Mamma Mia question
Mamma Mia question
#1Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:03pmIt seems like many of you dislike Mamma Mia the musical but can't wait to see the film. Why is that, since they are very similar?
#2re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:04pm
One name....
MERYL STREEP
"I don't see that many plays, and for me, musicals are rarely pleasing. I feel the actors are being put through a kind of nightmarish labor. They're like animals being forced to pull heavy carts of vegetables at incredible speeds." --- Wallace Shawn
#2re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:07pmWhat about Carolee Carmello - she's pretty awesome
xoangel2789xo
Broadway Star Joined: 11/3/07
#3re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:10pm
Meryl Streep is definitely part of the answer...I'm also curious to see Amanda Seyfried.
I mean...I didn't hate Mamma Mia when I saw it. The performances were fine and everything. I guess I just had an issue with the book.
#4re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:17pmThe film follows the musical fairly closely though.
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#5re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:27pm
The film is a carbon-copy of the stage-version but... in the words of director Phyllida Lloyd -- the film-version is the DELUXE version of MAMMA MIA!
Though it was brought to the stage first, it was MADE to be a movie musical. This comes from the lips of the creative team themselves.
#6re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 6:31pm
It's a two-part hypocrisy. When it comes to the stage, I'd like to see more work going into a finished product than just gathering up some recording artist's back catalogue and throwing it at a stage with a flimsy plot and some sparkly costumes attached. So when it comes to stage, I support new musicals. And I put my money where my mouth is; I want new musicals, so I buy a ticket to whatever new musicals I can, even if it's something like *spits* 'Gone With The Wind'.
However, while musicals make up a big part of what happens on the Broadway and West End stage, they're a pretty minor part of cinema overall. If you don't support a jukebox musical onstage and no more jukebox musicals get made, not many people will be saddened by that. But the world outside us theatre nerds doesn't differentiate between jukebox musical and original musical. All they see is Musical. So I figure I should support ALL movie musicals so they'll make more. And this means putting aside my prejudice against jukebox musicals; in the world outside, it's us musical fans against the rest of the world and we can't afford to be picky and divide ourselves according to the source material of the musical. Not if we want the studios to go "well, 'Mamma Mia!' made a shedload of money, let's do another musical!".
Also: Meryl freakin' Streep. In some ways, she's a little like the Patti LuPone of the silver screen. XD
#7re: Mamma Mia question
Posted: 7/6/08 at 7:24pm
Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, beautiful Greek locations, gorgeous cinematography, and ABBA.
All the Broadway show has is...ABBA. And for me to thoroughly enjoy a Broadway production, it certainly needs a lot more than that. Maybe it is completely hypocritical and snobby, but oh well, I can live with that.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
