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MAMA MIA! poised to sicken more viewers, this time as a sing-along

August 21st, 2008 by Scott Marks

Mama Mia! grossed $320 million worldwide?!?! Quick, Watson, the needle!

The only reason this miserable excuse for a musical made a dime is because it opened opposite The Dark Knight and accommodated its record spillover. Due to what Universal Pictures referred to as an “overwhelming response,” the studio is releasing a sing-along edition on August 29th. Perhaps the studio was looking for a way to drown out poor Pierce Brosnan’s abysmal vocals.

The film, based on the annoyingly upbeat pop music of ABBA, was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and choreographed by her brother Mongo.

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Filed Under Rants

Review: MAMA MIA! / Phyllida Lloyd (2008)

July 17th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Cinema or an aerobics class at Curves?

Mama Mia! (2008)
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Written by Catherine Johnson
Starring : Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth & Stellan Skarsgård
Running Time 108 min.
Aspect Ratio:

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Normally I am a firm believer that cinema should show no gender. Whether PR types, eager to brand their product, push them as chick flicks or dick flicks, there is no reason a woman can’t be blown away by Deliverance or a man Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

And then there’s Mama Mia! Oy vey is there Mama Mia!.

Like being breast-fed impalpable cheer for two hours, Mama Mia! is little more than a colorful travelogue with a bunch of sweeping shots of old broads doing calisthenics in the name of creative dance.

Amanda Seyfried is getting married and wants her father to give her away. The trouble is, the 20-year old is unsure which one of her mama’s past suitors spawned her so she invites the three likeliest sperm donors to her wedding in Greece.

From long before Three Loan Wolves right up to last year’s Definitely, Maybe (a much better film than Mia!), the “which one” premise has been played to death and if the only new wrinkle is the addition of ABBA tunes, blow out the pilot light!

I never thought I’d see the day when the words “You know, Shirley Valentine was better” would come out of my mouth.

While not a singer by any stretch of the imagination, at least Streep has the hubris to put across a song. The same is not true of Pierce Brosnan who managed to bring a momentary curl in my otherwise down-turned grin. Sadly, it was at his expense. Poor guy can’t carry a note in a proverbial bucket and there are a few heartfelt close-ups of him trying his best to sell a tune that will leave you howling.

Pierce Brosnan was allegedly so excited about sharing a screen with Meryl Streep and Julie Walters that he failed to ask producers how much money he would be paid.

This marks British theater and opera director Phyllida Lloyd’s first stab at movie-making. If she ever dispatched one of her operas with the same glib abandon she does cinema, elitists would call for her decapitation. As is, her camera cuts off more than its fair share of feet during the dance numbers.

Ms. Lloyd has no conception of how to make a movie musical. Numbers are adjoined two, sometimes three at a time. She positions the camera in as many different places as possible and for no apparent reason other than to stir up fresh cliches designed to showcase her paper-thin characters.

And talk about unbearable, am I the only one that wants to grab Julie Walters by the ankles and fling her through a plate glass window? Walters’ hyper performance as one of Streep’s childhood pals is the worst bit of acting I’ve seen this year. Her broad mugging and cloying asides seem to drag on for reels without once even bordering on wit or sophistication. She is now what she has always been - a two bit knock off of the equally insufferable Tracey Ullman.

Judging by the two block long line that packed the big Gaslamp Theatre for Tuesday night’s screening, audiences are going to swallow this whole. At least those in attendance weren’t out any cash. The winner takes it all and the losers are those who stand in line and pay top dollar to see this garbage.

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical

RENT / Chris Columbus (2005)

November 20th, 2005 by Scott Marks

Chris Columbus’ RENT (2005)

Rent (2005)

Directed by: Chris Columbus

Written by: Stephen Chbosky, Jonathan Larson

Cast: Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Idina Menzel, Tracie Thoms, Taye Diggs, Julia Roth, Porscha Radcliffe, Stephen Payne, Darryl Chan, Ken Clark, R.C. Ormond, David Fine

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Running Time: 135 min.

Genres: Drama, Musical, Romance

Chris Columbus continues to leave no fingerprints in this big, loud, colorful version of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway show.

As was the case of A Chorus Line, successfully adapting stage to the screen, particularly a musical with so much built-in over-theatrical theatricality, appears more difficult than translating cuneiform.

We follow a band of scruffy Bohemians living in a gutted tenement. Collectively they can’t raise one month’s rent, let alone five, yet they still have plenty of booze to drink, pot and cartons of Marlboro’s to smoke, and only the flashiest of trend-setting rags to wear.

Mark (Anthony Rapp), a nerdy, heterosexual ‘documentarian’ who makes Andy Dick look like Sid Luft, acts as our narrator. On a purely technical note, Mark’s 16mm spring-wound Bolex camera (that he never reloads and never puts down) holds maybe five to seven minutes of film. His Kodak bills would cost more than a Manhattan penthouse.

Mark still loves his ex Maureen (Idina Menzel), who jumped ship for Joanne (Tracie Thoms), a public interest lawyer. HIV+ Roger (Adam Pascal) rooms with Mark and loves Mimi (Rosario Dawson), a HIV+ stripper at a Gentlemen’s Club where the dancers wear more than the customers.

Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), Mark and Roger’s former roommate, is a computer genius involved with Angel (Wilson Jermaine) a HIV+ transsexual street performer. Former group member Benny (Taye Diggs) is the “Buppie” who rose above it all and now holds the lease.

With all the broad, Liza-like theatrics, forced cheer, and eagerness to elongate every note, it plays like a special, AIDS-themed edition of American Idol written by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

The simplistic “moon/June/spoon” lyrics comprise almost 75% of the film’s dialogue. Rare exceptions (Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, Milos Forman’s Hair, Ken Russell’s delirious Tommy and would I dare overlook The Three Stooges in Women Haters) come to mind, but this trademarked A. L. W. talk/sing approach to musicals leaves me cold. You should also note that out of the five films cited above, only one was based on a play, and while Tommy was drawn from a rock-opera it remains one of the great (and few) movie musicals of the past thirty years.

Although based on Puccini’s La Boehme. Rent has as much to do with legitimate opera as The Marx. Bros. Attempts to ‘open-up’ the play (Mark singing and peddling his heart out down the streets of New York) might have been pulled-off in more skilled hands, but a director with a vision would never tackle such a pre-ordained, tamper-proof project..

On a positive visual note, the film is photographed by the superb Stephen Goldblatt (who knew Batman and Robin would make a perfect warm-up?), and Howard Cummings’ production design invites the eye to comb the screen while bored with the music. Maureen and Joanne’s engagement party (reminiscent of Hair’s title number) was the film’s only saving moment.

The story takes place over the course of a now famous “five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred minutes.” Can I get a one-hundred-thirty-five-minute refund?

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical