Well, as my first exposure to the wonder that is Eloise this time last year, I really came to this with my tongue not only in my cheek but practically threatening to poke a hole in the darn thing, lol. I wound up loving it. And last week I saw at the Plaza and I loved it even more. Second viewing of Christmastime … and I swear this might be my favourite Christmas movie ever. It’s absolutely full of everything I think Christmas should be, highlighted by the scene of Christmas morning itself, Eloise waking Nanny with the trumpet then starting the whole place singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in an hilarious contrast to the usual “clear the elevator” scene. It just leaves me absolutely beaming, completely excited about Christmas, even if I’m overexcited about it to begin with, I can’t compare with Eloise. I can only strive my best to be more like her

22nd December, 2006:

... because after over 36 hours without sleep, sometimes the brain can’t take anymore.

But seriously, within about 2 minutes of this movie you’ll know how you’re gonna take it. You can’t be too hard on a movie that warns you in advance. Personally, it told me I was gonna love it. Sofia Vassilieva as Eloise (10 playing 6) is ridiculously natural and completely irresistable, particularly in her random turns to the camera (“Afterall! I’m only six! For Lord’s sake!”); there’s Julie Andrews, Jeffrey Tambor and Christine Baranski in the background … as long as you’re not expecting cinematic innovation of the highest calibre, this is, to use one of my menu options this Christmas, the cinematic equivalent of cheese and pickled onion on a stick. When you glimpse it, if you want it, you’ve got to have it. I wanna be Eloise! Oh, and cute songs too!

Julie Andrews doesn’t succeed entirely slumming it in Cockney but she definitely has a way with children that I doubt anyone else could match. But it’s really all about Eloise, she wouldn’t have it any other way, and some may think that’s a terrible thing and that she’s an awful role model etc, etc, but I don’t care; this is one of those rare movies where I don’t even care about the plot. I couldn’t tell you. She lives in a hotel. It’s fun. It’s, y’know … for kids. And I love it. Any movie that makes me laugh the way I laugh when my cousin Fiona is around is good in my book. So, again, again! claps several times

Okay, I’ll admit that today’s viewing was pretty much intended just to catch up on the numbers, lol (I’m so close to 365, I’ve just gotta make it before the 31st lol!), so I wasn’t expecting much anyway. This one’s just the kind of Disney live action they made, seems like, hundreds of. Hayley Mills is in it a lot more than I expected when I bought the DVD years ago (so long ago I was actually surprised it still played in the machine ROFL), and she’s of course worth watching for. There are some interesting visual effects – all of them dodgy, of course, but interesting nonetheless. And it’s a lot more random in its story than expected too, really an adventure movie rather than the high seas shenanigans and swashbucklery I thought I was in for. I couldn’t summarize the plot if I tried – my attention really wasn’t with it – but I certainly wouldn’t object to watching it again.

I’m even more enamoured of the remake of this than I am of the That Darn Cat! remake, so this was always going to be a hard sell for me, even despite the joy of two Hayley Mills being onscreen for most of the film’s 2 hour duration.

One can’t really complain about the length here – the Lindsay Lohan remake of this was almost the exact same length. And it isn’t just a case of the more recent movie having the luxury of computers to graft the star’s dual performance together better on screen. Nancy Meyers’ version simply fixed some really glaring flaws at the core of this original production. The two Hayleys here come respectively from California and Boston, as opposed to the two Lindsays which were from California and London (Lindsay doing the accent thing perfectly). Where’s the sense in that? As I’ve already written in reviews of her other movies, Mills really can’t do the accents, though god knows she tries. Having both her characters here pretty much talk the same (there’s some business about the pronunciation of “aren’t”, “shan’t” and “can’t” which only serves to draw out the problem), a whole layer of fun is stripped away. The two characters are simply too alike.

It has to be said, they do a good job of creating the illusion of two Hayleys through body doubles etc, but it really can’t compare to what they did in 1998. I love Hayley Mills, but I love Lindsay Lohan too and I had a feeling that here I’d merely be writing that I love the ‘98 version more because Lindsay was simply cuter there than Hayley is here. Which is true But, really, I’m sorry but in this case everything is better in the remake. Everything. Though this is still a lot of fun.

“And you’re sure he always goes out at midnight?”
“Oh yes. Unless of course it’s one of his contrary nights.”

... and right there you have in a nutshell why this original is better than the 1997 remake with Christina Ricci (though I do love that version still). The way Hayley Mills delivers lines like that (another fave is the way she tells Kelso early on, “My cat came home last night wearing a wrist watch,” “Wearing a wrist watch?” “Yeh.”) is just pricelessly deadpan. I’m running out of old movies of hers to watch for the first time now, and I should probably save them really, ‘cos they’re always a pleasant surprise.

At 2 hours, this Disney feature already looks a little heavy, and until she shows up – even after, to an extent – this is actually a much more serious take on what amounts to a fairly ridiculous story. During the first scene – where we see the bad guys (uber-serious heavies Neville Brand and Frank Gorshin) talking around the tied up bank teller – you’d really be forgiven for thinking what you’re watching is far from a Disney movie for kids. These aren’t the butterfingered bad guys you usually get in these things (and the remake). Later on we witness DC separate a dead duck’s head from its body. It’s all almost a little shocking, lol.

But it’s also tons of fun. Mills once again kinda-sorta attempts an American embellishment on her accent, though it’s far less conspicuous than The Truth About Spring, and is almost mirrored by Dorothy Provine, who is perfectly cast as her sister. When the two of them are together onscreen, it wouldn’t matter if the movie was 12 hours long, it’d still pass like lightning.

Quite the perfect thing to warm up a cold dark Christmas evening. It really doesn’t demand a lot of attention, too, which is exactly what I needed after 4 hours of Russian, lol.

Holy Christ. Are Disney entering the Pantomime industry? ‘Cos if you’re demented enough to show this to your children, pray to god they’re smart enough that when, after the first dire musical number, “Cinderella”, as the imposter introduces herself, says, “Hello, I’m Cinderella,” they’ll cry, “Oh no you’re not!”

What you get: The Twelve Days of Christmas – Disnified. On the first day, it’s a “magical shell of the sea”, featuring shots featuring shells from the Little Mermaid movie which we’re lucky to see a dozen times. By the time they get to the 5th day, they already have to airbrush a floating CGI “emerald” ring into the magic carpet scene from Aladdin to make the song work. Yeh. You get a clip from Sleeping Beauty, stripped of its original classic Disney soundtrack. You get a rather lengthy, relatively untouched excerpt from Belle’s Enchanted Christmas, just to remind you how good Disney DTV things can be. You get an Ariel “read-a-long” storybook thing which really should be an extra on the DVD, not part of the movie … There are a handful of older shorts I hadn’t seen before which were slightly nice I guess but really only serve to accentuate how much of a mindless hodge-podge this mess is.

Now I know, I know, it’s a stupid direct to video thing and criticism is relatively moot, I shouldn’t be wasting my time even writing about it. Who needs to know about something so irrelevant? And if I hadn’t had a bunch of reviews to rush through yesterday afternoon, I probably would’ve saved this for another year, or even begun it and actually turned a movie off part-way for the first time in donkey’s years, lol. As it is, at least I can be thankful that this is another Christmas experience I don’t have to relive again.

But there’s one last thing that does make me feel like I have to write about it, draw attention to it, because the more I think about it the more it irks me. The segment of this compilation that really made me want to sling the TV out the window and renounce Disney for life was an early excerpt from Fantasia 2000 – The Steadfast Tin Soldier – destroyed by the fact it’s again stripped of its original soundtrack by Shostakovich, the piece it was specifically animated to, for the lord’s sake, replaced by the same rotten MIDI-ish score that these cheapest of Disney DTV productions are beset by. It amazes me how many people seem to be forgiving of this in the few positive reviews I’ve read. I can take the woodenly animated Princesses, the practically dead Princes at their sides, the cardboard cut out audience, even the read-a-long storybook. But to take one of their most artistically ambitious productions of the last decade and do that to it? Seriously, Disney should be ashamed of taking people’s money for this one.

I guess I’ve changed since my last review. You can’t overlook the overwhelming darkness of this movie with the usual, cynical, “oh, they so totally Disnified it,” comment on the ending. This is probably the darkest children’s movie ever made, referring so frequently as it does to the very bowels of hell, sins of the flesh, ugliness, blood and fire, all to the almost Omen-esque tones of Alan Menken’s score, one of his very best, and Stephen Schwartz’ irresistible lyrics. Even the lightest song referred to below, “Guy Like You,” contains an image of hanging marionettes. It’s thick with the grisliest aspects of humanity and if all Disney needed to do to justify all this was let Esmerelda live, then so be it as far as I’m concerned now.

December 27th, 2004:

This is a way better movie than a lot of Disney’s stuff that came later, but no where near as good as I originally thought. It does have scene after scene of haunting music and images: from “The Bells of Notre Dame” to “Out There” to the ultimate bad guy showstopper, “Beata Maria / Hellfire”, Alan Menken’s score and Stephen Schwartz’s lyrics are a treasure, overlooked at the Oscars (not even a song nomination, it’s sacrilege). Even the standard ‘Hakuna Matata’ ish “A Guy Like You” is fantastic (how can you not love a song that begins, “Paris, the city of lovers, is glowing this evening – / True, that’s because it’s on fire, but still there’s l’amour…”)

Where Hunchback stumbles, aside from comparisons to the classic 1939 movie which is simply irreplacable, is perhaps a result of all the gloriously heavy scenes. I guess, being a Disney movie, they had to balance it with something for the kids. I actually don’t mind some of the humour, it’s not too bad sometimes, but it’s too much of a contrast, I’d rather have an all-out gothic madness fest. And of course, Esmerelda doesn’t stay dead, which bugs me a lot – and I’m somebody who didn’t mind the absurd alterations Disney made to The Little Mermaid etc. It’s not necessarily the fact she doesn’t stay dead – it’s more the fact that it looks like she’s going to, and then it looks like somebody at Disney said, “Well, we can’t have her re-animated with a kiss, that’ll be just like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and oh, everything that worked… so how can we get her back in action?” and some cleaning lady or vending machine filler passing by suggests, “She could just stand up in the background?”

However, after the disappointment of this PC gloss-job, Disney do have at least one superb emotional pay-off at the end. I never fail to cry when that little girl comes out of the crowd and the ‘camera’ pans so slowly around them as Quasimodo finally sees a glimmer of hope in the world around him.

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.

I really wasn’t too excited about this one following the less than engrossing Cars. Even though I love food, I love cooking food, I love watching people cook; it seemed like an even stranger start-point for a Pixar movie than the last one. However, for at least the first hour here, I was completely enraptured by the smoother-than-ever animation, the truly humble voicework; and when the food started being thrown around, in the gorgeously rendered digital Paris? Let’s just say this one certainly has more than its share of moments that more than match the best parts of the Toy Stories, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc.

It’s not without its flaws. I didn’t really buy the whole Remy-controlling-Linguine thing, it got a little annoying at times. And I don’t mean like, I have problems suspending my disbelief kind of way – it’s just, alongside the much more subtle, even beautiful, way the unlikely pair first communicate, it’s just that bit too farfetched by comparison. Like Cars, too, it’s certainly a little overlong, and there’s a good slog in the second half that had me squirming a little for something to happen.

But then there’s all the good. I loved the vertically challenged head chef – everytime he thought he’d seen a rat he totally reminded me of Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther movies, and a quick Google search tells me I’m not alone in noticing this. Michael Giacchino’s score is sheer perfection, way better than his work on The Incredibles which I personally wasn’t as overwhelmed by as some.

Overall, this is a step up for Pixar following Cars, that’s for sure. It’s a movie I will certainly watch more than a few times again, and I think the highest praise from me must be that I won’t be too crushed if it beats out Meet the Robinsons at next year’s Oscars for the Best Animated Feature award. I only wish there’d been more of the digital Paris. They could’ve almost just had a virtual camera roaming the streets of that model for 2 hours to Giacchino’s music and I would’ve been in heaven.