need for defensive anger - it's a holiday weekend. Cheers!

comment #23

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