The short teaser trailer for Mamma Mia!, this year’s screen adaptation of the hit stage musical based around songs of ABBA, is online, and I gather has been so for some time. For me, it elicits a big ol’ shrug. It’s the story of an 18-year-old (Amanda Seyfried), on the eve of her own nuptials, trying to discern her biological father — one of three former suitors (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard) of her mother (Meryl Streep) — but it’s set in Greece, which unfortunately brings back more memories of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin than The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Look, I enjoyed the ever-loving flip out of Muriel’s Wedding, but this seems like a mushy, pre-chewed packaging of the most worn, threadbare elements of Lost in Translation, Definitely, Maybe and a couple other fairer-sex, multi-generational and/or travelogue romances that I’m forgetting precisely because they’re so forgettable. Maybe the music carries the day. I just know that I can appreciate ABBA, and I’m still not tingling with anticipation.
Daily Archives: January 27, 2008
Aero Hosts Julie Christie Two-Fer
The awards circuit attention being justly heaped on Julie Christie for her performance in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her is the driving force behind a special one-night double feature tribute to the actress on Sunday, February 3 at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Swinging ’60s London model drama Darling kicks things off at 7:30 p.m., followed by 1975’s Shampoo, co-starring Christie, Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant and, in her first big screen role, Carrie Fisher. The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.
Happy Birthday, Rosamund Pike
It’s a happy 29th birthday to ex-Bond babe Rosamund Pike, who continues to score work despite reminding every guy who’s being intellectually honest of the girl who wouldn’t give them the time of day (or evening) in high school.
When it comes to actresses, some eyebrows work better than others, but Pike’s are like a scythe, for Chrissakes, and it sets in stone the tone for every thing else about her countenance. It’s a hard-knock life, however arguably hot, for actresses with this little palpable sympathy and smoothed, “sisterly” edges, or at least the ability to feign such. Pike just doesn’t give off any sort of vibe that makes women identify with her.
So far she’s been well served by most of her choices. Pike’s seemingly natural coolness fit nicely in the legal thriller Fracture, where she played a steely corporate lawyer opposite Ryan Gosling’s slick professional climber, and hey, I even thought she was great in Doom… seriously. But there’s a precariously short shelf life for moon-faced, English-speaking foreign beauties. Audiences tend to regard them as interchangeable. After all, look what happened to Sarah Wynter. Wait a second… who? Precisely.