My, My, Here We Go Their Misfortune It’S Not Just Musical And, Once the Hangover Wears Off, the Wind
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A R O U N D T O W N 發光的城市 17 TAIPEI TIMES • FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008 MAMMA MIA! DIRECTED BY: PHYLLIDA LLOYD STARRING: MERYL STREEP (DONNA), PIERCE BROSNAN (SAM), COLIN FIRTH (HARRY), STELLAN SKARSGARD (BILL), JULIE WALTERS (ROSIE), DOMINIC COOPER (SKY), AMANDA SEYFRIED (SOPHIE) AND CHRISTINE BARANSKI (TANYA) RUNNING TIME: 108 MINUTES TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY ven those of us who habitually favor serious, austere, aesthetically correct E drinks — single-malt Scotch, green tea, pomegranate juice, whatever — may occasionally indulge in a frivolous cocktail bedecked with fruit and umbrellas and served in a bulbous, sugar-rimmed glass. The next morning’s headache seems a small price to pay for the rush of cheap liquor and uninhibited conviviality. As long as you don’t OTHER RELEASES operate heavy machinery or wake up in the COMPILED BY MARTIN WILLIAMS wrong bed, or operate heavy machinery in the wrong bed, what’s the harm? PHOTOS: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE The Strangers All of which is to say: Don’t be afraid of A couple trying to find Mamma Mia! (That exclamation point, by common ground in their the way, is part of the title, and it’s by far the relationship hear strange, most understated thing about the movie.) intimidating noises while You can have a perfectly nice time watching at home one night, and to this spirited adaptation of the popular stage My, my, here we go their misfortune it’s not just musical and, once the hangover wears off, the wind. A home invasion acknowledge just how bad it is. follows and the terror Actually you don’t have much choice on begins. With the bar usually set quite high for horror films either front. If you insist on folding your by most critics, this one managed to make a pile of cash and arms, looking at your watch and defending impress enough reviewers to get debuting director Bryan yourself against this mindless, hedonistic Bertino’s name out there. Expect more movies from him; assault on coherence, you are unlikely to in the meantime, gasp as Liv Tyler and her would-be hubby survive until the end credits (which may, look masked death straight in the eye. If you’ve seen Funny by themselves, kill you all over again). Games (the US remake opens here in two weeks) you’ll sense Surrender, on the other hand, is easy and again what’s in store. painless. It’s Greece! It’s bellybuttons! It’s Meryl Streep! It’s Abba! whether her dad is Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill stoppingly sexy sequence in a film that more See that girl! Watch that scene! If you (Stellan Skarsgard) or Harry (Colin Firth). But A-list actors cast their often flails between forced cheekiness and The Coffin change your mind, I’m the first in line. Mamma even though she knows them only as names dignity aside for ‘Mamma unearned sentiment. Here’s a custom that some Mia, here I go again. Like me, you may have in an old diary, she manages to track them I know: I promised you a good time, and Thais apparently swear by: spent the last 30 years struggling to get lines down and invite all three to her wedding. Lo Mia!,’ a film that’s so bad I’m describing a train wreck. But it’s hard Lying in a coffin for a night like those out of your head — and wondering and behold, they all show up, as do Tanya it’s good not to share the evident delight of most of brings good fortune and good what they were doing there in the first place (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters), the performers. Streep overdoes it, yes, but health. Huh? Unfortunately — but you might as well have been trying to old pals of Donna’s from the crazy days of her BY A. O. SCOTT you can’t accuse her of condescending to the for the leads in this flick, the compost Styrofoam. Those shimmery, layered rock ’n’ roll youth. NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK material any more than you can fault her for opposite is true. A Thai man arrangements, those lyrics in a language uncan- Just when, exactly, those crazy days taking it too seriously. and a Hong Kong woman nily like English, those symmetrical Nordic were is a bit vague. A song lyric refers to the The impression left by the old pros who hope to free their respective relationships of the specter voices — they all add up to something alarm- “time of the Flower Power.” But Sophie sure of clumsy cuts, mismatched shots, bad lighting, make up most of the cast is that they have of cancer, but end up unleashing something even more ingly permanent, a marshmallow monument on doesn’t look 40. At one point, Harry recalls egregious overdubbing and scenes in which nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to deadly. Stars Karen Mok (莫文蔚), who must have ignored the cultural landscape. When our species dies the Johnny Rotten T-shirt he had back when characters appear to have been haphazardly prove, and that worrying about dignity is for the bit in Lonely Planet that warns travelers against casket out, leaving Earth to roaches and robots, the he knew Donna, which is 10 years closer to Photoshopped into the scenery. newbies and amateurs. So Brosnan bellows accommodation. insects will beat their little wings to the tune of the mark but still about 10 years off. Never It is safe to say that Streep gives the his way through a couple of duets, Skarsgard Waterloo as WALL-E and Eve warble along. mind. Abba is timeless: “The history book up worst performance of her career — safe to displays his tattooed buttocks, and Firth And the darn thing still won’t make any on my shelf/ is always repeating itself.” say because it is so clearly what she intends, consents to appear in a spiked dog collar. Dive!! sense. Nor does Mamma Mia!, but that’s The real problem is that the director of and she is not an actress capable of failure. Seyfried has a harder time, though not for This film might have been hardly a criticism. The story (by Catherine Mamma Mia!, Phyllida Lloyd, seems have There is a degree of fascination in watch- any lack of effort or talent. She has to work better off opening last Johnson) is more or less an early Shakespeare taken the unapologetic silliness of the project ing an Oscar-winning Yale School of Drama while the old timers are having fun, and to week, given that the Beijing comedy reimagined as an episode of Hannah (which she directed onstage) as permission to graduate mug and squirm, shimmy and shriek carry the picture’s unconvincing, flat-footed Olympics’ diving events are Montana. The ingenue, Sophie (Amanda be sloppy. Abba made some of the most highly and generally fill every moment with antic, attempts at melodrama. But Seyfried, who has almost over. Still, Taiwanese Seyfried), is about to be married on the sun- polished, tightly engineered pop junk ever. purposeless energy, as if she were hogging proven her skill on Big Love and elsewhere, is audiences, girls in particular, drenched Greek island where she lives with her There is a kind of perfection in some of those the spotlight in an eighth-grade musical. likely to emerge from Mamma Mia! unscathed. might enjoy this melodrama mother, Donna (Streep). Sophie is the just-ripe hits that is undeniable even if — or maybe She is saved, and also upstaged, by Really, this movie is incapable of harming featuring three young fruit of a summer fling, with the complicating especially if — you can’t stand to hear them. Walters and, especially, by Baranski, whose anyone, except moviegoers with the good Japanese athletic hopefuls in hip-hugging swimwear hoping factor that Donna had three flings during the But in matters of craft and technique Mamma cougar-on-the-prowl rendition of Does Your taste and bad manners to resist its relentless, to make it big at the Olympics. Variety liked the diving summer in question, and Sophie doesn’t know Mia! proves to be remarkably shoddy, a tangle Mother Know is the one genuinely, show- ridiculous charm. sequences, but warned that the film has a bit of rear nudity, which the poster seems a little coy to admit to, blocking the lower front of the boys’ swimmers with the film’s title. Sin Sangre City cinema weekend box office takings This Taipei Arts Festival (Aug. 16 and Aug. 17) presentation is a Chilean Source: Group Power Entertainment Corp production that combines film with live performance. Murderous rule by the Chilean military is the metaphorical backdrop for this piece, which sees a childhood survivor of a home invasion grow to womanhood bent on revenge. But what will happen when she confronts the remaining tormentor? In a week of mediocre movie releases, this might be the one to see, but you’ll have to rush. There are only three performances at the Zhongshan The Mummy: Tomb of the The Dark Knight Made of Honor WALL-E Meet Dave Hall: tonight, tomorrow night and on Sunday afternoon. See Dragon Emperor (神鬼傳奇3) (黑暗騎士) (新郎不是我) (瓦力) (大衛特大號) www.taipeifestival.org.tw/Index.aspx for details in English. NT$14,252,800 NT$3,346,975 NT$2,084,473 NT$1,634,820 NT$1,626,424 eter Jackson and the other substitutes lovers from rival clans in 1932, has a long-established Michael Clayton, garnered seven named Gia Zavala, was born on P members of the team that of garden gnomes for the dueling reputation for showcasing Oscar nominations each, while Wednesday, the Oscar winner’s wrote the Lord of the Rings film Montagues and Capulets.