I’ll admit it - I fell hard for Elizabeth Banks the first time I saw her. Caught her fiendishly funny cameo in “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and that was that. That gorgeous face, that pinpoint timing. She had a sense of adventure about her that I wanted to see more of.

So why don’t they give her juicier roles, I asked myself at the time.

Now, she’s appearing in more films than Morgan Freeman. But her proverbial ’striking while the iron is hot’ ground assault may backfire. [click to continue...]

I remember watching “Movin’ Out,” the jukebox musical of Billy Joel’s greatest hits and thinking, wow, the songs actually tell a unified story. More or less. Being from Long Island and a major Joel fan made me a forgiving audience of one.

“Mamma Mia!” - forged from the fires of ABBA’s hit machine - attempted to follow the same blueprint. Maybe it works on stage, but it’s a mess on the silver screen. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t include some guilty pleasures, especially for those with a weakness for older, assertive women.

I deconstruct “Mamma Mia!” over at Donne Tempo. It’s brilliant counter-programming against “The Dark Knight,” and the summer’s second example of a film aimed exclusively at women. “Sex and the City” made a mint, but it had a built-in TV fan base. We’ll see if the same people who made “Mamma’s” Broadway show a sensation pony up for movie tickets this weekend.

Update: Check out my thoughts on the film’s peculiar age demographic - not something you see everyday at your local cineplex.

(Photo: Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan both play hard to get in “Mamma Mia!”))