Mamma Mia!

I've seriously underestimated ABBA for a very long time. I always *wanted* to like them and generally did, but had a hard time with the cotton candy up-ness. I didn't know my ABBA, I'm thinking after seeing Mamma Mia! I'm going to get to know me some ABBA.

I love musicals. I'm never gonna be the person to write movie reviews in the traditional sense because my reviews are always so random and emotion-based (when no one's paying me for them and sometimes even when they are). But don't ask me to be objective when it comes to musicals. Never.

But my hopes are raising with every movie I've seen lately, every trailer. Going to the movies is starting to feel like it used to feel in the best possible way - like you're in a cocoon, a womb, a place that is safe not to think AND to think, to remember, to feel. A place where I can hear "Winner Takes It All," and go through EVERY emotion of a four+ year relationship, a betrayal and residual love and survive...better...smile while being eviscerated. Where I can listen to "Slipping Through My Fingers" and imagine my own mamma mia! crying her poor eyes out 500 miles away and a few weeks in the past (she saw it without me!).

You see why I'm not equipped to objectively review musicals? Or maybe just movies. BUT, I liked everything about Mamma Mia! Except maybe Pierce Bronson's deep-in-the-throat-holy-crap-you- know-I-can't-sing-right singing. And even that was still kinda cute and okay because, as my mamma mia! says, Pierce can do no wrong.

Darlings, do you remember when there didn't used to be commercials in the movies? I distinctly remember saying (10 years ago? less? more?), "Thank goodness there aren't any commercials at the movies" (except for you know, other movies), but then almost immediately after I said that, I saw the first one.

JC Penney. I honestly don't know what to feel about your homage to The Breakfast Club. There were times where I was right there with you, KNOWING that someone who made this commercial made it because of love, nostalgia and all the good things. But mostly I was just kinda horrified because the kids IN the commercial (let alone the kids watching) probably don't know what your commercial is an homage to. Yay for giving them a reason to find out. But...it almost kinda felt like watching a death metal band conducting a mass on stage. In Latin. Well, I take that back. There really wasn't anything mocking in your commercial. It was pretty reverent, actually. But it was soooo odd and sad to see bright young things wearing modern clothes (very prominently in their modern clothes) acting out The Breakfast Club. Okay everybody. Go rent or buy The Breakfast Club. ESPECIALLY if you haven't seen it before. Even if JC Penney told you to. [DUDE! I may just be full of crap! This has been on t.v. for at least 8 months. I've never seen it cause it's playing on channels specifically frequented by teenagers. I really wonder what they think when they see this commercial.]

And Coke. The first commercial (If you've had a Coke in the last eon, you've supported local youth sports programs, is the gist, and that's cool) seemed like it would CLEARLY be an ad for Sprite (come on, the jerseys of the two teams were yellow and green - I can't find the link to this, sorry). I was totally waiting for the football players to smash into each other and turn into Sprite -- but didn't Coke already do that ad, so MAYBE they WANTED me to be thinking Sprite the whole time...because the ad that followed...was for Sprite. Another sports ad, with kids jumping into a pool cleverly disguised to look like the blacktop of a basketball court.

Anybody get flashes of Coke while watching all the roly-poly infant-like humans sipping HUGE cups of liquid sustenance in WALL-E?

I'm starting to feel paranoid. I need to go back to my womb cocoon. Which movie should I see next?

[THIS IS MY 50th BLOG POST! Thanks for reading...]