Very Depressing Cast on Happy Drugs?

Rating: Null/10 (12 October 2011)

One of the greatest advancements of the entertainment industry has to be the invention of the, 'Best of Albums', and, of course, that is the main way I will always remember ABBA. It was one of the first 'Best of Albums' I ever purchased. And to me, this is the ideal way to enjoy their music. You just pick the music you wanted to listen to and skip the songs you had no interest in. This 'Best of Album' probably saved my life. I know if I had listened to ABBA all the way through, the depression probably would have ended me up on the wrong side of a hemp necktie. Gotta love modern technology. In retrospect, I remember listening to these songs as they first hit the airways. I am still amazed at the authors' abilities to put gushing heart wounds to paper, script river-of-tears-music and have these emotional thorns of despair vocalized by ABBA – a true WIN-WIN proposal. I also thought each song told an individual story that may have been experienced by one of the members of quartet. Boy was I wrong. And why did they call the movie Mama-Mia? It should have been named, 'Who's Your Daddy?' Why do I say that – you ask. Well this is a story about a bunch of guys getting invited to an island by the same woman, to witness the wedding of said-woman's daughter. The daughter does not know who her pop is, the guys are bunch of horns waggled horn-dogs and the mom – well – let's just say she obviously has a problem with the word, 'No.' Where do we go next? Hmmmmm. Wait – wait – I feel a song coming on. I really do. Let me break into an ABBA song (oh pick one – they have nothing to do with the movie), slap on my dancing shoes, and just go-a-leaping across the screen. The plot turns into a wild, wacky romp across some exotic island – with stars-a-singing and dancing, and random hootenannies and weddings popping up everywhere. I did sit through this thing from beginning to end and was emotionally beaten down. As with all ABBA songs, the peppy music is anchored to extremely depressing lyrics. The movie was – well – the same. At the end – do you laugh, cry or just commit suicide? I did make one helpful observation at the end though. I noticed that all ABBA songs sound the same.