1.) Meryl Streep might just be the funniest woman on the planet. And she really is gorgeous.
2.) Pierce Brosnan's voice is mediocre-on-toast. How, you ask, did the producers work around that? Why, simply by removing any buttons on his shirt that would impede his chest hair from flowing out, over, and into the minds of all the middle-aged women of the audience. Seriously, it was ridiculous. It made me think of the only Garfield comic strip I can quote, where Jon Arbuckle's grandmother (or elderly aunt, or whatever) is asked what she wants for Christmas. Bawdy broad that she is, she answers, "Oh, just a nice throw pillow. Stuffed with John Travolta's CHEST HAIR!"
I'm telling you right now...Brosnan's glistening curls could be knitted into a nice afghan big enough to cover all of this blog's readers. Namely, me.
3.) On a similar note, I'm completely convinced that the producers found any excuse to get Colin Firth's shirt off throughout the movie. I'll be the first to admit that Firth gets me a little hot under the collar...but my attraction is entirely not torso-related. I suppose what I realized here was that some women maybe are into Colin Firth's chest and stomach. Women who are attracted to him for his physical appearance, and not for his mumbling, awkward, slightly insecure British behaviors. Weird.
4.) Listening to ABBA is as close to a celestial experience as I'll ever have. The movie didn't make me realize this but I made sure to loop ABBA while commuting all last week...so I've had a lot of time to deconstruct my feelings about them.
I've called them a guilty pleasure before, but I'm taking that back right now.
The thing about the Northern Europeans is that they seem to have found the formula for beauty in art a long time ago and now they're just building upon that. Obviously I cannot spell out this formula, for I have no Northern European blood in me.
Take, for instance, Gustav Klimt's "The Virgins":
If you just look at the female figures, their forms are fantastic! Even the turn of the back of the one in the lower left corner is near-perfection. What does he do to improve upon a probably already awesome sketch? Adds all of these crazy patterns and shapes and beautifully outlandish colors. That for me, is a visual summary of what ABBA does with their music. I truly believe that a lot of their songs can stand on their own, with just the lyrics and the melody. But they chose to build upon that with guitar riffs, piano hooks, and all-around decadence. It's the musical equivalent to a naturally pretty woman fixing up her hair and getting dressed to the nines.
I'll end this by offering up a small anecdote that articulates how emotional and excited I get about ABBA. A few years ago, while walking around the Towson Festival, I stopped at a used book booth. As I was browsing, I heard this flute being played and I looked up. Across the booth there sat this little old man, playing that flute. The song he was playing was "Chiquitita" and as soon as I realized what it was, my eyes filled up with tears. Partly because it was ABBA, and hearing that man play that song made me realize how universally good that song is...but more importantly because before I realized what song he was playing I just assumed it was some ancient folk tune. That song sounded as timeless to me as anything. I really could've knelt down and wept right there. From fuckin' ABBA! It was like right there, at that moment, I had a glimpse of what humans are capable of creating.
Damn Swedes.
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