Knowing ABBA, Knowing Cher

By Glenn Dunks

This week is the opening weekend of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, almost exactly ten years to the date of the original 2008 adaptation of the ever-popular West End/Broadway musical that was the highest grossing live-action musical of all time until Beauty and the Beast came along. Coming on the heels of equally feel-good The Greatest Showman and ahead of Mary Poppins Returns, 2018 is proving to be a very cheesy good time at the movies if you’re a fan of these old fashioned singfests.

I adored the movie, writing in my review:

While it is very easy to dismiss, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again shifts from strange and award to daggy and deliriously dumb so easily that I didn’t even notice I had found myself smiling along to every goofy moment.

It will come as no surprise that the one and only Cher is a blast in her glorified cameo singing ABBA classic “Fernando” to Andy Garcia, which I think means he was a soldier in some war in Mexico? Who cares? It’s amazing! She shares an ability with ABBA themselves for wringing every ounce of drama and pathos out of lyrics that many would (incorrectly) label as frothy or silly or melodramatic. ABBA’s music can be all of these things, of course, but never without a wink to let us know they’re aware of it. Cher sounds natural singing these songs, her voice slotting in perfectly having gained plenty of experience with disco and pop at the same time that ABBA reigned over the music charts (fun fact: more Australians watched the group sing “Fernando” live on national television than they did the moon landing, how about that!).

And to top it all off, we just learnt that Cher will be releasing an entire album of ABBA covers! There’s been no word yet on when it will come out but, she has teased that her renditions have been done “in a different way”. Beginning now with Mamma Mia! – her first on-screen role since Burlesque and just her second film musical – Cher will be everywhere over the next twelve months with this new album, a new tour and her own jukebox musical, The Cher Show, on the way. Her "Fernando" has even charted with Billboard.

Which ABBA hits do you want Queen Cher to perform on her new album?

While it is very easy to dismiss, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again shifts from strange and awkward to daggy and deliriously dumb so easily that I didn’t even notice I had found myself smiling along to every goofy moment. There’s Lily James cartwheeling through an orchard for some reason, and wow suddenly there is a flotilla of Greeks sailing across the Mediterranean to the beat of Dancing Queen. Donna very inappropriately sings I Kissed the Teacher with a useless microphone at her Oxford College graduation. Seyfreid wears an ugly poncho for half the movie and Colin Firth wears satin pants so tight you can see what got him into this whole mystery pregnancy fiasco in the first place. Christine Baranski is still a lush and Julie Walters still can’t dance. It’s a hoot.

Showbiz History: Sandra Oh, Operation Valkyrie, and yet more Batman?

Since the right now is so depressing let us look back into showbiz history for (mostly) easier things to think about then the here and now.

wee Natalie Wood with cat

11 random things that happened on this day (July 20th) in relation to showbiz history...

1930 Sally Ann Howes born in London. She starred as "Truly Scrumptious" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She's one of the 200 oldest living screen stars. Happy 88th, Scrumptious!

1938 Natasha Gurdin born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. Five years later she makes her screen debut as "Natalie Wood" and becomes one of the rare child stars whose fame only grows as she ages...

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Blueprints: Emmy Nominees for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series

Jorge has been taking a look at the Emmy history for this year’s writing nominees. 

Let’s take a look at the four shows that made up the six nominees for Writing in a Comedy Series, the only writing category this year in which there were repeat nominations for the same show. Remember that, just as in the Directing categories, individual episodes are honored rather than overall series. For the fifth year in a row network shows were entirely shut out of the comedy writing category. (In fact network television was shut out of all three narrative writing category this year, only showing up in "Variety/Special"). Two newcomer shows and two established favorites got the comedy nominations; none of the shows have ever won for their writing.

Let's see the elevator pitches and the stats (we love a good round of statistics) after the jump... 

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Fantasia 2018: Blue My Mind

by Jason Adams

There's a whole lot going on in Mia's life. She's moved to a new town, which means a new school and trying to make new friends. She's just had her first period, and that's got her on edge. Oh and her toes have suddenly grown webbed together, and she's got these strange appetites making themselves known. 

Blue My Mind is just the latest in a long line of girls coming of age through sloppy and terrifying means - the lure of exploring budding female sexuality through the prism of the monstrous has always been with us, from Medusa's slithering wig to Simone Simon's poolside purr. What feels different now, with movies like this (written and directed by Lisa Brühlmann) or with Julia Ducournau's Raw last year, is that it's finally women who are making these movies...

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Doc Corner: 'McQueen'

Of all the fashion designers who have been given the biographic documentary treatment in the last decade, perhaps none feel as appropriate for the cinema than the late Lee Alexander McQueen. There have been many designers whose work is in a way cinematic – including others from 2018 alone like Guo Pei (Yellow is Forbidden) and Vivienne Westwood (Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist), although the success of those films vary – McQueen the man is such a vividly big personality, even in his quiet and introspective moments, that a film about him is naturally going to boast a more broad appeal and intense fascination.

In McQueen we witness the boy who rose from working class roots in London’s East End buying fabrics with his government dole money to working on dozens of fashion lines a year for a variety of brands and world famous fashion houses.

Seen through personal tapes and footage from his increasingly elaborate and astonishingly striking runway shows, director Ian Bonhōte and co-director Peter Ettedgui assembles with beautiful clarity the essence of not just Lee’s work, but Lee’s humanity, too.

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