Mamma Mia!

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• campy
• Bollywood
• mind you
• surreal

• mixed reviews
• acquired taste
• drag
• a stroke

• throw in
• hilarity ensues

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Usually movies get made and the soundtrack gets added afterward. Or, if the movie is a musical, the songs are written as the movie is written. But Mamma Mia! is somewhere in between. It uses preexisting songs by Swedish pop group ABBA, but the movie is written around them and they’re sung by the characters, as well as new songs by ABBA member Benny Andersson that were written specially for the movie.

Mamma Mia! was originally a theater hit in the UK and later the US, but it reached international audiences this summer as a film. It was filmed in Greece and stars Meryl Streep, but got mixed reviews. It seems like the film’s humor is an acquired taste. Beren loved it, but maybe not for the reasons she should have.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

Log in to Listen

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Marni

Beren

Marni:  My parents just tried to drag me to Mamma Mia!. They wanted to go see a movie with me and they were really excited about it and I declined.

Beren:  You made a terrible, terrible decision.

Marni:  What?

Beren:  Mamma Mia! is probably in at least the top three of movies I’ve seen this year.

Marni:  You’ve gotta be kidding me!

Beren:  I thought I might actually be having a stroke at one point I was laughing so hard.

Marni:  Are you serious?

Beren:  Yes.

Marni:  Because it’s actually funny, or because it’s so bad you can’t believe you’re actually watching it?

Beren:  Well, let me just start off by saying, any movie, play or Broadway movie written based on ABBA songs, you have to stretch the plot. It doesn’t really fit. They take all the best songs, most of the songs off Gold, and base a story around it of this girl who’s getting married and she doesn’t know who her father is so she invites three of her mom’s ex-lovers to this Greek island and hilarity ensues.

Marni:  And it’s really funny. You’re telling me…

Beren:  It’s very campy.

Marni:  Yes.

Beren:  And I don’t know if I was laughing at necessarily the right spots, the most appropriate times. “Money, Money, Money,” that’s one of my favorite ABBA songs, and it goes into this crazy Bollywood-style sequence on a giant yacht. Mind you they were stuck on an island this whole time. The yacht comes out of nowhere…

Marni:  That sounds terrible.

Beren:  It’s like in Meryl Streep’s imagination. It’s like she’s fantasizing about it.

Marni:  OK. So it’s a little surreal, maybe thrown in there.

Beren:  Unintentionally. I don’t think it was meant to be so surreal.

Marni:  I don’t even know how to respond to that. I’m kind of shocked that you liked it, but now intrigued…

Beren:  I’m going back!

Quizzes

Go Super to take Quiz

Lesson MP3

Go Super to download full lesson MP3