Mama Mia!

I’d seen the trailer about a hundred times, as it’s the default load for AfterEllen video blogs, but I figured I probably wouldn’t see the movie.  As much as I love musicals and as huge a crush as I have on Meryl Streep, I just don’t have easy access to a movie theatre.  However, yesterday my friend Rita and I were hanging out at the Johnson County fair after my shift tabling for the clinic and we got the idea to go see a movie.  Apparently movies cost eight fifty now, which made my wallet cry a little, but it was a lot of fun.  It’s as feel-good as you would expect, with enough irreverence to excuse watching a chick flick, and Meryl is as always gorgeous and amazing in it.  I also thought the three men did a great job, and I giggled just a little seeing Dakin from History Boys in such a straight role.  Meryl’s performance of “The Winner Takes it All” was by far the best number, though the three women doing “Dancing Queen” (the first time) is hillarious.  I also thought Pierce Brosnan wasn’t bad with his musical numbers – not the best voice I’ve ever heard, but not bad either.  And of course, you can’t fault a PG-13 movie that puts a positive spin on sex and acceptance of women who have multiple partners.  Whoo!

Middle Earth? Totally a real place.

I’ve been watching short bits of Fellowship of the Ring before bed, and I’ve just been struck by how much those films can just get me, even though I’ve seen them so many times and every time I put them in I think “is this really going to be worth it?”  I think the great thing about those films, though, is that they put such a deep, amazingly detailed literary universe in full colour, twelve hours of viewing, cinematic form.  The scenes I find myself getting really excited about are those that just barely hint at the significance of, for example, Aragorn’s lineage.  It’s funny to think that twelve hours of footage really just scratch the surface, but it’s true.  There’s something extremely rewarding about reading thousands of pages of material but then feeling like the keyholder to the legacy, the one who gets all the jokes.  It’s the same sort of feeling you get when you read the trilogy after having recently read the Silmarillion, when suddenly ever few words are pregnant with meaning.  I sound like a complete nerd, I know, but I wonder if any other author’s quite managed this, to the point of feeling real triumph every time you re-read.  Of course, if anyone knows of a comparable experience, please do let me know!  For now, I’m off to re-read.  Or, ooh!  Maybe I can finally get started with the Unfinished Tales.  *rubs hands together in nerdy glee*