Happy anniversary to us!

It is our 8th wedding anniversary today. Eight years, which seems like no time at all and forever at the same time. Some of the years absolutely sucked, but it was never because of us.

B took the day off today and I'm still involuntarily on vacation (this server outage at work has moved from "pleasant unexpected mini-vacation" to "my paycheck is going to take a big hit, dagnabbit"), so we shipped the kid to daycare and hit the movies.

We saw Mamma Mia, a choice originally made because I was afraid that Dark Knight would give me nightmares if I saw it on the big screen and I wasn't sure Mummy 3 was worth the money to see in the theatre. But it turned out to be absolutely the right choice: lots and lots of fun and an enjoyable romantic flick perfect for an anniversary. If you like musicals and ABBA, it's worth seeing.

The thing that struck me about it while I was watching was how remarkably body positive it was. While there were certainly a decent share of nubile young things and hardbodies dancing around the screen, the real stars of the show were three women in their mid-50s, dancing and celebrating their sexuality without a single hint from the movie that this might somehow be ridiculous. Meryl Streep is always magnificent, but it has to be admitted that she's not Hollywood's female ideal anymore. Middle-age spread has set in and there are definitely plenty of wrinkles there. But watching her dance around like she's 20, it's easy to see why she could still have three men chasing her. Of her friends, one has had work done, but she isn't either lauded or condemned for it - she has an entire beach of young men pursuing for her, but again, the idea of that is considered entirely natural. Even the shortest and frumpiest of the trio who is normally relegated to comic-relief sidekick status, is allowed to be sexy and desirable.

In an industry where the normal procedure is to hire actresses in their mid-30s to play mothers to a 20-year-old and 45 is considered the most ancient of old age, it's just so refreshing to see a movie cast women who are frankly a little old for the characters, since my impression from the movie is that the main character was quite young (early 20s?) when she got pregnant with her daughter, now 20.

The movie itself? The frothiest bit of fluff that ever flirted with a wisp of plot. No substance there at all. But it's a musical based on ABBA music, after all. Any sort of plot would just sink like a lead weight among the clouds of bubbles that are the music. But the casting spoke volumes.