Revisiting: Mamma Mia! (DVD)

I figured it was aboot time I reviewed a musical on here. And I say aboot in honor of the Olympics, which ended last night, and consumed much of my last two weeks' time. I'm sad they're done because I'm so obsessed with anything Olympical and I feel like something momentous is happening while they occur, and then a sense of emptiness when they're gone. Another year and half until the next ones. And maybe I'll be attending them? We'll see.

TANGENT OVER. I don't know why I went there, but I did, and now I'm going to revisit "Mamma Mia!" one of the products of the recent movie musical resurgence. Thanks "Moulin Rouge!" I do own this movie on DVD, thanks to my brother getting it for me this past Christmas. I've collected all major movie musicals on DVD since "Moulin Rouge!" because I do love them all, even the bad ones in their own way.  So it was only natural I got "Mamma Mia!" for my movie musical collection.

I'm kind of embarrassed to say I saw this movie twice in theaters. Yep. The first time I thought it was AWFUL. It was a campy piece of dreck. I thought it started out with potential, and then during the song "Money Money Money" when Meryl Streep rises from her seat at the table into the path of a wind machine and fantasizes herself singing the rest of the song in slow motion on a boat, it lost me. 4 realz. I was like, OK, this movie just jumped the shark ten minutes in and my attitude for the rest of the film was spoiled.

Then I saw it again, knowing how campy and bad it was, and accepted it, and let go of the bad, and then, from somewhere deep inside my soul, a gay little sparkle of enjoyment sparkled its sparkly dance and I started to have fun. Watching Meryl Streep let completely loose is such a thrill to watch, and even though some of the singing (and not so much the actual singing as the lipsynching to the bad singing) of Pierce Brosnan is horrendous, I can get through the entire movie and have fun. I've subsequently seen the film two more times after I watched it in theaters, and it grows on me more and more.

By no means is it perfect. The first time film director, Phyllida Lloyd, who also directed the stage incarnation, tries her best to direct a movie, but she is obviously a first timer, and fails to do a lot of things good directors should do. Just certain shots bothered me and seemed amateur-ish and there is way too much slow motion, which actually made me guffaw a couple of times because when the slow motion is used to make something dramatic it actually makes the actors look a little...slow. And not in the speedy sense of the word.

So it's a movie to watch, to not take seriously, and thus to enjoy. Plus the music of ABBA is so darn infectious and catchy you'll be your own "Dancing Queen" for the rest of the day.

Patrick Approval Rating: 6/10

"Mamma Mia!" @ imdb

Review: The Blind Side (Theatrical)

This movie is nominated for Best Picture?... Really?...Really.

When I first saw the trailer for this film attached to some movie I saw last summer, or fall, or whenever - regardless, I scoffed. I thought "What a sentimental piece of dreck!" And I continuously scoffed at it until it opened and it turned out to be a huge hit. And even as it played in theaters, I scoffed at it and vowed I would never see this movie because it looked cheesy and stupid. And after it started picking up steam and awards talk happened, I thought...really? This movie? And I scoffed some more. Then as it was shockingly nominated for Best Picture, I reluctantly thought "Well now I guess I have to see it. Maybe on DVD." And here we are, roughly three months since it's original release and I ventured to the theater to see the movie. THE MOVIE THEATER?! HOW IS IT STILL PLAYING!? THIS MOVIE?! SERIOUSLY?! HANABHBBJAHjnqskjnauyBIN.

Turns out, it was everything I dreamed it would be. Super sentimental, cheesy, eye rolling worthy - and yet I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed it in a way I thought maybe sometime, five years down the road I could rent a movie like this and curl up on my sofa and watch it at home and I may enjoy it. I don't understand why the audience we saw this with LOVED IT! I'm pretty sure the woman behind me was crying at the end, and the black couple in front of me were riotous throughout. The movie was entirely predictable with a story that seemed to go nowhere until a forced conflict appeared in the last 15 minutes of the movie that gets resolved as quickly as it comes on.

Sandra Bullock was nothing special. I hate saying that because I like her a lot, but to think she's the front runner to win Best Actress for a film released in the year of 2009 above all other actresses in all other movies for THIS MOVIE?!  WHY! Don't get me wrong, she was hugely entertaining in "The Proposal" and I loved her in it, so what if in this movie she's kind of serious for maybe a combined four minutes total when she tears up a little bit on screen. Hand the lady an award, please. Meanwhile Meryl Streep is tackling some very big (no pun intended) shoes with Julia Child and Gabby Sidibe is dealing with issues no person should ever deal with as Clarice Precious Jones, so I'm sorry Sandra Bullock, you don't deserve to win for this movie. Not this year. Comic actors have done the drama route before and it's been marvelous for some (Jim Carrey in "Eternal Sunshine" for instance) but "The Blind Side" does not do you justice.

And I haven't even began to discuss the craptastic message of the film. I assume it was meant to be one of hope and inspiration, a twisted Cinderella tale- boy ripped from the streets and becomes successful NFL player. But to me it played as "poor black boy saved from the dirges of his social position thanks to a nice white Christian lady, because poor black boys can only be saved by white ladies and their families, and especially if those families are Christians, because only Christians do good things." I didn't realize there would be religious undertones or overtones, let alone as prevalent as they were featured. Did a mega-church help fund this movie or something? The cross Sandra Bullock wore around her neck seemed to gleam every time her character did a good deed. And I'm not dissing religious people, or Christians, because to each their own, and it's cool and all, but when a movie appears to be about a woman who only does good in her life because she's Christian and that's what they do, rather than doing good because that need comes from deep within her, well I kinda get irked. It's not to say the woman Bullock is portraying wasn't a good person deep down and that's where the need came from to help poor Michael, but the Christian philosophy was continually shoved in the audience's faces and I didn't think it was a good enough justification of character.

I compare this movie to "Precious," a movie I adored, which is roughly about the same thing (poor black teenager overcomes their home roots to triumph) but whereas Precious found her inner strength from a place deep inside her, Michael finds his inner strength...well...he never actually seems to find it. He finds a way to smile a little bit more only because these white people have been so kind to him. That's not a well deserved payoff of a character's triumph, it's a movie called "The Blind Side." Woof.


Patrick Approval Rating: 5/10


The Blind Side @ imdb

Revisiting: The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2

Remember how I told y'all about when I need to fall asleep at night I watch comforting movies to help lure to me sleepy-land. Well here's one of my biggest guilty pleasures that I tend to watch on a yearly basis to help me go to sleep at night: "The Princess Diaries."

I very clearly remember seeing this movie way back in 2001. Woof. This movie is nine years old! Anne Hathaway, look at you now! My grandmother took me and my brothers and though I thought the movie looked funny from the trailers, I thought it was HEH-larious in the theaters. Even though it's wicked schlock-y and Gary Marshall directs all his movies like they're a bad sitcom from the 1950s with awkward gags, Anne Hathaway gives the role of Princess Mia Thermopolis her all and makes it work! Some of her stupid pratfalls and ridiculous comments still hold up today. But the rest of the movie kind of falls flat and feels very 2001. Erik Von Detten? What have you done since this came out? Celebrity Mole? I thought so. Mandy Moore, stop being all bratty and stupid and singing a ridiculous uber-pop "Stupid Cupid" on a beach. Nobody cares about you. Nevermind one of the most awkward to look at actresses to star in TV and film, Heather Matarazzo.

Terrifying.

The saving grace of these movies is Dame Julie Andrews. Sidenote: Is she a dame? If not, she should be. She grants us the gift of her presence in both "The Princess Diaries" and "The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement" (the second being released in 2004) and does her best to muddle though the schlock, making the movies watchable and rewatchable. For every awful scene with Mandy Moore (in #1) or Raven (in #2) there is an excellent scene with Julie Andrews and that makes it all better. She makes every movie she's in practically perfect and these are no exceptions.

Of course, the first movie is endlessly better than the second one and I almost wish the second one hadn't been made. The jokes are better in the first, the plot is wayy lame in the 2nd, and even though #2 features Chris Pine as a future Captain Kirk and a young thumb sucking Abigail Breslin (in one of the lamest parts of the movie as Princess Mia takes the stupid children from the orphanage and makes them walk in a parade with her) - the cast can't seem to get past the even worse jokes and gags and ridiculous plot devices and stupid characters that penetrate the humor of the movie.

So give me a good old "Princess Diaries" any day. I don't care. It cheers me up. It makes me happy. We're all entitled to those guilty pleasures. And so be it if I love Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. I'm just glad they never made a third one.

Patrick Approval Rating:

The Princess Diaries: 7/10

The Princess Diaries 2- A Royal Engagement: 4/10

The Princess Diaries @ imdb

The Princess Diaries 2- A Royal Engagement @ imdb