155. Oliver!

Yes, this is one of my wife's movies. I don't know why but she really has a thing for musicals. Well she had never seen the film adaptation of the musical Oliver so guess what I got to watch today. Good thing I love her! Oliver is a musical about a young orphan boy who gets thrown out of the workhouse that he was born in because he was "ungrateful" and asked for another serving of gruel.

Well one thing leads to another and young Oliver finds himself homeless on the streets of London. It's here that he meets the theiving group led by Fagen and the Artful Dodger. Oliver is young and naive but has a good heart and voice. He stays with Dodger and Fagen.

However, a mishap happens on his very first outing and he is accosted and falsely accused of attempting to pickpocket a wealthy London native. Realizing his error and the fact that Oliver has no family the man takes him in.

Oliver's criminal friends won't let him go so easily because they are afraid that he is going to rat them out so they kidnap him back. In the end the wealthy gentleman realizes that Oliver is the illegitimate child of his niece who ran away and he adopts Oliver.

Needless to say I really didn't enjoy this movie. Just too much singing. Plus the plot was totally predictable. I won't be watching this one again if I can help it!

148. The Sound of Music

I know that Christiana is going to hate this blog review since The Sound of Music is one of her favorite musicials of all time but I have to be honest.

The Sound of Music is the story of the Von Trapp Family as they try to escape the Nazi take over of Austria. It starts with unruly children who are trying to gain their father's attention by constantly scaring away governesses and it ends with the night time chase and escape. Despite how exciting this all sounds I wasn't really impressed.

My wife loves this movie and owns it on blu-ray, I barely made it through it. I actually might have dosed off but who knows since they were still singing when I opened my eyes. In all fairness I don't really like musicals to begin with so it had that against it from the start. Plus the run time is almost 3 hours!

I do have to give props to Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer for their excellent acting. Maybe for me it would have been better if it wasn't a musical. The sets and scenery were beautiful and period specific. I did hear that the Rogers and Hammerstein version isn't 100% true to the real life story but they do a decent job.

If you love musicals then you will most likely love the Sound of Music. I don't  love musicals and I don't love this movie.

Final Verdict: I would never buy it but it's my wife's movie so it's not my call.

43. Mamma Mia

                  Pierce Brosnan should not sing.  I was really tempted to make that the entire blog. Just wrap Mamma Mia up to that one point. I won't but I did want to stress that Pierce Brosnan should NOT sing.  Not his thing.

                Mamma Mia that hit musical based on the music of ABBA.  The story about a young girl who is getting married and wants her father to walk her down the aisle. Except she doesn’t know who her father is. She has, however, narrowed it down to three men who could be the one. So she invites all three to her wedding unbeknownst to her mother, played by Meryl Streep.  What goes on from there is a lot of singing and a lot of soul searching. Oh, and it all takes place in Greece. I will say this, the beauty of Greece really comes out in the bluray edition of this.

                Mamma Mia can be entertaining at times. It's funny in parts. But musicals are just not my thing.  It does help that ABBA music is not the traditional music that you hear in musicals. I do admire the creativity to take the ABBA classic pop songs and turn them into a story. I also admire the talent of Streep who can pull this role off just as well as she can anything else. But still Pierce Brosnan should not sing. Plus it really bugs me that they never tell you who the dad actually is. 

Final Verdict: I would never own it, but doesn’t matter since my wife has deemed it worthy of owning. And in blu ray!