Mamma Mia! (2008)

Donna (Meryl Streep), the owner of a small inn, doesn't know it, but she's in for a surprise. Her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), is getting married and she's invited three of her mom's old boyfriends -- Bill (Stellan Starsgard), Harry (Colin Firth), and Sam (Pierce Brosnan) -- to the ceremony. The ceremony is to take place on the small Greek island where she and her mother reside. Sophie wants to finally know which one of the men is her dad. Donna has never divulged that information to her.

Donna used to be the lead in a popular pop group, and the two others in the group, Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski), have arrived to celebrate Sophie's wedding. They offer moral support when an upset Donna finds her old boyfriends on the island.

The music all consists of tunes by the 1970's pop group ABBA; their hits have been neatly put into this light and fluffy story. There is so much music that this film almost qualifies as a pop opera. The characters don't seem to get through a few sentences before they break into yet another song. Streep has a fine voice -- she sang in the movie Postcards From The Edge (1990) -- and Baranski and Walters harmonize nicely. Starsgard, Firth, and Brosnan aren't singers per se, but they do well with what is required of them in their roles. If you go into this movie not expecting much, you'll be fine. It's not a bad couple of hours.

Ms. Streep was nominated for an Oscar for her work in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Mr. Brosnan was James Bond for awhile in a few movies including The World Is Not Enough (1999). He also was a regular on the NBC detective show, "Remington Steele" (1982-1987). Mr. Firth was in Bridget Jones' Diary (2001).

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Andi (Anne Hathaway) is a graduate of Northwestern University's journalism program. She takes a job as the assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the editor-in-chief of Runway, a glamourous, glossy fashion magazine. Andi doesn't care about fashion, but if she keeps the job for a year, she can get the writing jobs she really wants. Many women would crawl over glass to be Miranda's assistant. The job will boost her resume.

Miranda is a bitch, unfortunately. She keeps everyone in the office in terror, cowering from her dry insults and withering stares. She has gone through several assistants, dismissing them as "disappointments", when in reality, Miranda's prickly personality and impossible demands have ran them off. Andi finds herself at Miranda's beck-and-call 24 hours a day, severely endangering her relationship with her friends and her boyfriend. She finds an ally of sorts in Nigel (Stanley Tucci), a cynical art director, and tries to fit in. The more Andi tries to please Miranda, the more she loses sight of her real goals.

Ms. Streep is great as the boss from hell. The audience doesn't learn a lot about her personal life until near the end, which is too bad. I would have liked to learn more about why her character came to be so difficult. The rest of the movie was the naive-girl-learns-how-the-world-really-works that I've seen too many times before. Ms. Hathaway was appealing, but her character's storyline wasn't that interesting.

I first remember watching Meryl Streep in a TV miniseries called "Holocaust", which was set in Europe during WWII. She is a fine award-winning actress who has appeared in many projects, and is known as a master of dialects; Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Bridges of Madison County (1998) are examples of her mastering accents for a role.