Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Exceedingly Delivers On What It Needed To Get Right: Eccentric And Fun Musical Numbers

The most important question one must ask when making a follow-up to 2008's musical movie Mamma Mia! is simply this: will it have enough nuttiness and fun, frequently at the same time? A huge part of what made that original movie work was how often it just swung for the fences in terms of bringing to life eccentric musical fun, such as in sequences where men in scuba gear belted out ABBA tunes or Pierce Brosnan trying to harmonize his way through a rendition of S.O.S. By the time Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again was concluding one of its very first musical numbers with a crowd of people in graduation caps and gowns on bicycles crooning I Kissed The Teacher, well, I knew this follow-up was keeping its predecessors gonzo sense of entertainment alive and well.

In Laman's Terms: Ten Years Ago, I Had The Time of My Life Discovering Mamma Mia!

Today is July 18th. Ten years ago today, in the summer of 2008, one movie opened that managed to change our cinematic landscape forever. Breaking box office records across the globe and redefining what kind of money movies in its particular subgenre could do, it also managed to meet expectations of fans who had been waiting for it for so long.  Many have tried to imitate its success in the years since its release, but on its tenth anniversary, it's easy to see that there's really one and only Mamma Mia! Oh, and fellow July 18th, 2008 release The Dark Knight was also kinda influential, though the other movie opening on that day, Space Chimps, turned out to leave way less of a mark on pop culture than expected.

Mamma Mia Review (Classic Write-Up)

Yooooouuuu Can Jiiiii-iiiiiive

The world of music is a complex one filled with wonder and beauty. It's the kind of medium for artistic expression that allows for a wide gamut of ideas and tones to be crafted, perfect for telling stories of all shapes and sizes. Over the career of any given singer or band, the discography of any musical entity is bound to have tunes with a humongous range of ideals. Some songs could be sad, some could be happy, and ABBA certainly took advantage of all the possibilities that music offered to create a massive amount of famous songs.

Colin Firth Is A Super Spy Training Other Spies In New Trailer For Kingsman: The Secret Service

When I think of Collin Firth, I think of Mamma Mia! or The King's Speech, not punching thugs and taking names. But that is exactly what Firth is doing as one of the lead roles in 2015's action film Kingsman: The Secret Service. A new trailer for this film aired during Gotham last night and came online shortly after. Watch it below!

Jersey Boys Review

The Good, The Bad and The Jersey

Unbenonkwest to the band, the car, a Transformers in
disguise, had pulled up on its own to watch them sing. 

Whenever someone brings up Jersey Boys, they don't talk about the story, or Frankie Valli or the Broadway show from which it's adapted. The one thing everyone chatters about is the fact that Clint Eastwood, The Man With No Name, is directing a musical! How does that work out? Well, if Eastwoods first musical was Little Shop of Horrors or Mamma Mia! or something, yeah, I'd totally see that. But Jersey Boys in its cinematic incarnation (I've never seen the show on stage) isn't truly a musical, not in the "Let It Go" sense. Characters sing, but considering the real life people on which the characters are based on actually did this for a living, it feels natural to have some tunes going around.