It's Batman.

Excellent answer.

Thank you, sir.

Ok. Here I go. Confession time.

I've seen Mamma Mia!. I rather enjoyed it. I'll likely see this movie. I like musicals.

There. I did it. A weight has been lifted.

Wineglass, Dancing Queen

I've seen it too. I imagine many guys don't have a choice in the matter. On the other hand, I did.

Point of order: The South Park movie was a musical.

At the risk of losing many Man Points, I must admit to having seen this movie.. and, err, enjoyed it.

I went in without any enthusiasm, to say the least. I am not much for musicals and even less so for Meryl Streep or Pierce Brosnan, but the wife wanted to see it so that was one of our date night destinations. It wasn't too long into the movie that I found myself reluctantly (at first) enjoying the movie and even forgetting that I was supposed to hate this sort of thing. This lead to a regrettable result: I had fun. The crowd that was at the theatre contributed to some of this as it was a festive, party atmosphere in there.

Sans spoilers, the movies strength was really in the performance of Donna and the Dynamites. The mature ladies were the best of the bunch and Meryl stole the show, I thought. Her voice was surprisingly good (if not great) and she threw herself wholly into her role. I found the story a little hackneyed, but it blended well with the music and offered some hilarious moments therein (flash back pictures of Colin’s & Pierce’s characters come to mind). I thought there was a good mix between the story and music, better than most for my taste as I often find myself bored with having to try to follow plot through song in musicals that seem to rush from one melody to the next. Add to the fact that ABBA (ack!) songs are rather easy to follow, they melded well enough.

It wasn’t without some faults, though. The older men were rather lacking vocally, in my opinion, and the chemistry wasn’t always there. The young leads had strong voices, but lacked the charisma of the more established stars. The latter third of the movie was a bit more somber and less festive, too.

I am certain not everyone will enjoy it, especially the “guys.” Dang it all, but if I didn’t find myself laughing and enjoying most of it, though. I guess I am too old to put as much effort into maintaining a macho front. If you get dragged into it, though, try to forget why you hate musicals, Meryl, and/or chic flicks and have fun with it. You can always pretend you hated it later and scoff at the less manly types who didn't.

Heck yeah, musical fans represent! We're going to need our own sub-board, soon

The first musical I saw live was The Sound of Music. I had always had this vision that it was just about Julie Andrews spinning around and singing in a field somewhere. Imagine my surprise when they threw in Nazis. Who knew?

I know they can be kind of hokey and cheesy, but I enjoy the catchy music and the feel of a live show. I think it boils down to, for me, that they are just plain fun.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is a good example of how fun they can be.

This explains so, SO much.

Or their manhoods. Look, I'll freely admit that I have seen but two (professional) musicals live in my day, but it's hard to argue against "Phantom of the Opera" (San Fran's longest-running musical) or "Fiddler on the Roof" (NYC's revival some years back starring Alfred "Doc Ock" Molina) as counting against one's manhood.

I will disclose that I have seen and enjoyed Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. Every other musical I've ever seen, I've despised.

This was a great example of counter programming. I can't think of two movies that have LESS crossover appeal than BATMAN and MAMA MIA.

I saw Wicked in London in April, and Mamma Mia here in Athens about a month ago. Wicked was the best thing I've ever seen in my life, but Mamma Mia was still up there on the "damn that was great" list.

I'm hesitant to see the movie because live has got to be so much better. The main female lead (I'm terrible with character names) in Mamma Mia absolutely stole the show, I've rarely seen someone that talented. The set was pretty minimalist, but considering the show is set on a Greek island, and the Greek crowd went crazy for them, I'd say it was quite successful here. There's something about a show knowing it's over-the-top, and then deciding, "well, as long as we're already over-the-top, why not go totally nuts?" that was very, very appealing. They did three encore numbers. They whole audience danced. I danced. There was much fun to be had.

I wish that I had seen more musicals. More.

Oh, and if your manhood and/or masculinity can be threatened by musicals, I'm led to conclude that you have a very, very tiny...sense of...manhood.

I do, and I won't be seeing it...unless there's a scene where zombies crash through the walls and mutilate/devour the cast. Someone please let me know if I missed out on that.