Movie Review Mamma Here We Go Again

Mamma Mia Here We Go Again (2018) 

Directed by Ol Parker

Written by Ol Parker 

Starring Amanda Seyfried, Cher, Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walter, Dominic Cooper

Release Date July 20th, 2018

Published July 19th, 2018

Low expectations and an upgrade in the director’s chair have combined to make a Mamma Mia sequel so unexpectedly good that I am still humming about it. Mamma Mia Here We Go Again has no right to be as fun and entertaining as it is, based off of the horror show that was the sloppy, 2008 original, and yet here we are. Director Ol Parker has brought order to the chaos of the original Mamma Mia and delivered a prequel/sequel far superior to the dismal original.

Mamma Mia Here We Go Again picks up the story of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) five years after the action of the original story. Now 25, Sophie is running her mom’s, Donna (Meryl Streep), hotel and is about to hold a gala grand opening. Unfortunately, mom won’t be there. Nor will two of her three adopted fathers, Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) and Harry (Colin Firth). Luckily, Sam (Pierce Brosnan) is at hand, along with Auntie Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Auntie Rosie (Julie Walter).

Worse yet though, Sky (Dominic Cooper), despite being Sophie’s one true love and business partner, will not be there either and is considering a job offer in New York. This leads Sophie to once again pick up her mom’s diary for some bolstering. The diary is the lead-in for a flashback to that glorious Greek summer when Donna met Harry, Bill and Sam, and became pregnant with Sophie. Best of all, it brings us the vibrant Lily James as the young Donna.

Do you recall that time you first saw Julia Roberts’ megawatt smile in Pretty Woman? If you’re my age you likely do and you remember the electricity of seeing a movie star emerge before your eyes. That’s Lily James in Mamma Mia Here We Go Again, a star bursting to life before our eyes. Sure, she was great in Cinderella and has honed her craft in other films, but here, she bursts forth with charisma to spare in a one of a kind performance.

James is so great she overwhelms all three of her male co-stars, none of whom make a dent in your memory despite being young and handsome. I could list their names but I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup even after having just seen the movie. James’ vibrancy is such that her co-stars don’t really matter, they are but mirrors through which to bask in Collins’ star-making performance. Can she sing? Yeah, well enough, but like Streep in the first film, she can sell the singing with passion and performance and that’s what matters.

I kept getting annoyed with the present day Sophie storyline for getting in the way of the flashbacks which were far more compelling. Slowly but surely however, the main story begins to turn an emotional corner. The flashback story begins to underline the action of the modern story in lovely ways and what emerges is a story for mothers and daughters and one that isn’t about the absurd and nasty notion of turning into one’s mother. One would count themselves lucky to become Donna.

As for the music of Mamma Mia Here We Go Again, my favorite performance is Waterloo, though it is arguably the most superfluous in terms of the plot. Indeed, I can recognize that praising the one performance that violates the order and structure that I have praised as a remarkable improvement over the original, is slightly contradictory. That said, Lily James and Young Harry (Hugh Skinner) really steal the show in this performance.

Director Ol Parker sets the scene in Paris where Harry and Donna met in 1979, the same summer she left for Greece. Though Donna is leaving, Harry nevertheless, throws himself at her feet and tells her he loves her and then they sing Waterloo at a French restaurant where waiters are dressed as Napoleon (Ho, Ho!). It sounds cheesy and it is, intentionally so. Director Parker directs the performance like an old school, early 80’s music video, a-la Adam Ant’s Goody Two Shoes, with wacky set pieces and even slightly grainy cinematography to really sell the bit.

Waterloo is wildly funny and a wonderfully shorthand way to bring Donna and Harry together before taking them apart. The other standout is My Love, My Life, which will leave many audience members, especially moms and daughters, a weepy mess. The trailer has spoiled that Sophie is pregnant and the correlation between her pregnancy and her mother’s pregnancy, is brought to bear on this wonderful performance with James and Seyfried singing in different time frames with the same meaning.

Ol Parker had an uphill battle to bring the unwieldy mess that was the Mamma Mia backstory into some semblance of order and he’s done an exceptional job. Sure, he takes the easy way out by mostly ignoring the problematic elements of the original backstory, but what he cobbles together works and the orderly plot helps strengthen our bond with these characters, something that was missing in the first film while we puzzled over how all of the pieces fit.

Thanks to director Parker, we can forget about the nonsense of figuring out when the film is set. It's 1979 when Donna meets Sophie’s dad, by the way, and the movie simply gets on with enjoying some Abba. The disco backlash of the early 80’s robbed us of the joy of Abba’s pop silliness and soapy dramatics and I’m glad to have it back, even if it isn’t the most respectable comeback. Abba was a heck of a lot of fun if you give over to them and we’re able to do that here with far less work involved than in the original.

By the time we reach the credits climax with Super Troupers, a reprise from the original movie, featuring the full cast in full Abba regalia, the movie has won us over with its bubbly spirit and Lily James star-calibur, Awards calibur performance. James is a powerhouse movie star. I won’t go as far as to say she deserves an Academy Award, though I am not opposed to the idea, but wow, we don’t need to see anyone else when it comes Golden Globe time, this is your Best Actress in a Comedy or a Musical, hands down.

I went into Mamma Mia Here We Go Again with a sour attitude, assuming it was going to be as insufferable as the original. What a joyous surprise to find that the sequel makes logical sense, fixes the holes punched in the space time continuum in the original, and crafts a heartfelt and quite funny story out of a bunch of goofy, funny, melodramatic tunes from one of the most underrated groups of all time. This is what Mamma Mia should have been all along, a brassy, blowsy, ballsy, belting it to the back of the room Broadway comedy in execution as much as in idea.

Movie Review: Welcome to Mooseport

Welcome to Mooseport (2004) 

Directed by Donald Petrie 

Written by Tom Schulman 

Starring Gene Hackman, Ray Romano, Marcia Gay Harden, Christine Baranski, Maura Tierney 

Release Date February 20th, 2004

Published February 19th, 2004 

The transition from TV to the big screen is never without its growing pains. Jennifer Aniston endured films like The Object of My Affection before finding success in The Good Girl. Helen Hunt endured Twister before her Oscar nominated role in As Good As It Gets. For comedian Ray Romano, his growing to big screen stardom begins by enduring the comedic misfire Welcome To Mooseport. On the bright side, at least he got to work with Gene Hackman.

In Mooseport, Romano plays a small-town handy man named Handy. Handy owns a hardware store where a group of local oddballs hang out. His girlfriend is a veterinarian named Sally (Maura Tierney), who he's romanced for six years without mentioning marriage. Handy has also just landed a very lucrative gig fixing the bathroom of the summer home of the now former President of the United States.

Gene Hackman is Monroe Eagle Cole, the most popular former President in history, having left office with an 80 percent approval rating. This is despite the fact that he was the first President to divorce while in office. The former first lady, played by Christine Baranski, took everything but his former title and his summer home in Mooseport.

At a party celebrating the President's arrival a group of town elders asks the President if he would like to run for mayor. The current mayor has passed on and there is apparently no one else running. The President was going to say no until he meets Sally who suggests it would be a good idea. In an attempt to impress her the President takes the gig. Unfortunately, there is one other person who has decided to run. Handy.

This sets up what should be an interesting comic idea. A small town guy running for mayor against the former leader of the free world is a rich comic idea. Throw in the President’s two aides Grace (Marcia Gay Harden) and Bullard (Fred Savage) and it gains even more potential. However, director Donald Petrie (How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, Miss Congeniality) is more interested in the romantic triangle between Romano, Tierney and Hackman and misses the endless opportunity for political satire.

Ray Romano is attempting to break loose from his TV persona and forge a career on the big screen. This role sadly will not help his case. Romano is stiff and often lifeless opposite a pro like Hackman who blows him off the screen. Hackman shows once again how great and underappreciated he is as a comic actor. He was the best part of the con-woman comedy Heartbreakers and he is by far the best thing in Welcome To Mooseport. Of the actors who have played the President of the United States onscreen, Hackman may be the most credible. Hackman has the persona, the gravitas that makes it very easy to believe he's the President. Not that it really matters in a film as dull and lifeless as this one.

Director Donald Petrie is another of those directors that delivers mediocre test screened comedies that studios love because they are inoffensive and more often than not cheap to produce. Welcome To Mooseport reeks of a film that was greenlit with the hope that it might be good but if it isn't, the studio can toss it on to the February schedule and watch it die a slow death before selling it on DVD and TV to cover the expenses. I hope they got their money's worth because that is apparently all that matters.

Movie Review Marcy X

Marci X (2003) 

Directed by Richard Benjamin 

Written by Paul Rudnick 

Starring Lisa Kudrow, Damon Wayans, Christine Baranski, Richard Benjamin

Release Date August 22nd, 2003 

Published August 21st, 2003 

An Open Letter to Hollywood

After sitting through the Gigli's, the Kangaroo Jack's and the Lara Croft Tomb Raider's it's clear you don't care about the American filmgoer. You have made it clear that you have no respect for our intelligence, no respect for our taste, no respect period. I understand that but I still must ask one favor, if you listen to us, the American filmgoer just one time please listen to this plea. Never allow director Richard Benjamin to make another film as long as he lives. His latest effort Marci X is clearly the worst that you in Hollywood could possibly ever make, and if it's not God help us all.

Normally this is the part of the review where I give a synopsis of the plot but unfortunately, I couldn't find one. Somewhere buried beneath a series of witless skits and musical interludes is something about a rapper played by Damon Wayans and a rap record that has drawn the ire of a conservative congresswoman played by Christine Baranski. Lisa Kudrow plays the daughter of the owner of the record company who is forced to take over the company when her father has a heart attack.

That is the setup but the execution, oh if only I were using execution literally, is a horrendous satire of rappers and rap culture that is inane, offensive and tremendously unfunny. References to rappers such as Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Eminem are tossed in alongside characters that stand in for people such as Puff Daddy, Jennifer Lopez and Suge Knight. God help Richard Benjamin if Suge Knight sees this film, although that might not be a bad thing. Can you sue someone for just referring to you because the rappers whose names and images are dragged through this film deserve restitution.

It comes as no surprise that Marci X has the stink of two years on a studio shelf, only Satan himself could be responsible for this film ever making it to theaters. The film's jokes certainly show the film's age, despite an overdubbed reference to Martha Stewart's legal troubles, one scene is a sendup of Puffy and J.Lo's nightclub incident. Of course the whole thing is a horribly misconceived take on Ice T's Cop Killer crossed with the Two Live Crew censorship case both of which happened over ten years ago.

Not that a more up to date script could help this mess. Benjamin's direction is so amazingly witless that he manages to not merely embarrass Kudrow, Wayans and Baranski, but humiliate them. The stars were complicit in their humiliation but it's hard to believe three such talented performers could have ever imagined that what they were making was this bad. Proof of that is that Kudrow and Wayans actually manage to spark some chemistry when they are short-circuited by the film falling apart around them.

Roger Ebert has a line that I have cribbed a number of times to describe just how bad a film is. Ebert said of a film called Mad Dog Time that it did not improve upon the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Marci X is actually an insult to the very screen it's projected on. I beg Hollywood, please do not allow Richard Benjamin to inflict any further damage on the film-going public. Not many will see Marci X but for the brave fools who do, you owe it to them to make sure Mr. Benjamin never makes another film.