"Mamma Mia! tops all-time DVD list"

[Maurice]

Ceefax today:



Musical film MAMMA MIA! has become the UK's biggest-selling DVD of all time, according to official figures.



It is the first disc to sell more than five million copies - placing it in one in four UK households.



The ABBA-themed movie was the number one DVD of 2008, with its closest rival, THE DARK KNIGHT, making 1.5m sales.



The Official Chart Campaign's (OCC) all-time DVD list of the last decade sees MAMMA MIA! surge ahead of previous top seller PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.

[smudge]

... makes mental note to avoid visiting every fourth house...



Smudge

[Chevyman]

name='smudge']... makes mental note to avoid visiting every fourth house...



Smudge

I wondered where Mrs Chevy had gone

[RAREFILMFINDER]

Amazing figures really when you think its not that good a film.Having said that our local chinese dvd seller has reported very good sales on it as well ,which could take overall figures beyond 10 Million.That would be approx 1 in 2 households having a copy.And I hated ABBA and still do.

Mind you to be honest ,there is a copy in our home,sad or what?





lenny

[Bernardo]

Thank You For The Music. (Shame about the video)

[Gazza]

Yes, it was in this year's Christmas stocking. Sorry to sound ungrateful Auntie Flo but it's truly dreadful. I hated, hated, hated it!

[MB]

name='Gazza']Yes, it was in this year's Christmas stocking. Sorry to sound ungrateful Auntie Flo but it's truly dreadful. I hated, hated, hated it!

Hooray!



It is like walking around in some en-masse cult.

[James Fox]

It was shown on my plane flight about a month ago. I stopped watching after 15 min. Couldn't get into it at all. (And I'm an ABBA fan, too)



Fortunately the guy sitting in front of me was screening "Hot Fuzz" on his laptop so I watched it over his shoulder lol

[Maurice]

BBC3 8pm New Year's Day -



The movie selling the second highest number of DVDs: 4.7million.



"Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl"



Which UK movies have sold the most DVDs?

[Dandelion]

Not seen it, nor want to...

[wellpip]

I’ve never seen it nor want too, but feel as if I have!

[Keechelus]

Mamma Mia!



Stay far, far away from this one. It is awful in every way, and most for the alleged acting. To see 59-yr old Meryl Streep cutting up like a school girl on speed is bad enough, but the others (even Julie Walters) are worse.



Candy-floss ABBA tunes are not always sick making ... see Muriel's Wedding (Hogan 1994) for a better use of 'em.



Top DVD? Well, it's an example of "The Winner Loses All" in quality.

[CaptainWaggett]

Looks like I'm the only person in the world who enjoyed it then ...which makes the dvd sales a bit odd since I haven't bought it. I suspect that most people on this forum aren't really the target audience for this and I would imagine a Mamma Mia forum might well have a similarly negative opinion of early 1960s b/w thrillers or 1970s sitcoms or some of the other genres much praised here! Basically, if you don't like the idea of non-singers (though Meryl Streep really can sing) camping it up to Abba songs, and you don't like musicals anyway, it's not really going to be your sort of film. Doesn't make it bad though...

[Gazza]

name='CaptainWaggett']Looks like I'm the only person in the world who enjoyed it then

I know plenty of people who really like it CW. My partner liked it too and thought my reaction to it was a bit extreme considering I'm a musical fan.

[blacknorth]

I'm not surprised it sold this much considering how the major stores flogged it - I queued up at Tescos and they had a huge pile of MM DVD's sitting right beside the till, by the time I got to be served the pile had been whittled down considerably. What I mean is you don't see copies Black Narcissus sitting at the check-out for people to throw casually into their shopping basket.

[MB]

name='blacknorth']I'm not surprised it sold this much considering how the major stores flogged it - I queued up at Tescos and they had a huge pile of MM DVD's sitting right beside the till, by the time I got to be served the pile had been whittled down considerably. What I mean is you don't see copies Black Narcissus sitting at the check-out for people to throw casually into their shopping basket.

Good point, why was this film thrust so heavily at us at every turn? It became a 'must see' in the way that Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musicals were and even if you enjoy them I think you'd be hard pushed not to come away from one of them without an armful of reservations and a feeling that you've been had...



Same goes for 'The History Boys'..I know some critics picked up on the flaws..but when I went to see it - mid hype - people were in a frenzy.. and yet, I'm not sure the audience were that involved. I spent some of the time watching them and, although they arrived smiling in an almost demonic cult like fashion - throughout, they looked chiefly anxious, determined and purposeful. At the end, the sense of relief was palpable. Not because it had been entirely bad, but because they could now get to the bit where they went nuts. I think they would just have liked to have gone nuts and been shown pictures of nubile young men - I think that would have been sufficient in itself.

I have never seen such a classic cut display of the effects of hype and success by association because there was nothing, nothing to suggest that this was edifying theatre that could provoke such heighths.



In another thread it has been discussed that 'good' has to remain as loosely categorised as possible because, otherwise, it becomes a case of asserting control..



But you have to ask the question as whether there is an attempt to assert control here too. I think that is why people have questioned it so heavily.

Perfectly prepared to accept that some just liked it for what it is - but hype is control of a sinister kind that hides very well behind glamour and isn't questioned enough these days.

[blacknorth]

name='MB']

Same goes for 'The History Boys'..I know some critics picked up on the flaws..but when I went to see it - mid hype - people were in a frenzy.. there was a request for an encore...and yet, I'm not sure the audience were that involved. I spent some of the time watching them and, although they arrived smiling in an almost demonic cult like fashion - throughout, they looked chiefly anxious, determined and purposeful. At the end, the sense of relief was palpable. Not because it had been entirely bad, but because they could now get to the bit where they went nuts. I think they would just have liked to have gone nuts and been shown pictures of nubile young men - I think that would have been sufficient in itself.

I have never seen such a classic cut display of the effects of hype and success by association because there was nothing, nothing to suggest that this was edifying theatre that could provoke such heighths.

Well, the theatre is a law unto itself in terms of being a slave to particular moments in plays - it seems an entire production can be salvaged by a single moment no matter how bad that production is as a whole.



I went to see Martin McDonagh's Beauty Queen of Leenan which, to my mind, was a dreadful play. The audience sat with keen expectation for THAT moment (when the mother calls her daughter a slut and the daughter replies 'do I not wish') and when it arrived they duly went wild. They then spent the rest of the play sniggering at the widespread use of the word 'feck'. No-one seemed to notice the play was filled with redundancies and plot holes and when they came out all anyone talked about was THAT moment and how funny it was. It was funny, yes, and a key moment, but it didn't elevate the play to anywhere in particular as that exchange meant the theme was spent. Might as well have ended the play right there.



I admire Alan Bennett very much for his earlier work - The History Boys struck me as being entirely formulaic. I didn't buy it one bit.

[Keechelus]

MAMMA MIA! was right to use the singing voices of its actors. Some very good, and all competent. It's just that the story was far too thin and cartoonish.



I invite a comparison with ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (Julie Taymor 2006). That movie was a financial and critical flop, but I really, really like it. UNIVERSE's story has some holes, but it re-creates late 1960's America through Lennon-McCartney songs; almost all voiced by young actors live to camera.



We old folks are treated to Joe Cocker belting "Come Together" in three parts. He's a subway bum, a Times Square pimp and a Village hippie. Don't miss Bono as Doctor Robert and Eddie Izzard promoting "Mr Kite".

[faginsgirl]

I have never seen this although friends did invite me to go and see it and I declined! But to be honest when it was first advertised I did think it might be quite good, then all the hype put me off! I got sick of hearing about it.



I can`t really say but I can`t imagine why it has been so popular! Marketing I guess!



xx

[alan gowdy]

I bought this for the missus. She liked it, I thought it tolerable, though nothing special - must be a girly film. The story is very thin, as observed earlier. The direction is pretty slapdash in places. There is one scene where Streep is singing a song to Brosnan on an exterior location. It's an emotional song and Streep wrings plenty out of it but Brosnan is given nothing to do - he just sits on the edge of frame in many of the shots looking anguished. Missed opportunity.