Doubt

I've been kind of interested in seeing Doubt ever since it came out, but what with one thing and another, I never quite got around to it. When it popped up on TV a couple of nights ago, though, I thought I'd stay up and watch.

The titular doubt is what we have as a viewer over whether priest Philip Seymour Hoffman is up to a bit of cloister-room kiddy-fiddling, given that he apparently has taken an unhealthy interest in the only black boy in an Irish/Italian neighbourhood church school.

Meryl Streep launches a bit of a character assassination, even going so far as telling the boy's mother.

The story trots along well enough to keep you interested and guessing. And the performances are not bad overall, though it's far from the best performance I've seen from PSH. Amy Adams was fine, though, and Meryl was okay as a vile old nun.

The direction -- by the writer of the Pulitzer Prize-winning original play and this screenplay, Moonstruck writer John Patrick Shanley -- was a bit pedestrian.

For me, though, ultimately the film was let down by its ending, which kind of made me wish I hadn't bothered with the film at all.

Numbers: 44 out of 100.

Mamma Mia!

How do I follow my review of California Dreamin', which was better than any other film I've seen in the past couple of years? How? By reviewing Mamma Mia!, that's how. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Mamma Mia!'s paper-thin plot revolves around the looming wedding of Sophie, the daughter of single mum Donna. The pair of them live on a Greek island. Neither Donna nor Sophie know who is the father of the latter, so she invites all three possibles (taken from her mother's diary) to the wedding, in the hope she will know him when she sees him.

Cue much hilarity. Much hilarity, that is, if you are over 60, for clearly this is the target audience for this piece of fluff masquerading as cinema.

It is, of course, just a showpiece for some of Abba's best-loved tunes and is based on the successful stage musical of the same name.

Granted, I don't much care for musicals. And I've never cared for Abba either. But even by the low standards I'd set for this film in advance of seeing it, it still failed to deliver.

The acting was pretty poor given the talent attached (Streep, Brosnan, Skarsgård et al), and there was barely an acceptably pitched note to be heard in many of the "singing" parts.

Slight, predictable, insulting, embarrassing. Truly awful. Avoid at all costs. The only moments I laughed were at the terrible acting and singing. I award Mamma Mia! a dismal 19 points out of 100.