Mamma Mia posterThe big guns still dom­i­nate pro­ceed­ings at our cin­e­mas (at least until Thurs­day when the lit­tle art-house films all gang up for the Fes­ti­val). Last week was hard­ly worth writ­ing a col­umn about as all the big dis­trib­u­tors sen­si­bly made way for Will Smith’s annu­al 4th of July block­buster, Han­cock (Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners & Embassy).

This week, the ABBA musi­cal (that had a sea­son at the Civic in Auck­land a cou­ple of years ago) Mam­ma Mia! leads the pack. Jus­ti­fi­ably described as a phe­nom­e­non since the stage show launched in Lon­don in 1996, the film fea­tures Meryl Streep, Pierce Bros­nan, Stel­lan SkarsgÃ¥rd and Col­in Firth singing and danc­ing their way through the ABBA back cat­a­logue. It’s been trail­ered for months now, so aware­ness should be pret­ty high and it’s play­ing every­where: Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Embassy, Light­house Petone, Regent-on-Man­ners.

[The rest of this week’s new releas­es sum­marised after the jump]

Trail­ing in Mam­ma Mia!‘s wake is the lat­est clas­sic tv remake, Get Smart star­ring Steve Carell and Anne Hath­away (Read­ings, Regent & Empire) and Meet Dave, Eddie Mur­phy in fam­i­ly-friend­ly mode as a star­ship built to look like a human that arrives on Earth and falls in love. As you do. You can find Meet Dave at Read­ings, Regent & Empire).

Almost invis­i­ble to the naked eye is a doc­u­men­tary called Allan Wil­son, Evo­lu­tion­ary which has a short pre-Fes­ti­val sea­son at the Para­mount. I could­n’t find any­thing about it, not even at the Para­mount site itself.

These won’t get reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes (or Cap­i­tal Times) until a week on Wednes­day as next week I’m doing a Film Fes­ti­val pre­view — which I will cross-post here at about the same time. So, you’re on your own until then, peo­ple.