Films, films, films - standard for tv at this time of year. A very decent showing this evening, where I watched two back-to-back. First was Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Saw the original, never saw this..
I love Abba. The first album I ever bought was actually one of theirs - Super Trouper. Honestly, I think you have to be rather odd not to get caught up in the feel-good atmosphere of the music! So anyway, if you didn't know, the Mamma Mia films are co-produced by the male members of Abba, and are basically stories designed to pack in as many Abba hits as possible. In the original, Amanda Seyfried is about to get married. However, her mother, Meryl Streep, brought her up alone on a Greek island, and Amanda would really like to know who her father is, so he can walk her down the aisle. There's one small problem - Meryl was rather popular at the time, and there are no fewer than three candidates who could be her father: Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgård. By the end of the film, all have been reunited - the prospective fathers agree that they all want to be her father, and share the role. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski are Meryl's old college friends, who also show up.
So here we have the sequel, set five years later (and made 10 years later). Poor Meryl is now dead, and Amanda is organising a grand reopening of her late mother's hotel - all the aforementioned show up. (Interestingly, Amanda's old friends don't.) Also making an appearance - for the first time - is Meryl's mother, Cher! Particularly surprising, as the first film suggests that she's dead already. Just estranged, I guess.
A somewhat different repertoire for the second film, with a couple of songs that make an appearance in both - well, some you just couldn't resist! They get started early, and I was delighted with myself, singing along for the evening and scaring the cat. Like I say, feelgood all the way - even when Amanda has relationship problems, it just gives her an excuse to sing the sadder numbers. A lot of the film is also given over to flashbacks of Meryl's life around the time that Amanda was conceived, and it's interesting to see the casting for the younger versions of the actors - her friends are cast particularly well, and I knew straight away that Hugh Skinner was the younger version of Colin Firth. The others didn't convince quite so well. And Andy Garcia shows up as an old flame of Cher's! (So they can duet on Fernando..)
Awesome choice for a holiday film. Highly recommended as a pick-me-up!
Hot on its heels was Angels & Demons - but I thought I'd seen it, so went off and watched something else first. Which I did enjoy, so I was glad I'd done that. When it was over though, it occurred to me that I might have been thinking of The Da Vinci Code - so I switched over hurriedly, and caught most of the film. Both films are based on novels by Dan Brown, and centre on an academic, played by Tom Hanks, who dashes energetically around, solving mysteries associated with sinister cults affiliated to the Catholic Church. He picks up a lot of clues from real-life history and legend, which makes it interesting to us history buffs.
In this story, the Pope has just died, and the cardinals are convening to elect another. However, a mysterious sect - the Illuminati - have kidnapped the four most popular candidates, and scheduled to kill them, one per hour, on the hour, before detonating an anti-matter bomb. Stellan Skarsgård shows up again as the Chief of Police, Ewan McGregor is the Camerlengo to the recently deceased Pope. Armin Mueller-Stahl plays a senior Cardinal.
Despite coming in late, I didn't have much trouble in following it - the plot details are interesting, but unnecessary for comprehension. Tom Hanks races around Rome, trying to save people's lives, as they are killed every hour, and Ewan McGregor looks worried. It's a good, pacy thriller, and as well as the historical detail, we get to see some gorgeous art and architecture, and the soundtrack is suitably gorgeous to match - particularly at the end. Another fun film, for a different reason - with a good twist at the end. Which was when I realised that yes, I had seen it before - but it took me that long to figure it out, and when I remember so little, it's just as well to give it another viewing, I think.
And yes, I haven't forgotten about my film backlog of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Snowden, The Unbelievable Truth, Time (all on Amazon Prime), and Zero de Conduite, on the Internet Archive. Not to mention the last episode of From Beirut to Bosnia. Watch this space.. as ever..
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