Screen Queen: Cher in ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,’ plus ‘A Simple Favor,’ ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Some Like It Hot’

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
You don’t need to see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again more than once. That’s still one more time than you needed to see the original Mamma Mia!, when Meryl Streep bopped and pranced around the streets of Greece’s dreamy Kalokairi island. One very famous woman’s infectious buoyancy, however, couldn’t entirely save the jukebox musical’s no-fun drudgery, nor could she cleanse Pierce Brosnan’s croak of a "voice." For good reason, then, Streep bowed out of Here We Go Again – almost, anyway (her single scene is literally otherworldly and more tearfully tender than it ought to be; also, I’m a crybaby). But no matter: Your mom’s favorite movie of 2018 is a brand of stupid-fun I support, probably best viewed after eating an edible. It tells the story of Streep’s Donna without Streep (played in her youth circa the 1970s, through flashbacks, by a very alive Lily James), as she journeys to matriarchal womanhood with the man triad who swept her off her feet, naturally set to deeper-catalog ABBA bops/ballads not in its predecessor. Like an amusement park ride you promised yourself you’d never go on again but then you just couldn’t help yourself, Here We Go Again is just that, with the gratuitous and appropriately dramatic and well-lit addition...