Edit: eep! I hadn’t realised this previously had 4 stars. It’s obviously meant to be 5

Once again I wasn’t sure if I’d have much to add to past reviews, but there’s plenty. I could babble about this one and the adorableness (wow, is that a word? Apple spellcheck didn’t call me on it, lol) of Alicia Morton forever. I love how all my three fave songs (“Maybe”, “Hard Knock” and “Tomorrow”) are squished into the first 15 minutes, I mean they really make it hard on themselves making the bulk of the movie live up to those, and against all odds they absolutely succeed. Just when I worry I might lose interest, some other song I’ve forgotten, some other moment or glance (Annie’s awe at the toys when Daddy Warbucks lifts her onto his shoulders to look through the store window! hehe), happens. As he did for Chicago and (according to the IMDb) the forthcoming Nine (kickass if that’s really happening, btw), Rob Marshall not only directed here but also choreographed it’s one of the best things about the movie – “I’m Gonna Like It Here” and “I Don’t Need Anything But You” are beautifully organised, and in the latter in particular, as in the rest of the movie, Victor Garber and Morton are astonishingly in sync, their chemistry is just heartmelting.

I plan to watch the John Huston version again this Christmas if it’s on TV – I owe it another chance after all these years dedicated to this one – but I really doubt any version, even on stage, will ever match the sheer adorable innocence of this one. Why doesn’t Annie recognise the frickin’ obvious disguise Hannigan dons at the end, miserable IMDb whiners may ask (okay, actually I think I read that elsewhere, but I’m sure someone on the idiot boards have asked that somewhere in time)? Because there isn’t a shred of suspicion in that girl’s heart. It doesn’t mean she’s stupid – it means she’s more human and pure than any of us. Never mind the poetic licence and suspension of disbelief on our part that maybe her disguise could be better than it looks to us who are in on it – it doesn’t matter. Just like none of the cheesy flaws here matter … ‘cos the songs and the girl and the moves are just perfect.

December 5th, 2005:

I know, I should just not review movies I watch when I don’t have much to say beyond “I love it!”, especially when I already have a review as long as the one below, but I just won’t feel right since I watched this again today if I don’t say how I love it one more time. Once again, just look how much water flies in “Hard Knock Life”. When making a movie of a stage show you should always think about what maybe people always wanted to do onstage but couldn’t for technical reasons, and Rob Marshall seems so aware of this. And Alicia Morton …. am I gonna get some stupid hateful and overblown comment here if I sigh over her cuteness? This movie may become a twice/thrice/more yearly thing for me, lol. I’m completely with Rufus Wainwright, who revealed on Paul O’Grady this past week how, when he was a kid, he wanted to be an Annie lol

6th May 2005:

I was kind of worried about coming to review this, thinking I wouldn’t really have much to say about it aside from simply, “Cute as ever, I love it,” which is true, by the way – but I did notice a few things this time round I hadn’t noticed before.

The movie’s shot a lot like the classic, classic Hollywood movies, lots of crane shots etc, and of course, fake NYC backgrounds. I think this aspect of the movie adds a lot to the movie’s charm. It’s certainly a far cry from John Huston’s overblown 1982 version (which I’ll review at another time, but the word that came to mind today was “gaudy”), which is a good thing. It’s ironic that this classical Hollywood visual style makes the television aspect ratio (4:3) almost fitting.

I never noticed before that the vocals in the singing numbers are post-synced (as is often done in these things, but it’s often screwed up too – I’m still dying to see Phantom of the Opera again on DVD to see if the awful sync I experienced in the cinema was “meant” to be there or was just a projection goof). The reason I never noticed before is that it’s done impeccably well, especially when you consider that children are involved, and Alicia Morton is among the best of the syncers.

Annie is one of my favourite musicals and it has at least two of my all-time favourite songs from any genre – “Tomorrow” and “Maybe”. I’ve already mentioned the John Huston movie, but I’ve also seen the show on stage twice. I don’t really remember the first time, but the last, though good (because in my opinion you simply can’t make a truly bad version of Annie), had its problems. The problem with stage versions is the stuff you can’t do easily, and it comes to that old adage, children and animals. It’s really hard to find talented kids and coax a great performance out of them, at the same time as just having that mystical je-ne-sais-quoi that makes any actor or actress simply grab you, and make them do it live several nights at a time … it’s not a surprising problem.

I don’t think I know a single person who would call Aileen Quinn (of the John Huston movie) ‘cute’ or particularly talented – sure she could belt “Tomorrow”, but belting “Tomorrow” is perhaps a thing Annie is more hated for than loved, lol. Alicia Morton is the perfect Annie, though. Her voice is good, but not too good, when she sings she just sounds like a little girl singing. They give her the red hair, but it’s more a shade of red than outright ginger curls. Even in the classic red dress with a slight curl in her hair, it’s never so garish as in previous versions. In close-up, she’s heartbreaking, her eyes are almost like a little puppy’s, just big black pupils pleading, “love me”.

Of the things that were good in the ‘82 version – namely Bernadette Peters, Tim Curry, and Carol Burnett – well, you couldn’t ask for better replacements than Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming and Kathy Bates. You even get Pumbaa as Mr. Bundles. Rob Marshall sneaks some cute visual tricks in too, though considering he followed this with Chicago, you wouldn’t really know it was in him – I personally love the match-cut of Annie running into a cop’s/Miss Hannigan’s arms; and, going back to what I was saying about stuff that’s hard to do on stage, I like that he always does something that would never be done on stage where he can – in “Hard Knock Life” alone, he first covers the floor in water and then ends on a big, feathery pillow fight. This is a movie I’ll still be watching when I’m 90.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 10:08 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as broadway, cuties, Disney, musical, NYC, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.