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.

I’d totally forgotten how fantastic this movie was – I thought it was all about Jessie and the “When She Loved Me” sequence for me, but everything that surrounds those (I have to say) highlights is more frenetic, hysterical (“It’s the chicken man!” “Look, Barbie – a big ugly man doll!” lol), and, even on an umpteenth viewing, still shockingly more poignant than I ever expect.

But like I said, this movie kind of needs go no further for me than the character of Jessie – there are little quirks here like the kinda-half-dance she does on the turntable after she gets the hang of the motion, the pulling-her-hat-down-over-her head thing, that just touch me somewhere that an animated doll in all reason shouldn’t be able to touch, lol – and the whole “When She Loved Me” sequence, Emily growing, the horses turning to nail polish, that is one of the most beautiful, crushing, painfully truthful 3 minutes Pixar have ever produced … I think maybe it got me even more today because it’s been a long time not only since I watched the movie but even longer since I watched it alone, and it’s one of those sequences, you just wanna be alone, curled up in the dark, crying to that song. I do, anyway. But there’s always the thrilling climax and all the other wonderful stuff I’m too lazy to mention if that isn’t your thing This is just a beautiful movie that takes my breath away every time.

This is one of those movies that is just so engrained on me I find it impossible to write a real review of it, but my site would feel kind of empty without it, and I did just watch it for the first time in a long time (I tend to watch the sequel more, lol, trust me I’m slapping my wrists as I type …). Actually, I don’t know the whole movie here by heart as much as I thought I would – sure there’s no surprises anymore, but it’s the music that’s engrained on me more than anything else. I had the soundtrack on cassette, probably on its first release … it was practically glued into my walkman and may have been one of the few recordings I ever actually “wore out” by listening to so much (I definitely know I cut up the liner notes to cover my dormitory wall in pics of Ariel at the height of my crush on her, lol). I have memories, too, that instantly make me blush feverishly, of walking around school singing along to it out loud, lol.

Anyway, I guess that’s the kind of movie it is. It’s not one you can dissect and analyse – though I did, at college, and it’s sort of fascinating, FYI – it just gets inside you, from that first appearance of the mer-people to Alan Menken’s instrumental “Part of Your World”, the first glimpse of Ariel’s red hair bobbing up over the sunken ship bow to another version of the same theme, past the soaring song itself, the ultimate Disney “Want” song, and you’re still only 20 minutes in. You still have the reprise, Eric’s playing it on the flute on the beach, and of course, when Ariel loses her voice to wicked Ursula. There are a ton of great songs in this movie, but on this viewing I couldn’t help but focus on that one theme. This movie is really like a masterclass in how to make the most of a great theme without over using it. The runtime barely hits 80 minutes, yet that theme must occur at least 10 times throughout, always at significant moments, and it never even begins to grind.

I’d love to see this one on the big screen … I was about to say “again” there but I just realised I never did, Aladdin was my first and I didn’t see any of the re-releases till Mulan came out before Tarzan. And you know what, I guess Prince Eric isn’t quite as bad as I’ve always made him out to be … just (and I cringe to say it but I’m too tired of writing now to find a better way) very “male” ... which I guess is the point, lol.

Grrr Disney Cinemagic started dying on me while I was watching this today but I’ve seen it way too many times already so I’m still gonna post something about it. I really don’t know whether to call this a guilty pleasure or actually seriously call it a good movie – while just about everything here that isn’t Melody is flat, cheesy, ridiculous even, I really think Melody herself ranks up there with the best of the Disney Princesses – the dreaminess, the outcast quality, the look of course, the wanting in her eyes, the song – she’s one of my favourites anyway, if not my absolute favourite. I love it, mostly, anyway. At least they get the absolute worst – the sickeningly perky opening number (but I just have a major problem with Prince Eric lol) – out of the way quickly, and I could listen to “For a Moment” on a loop for the rest of my life, Tara Charandoff-Strong kicks butt. Maybe that song is the only reason I love the movie, I don’t know, it’s possible – it’s a good reason I think. The Tip and Dash song is fairly catchy too. It’s definitely one of the “surprisingly good” Disney sequels to me anyway, and I’ll watch it way too many more times yet.

I’ll have to grab this on DVD some time since the cut I saw today (on Disney’s own UK channel Cinemagic, for shame) was one of the ridiculously shortened cuts with over half an hour missing. If this includes the song “Candle on the Water” then it’s downright criminal – was this song sung in the movie, anyone? It certainly wasn’t in this cut anyway, brings new meaning to the word “butchered” if it’s supposed to be there, lol.

Anyway.

I’ve almost certainly seen this movie before, but probably before my longterm memory kicked in. That this movie’s story is so beautiful, and young Sean Marshall’s performance so brilliant, that it overcomes the deficiencies in the live-action/animation combo effects is really saying something. The songs are fantastic, instantly bring a smile and a tear to my face. And what a supporting cast with Shelley Winters and Mickey Rooney on the sidelines.

Make this one of the first movies your kids see before they become too jaded to forgive the visuals. Or just curl up with a cuddly toy and hot chocolate and be a kid yourself again for a couple of hours. Double bill it with The Iron Giant.

Addendum: Should’ve looked here first, but anyway, the movie’s page on Wikipedia contains info on the different cuts, and “Candle on the Water” was indeed cut for the shorter versions. I’ve really never gone with the idea of Disney as an Evil Empire … but this is seriously seriously wrong Make sure you get the right cut when you watch it … I’m gonna be getting the DVD ASAP and probably giving it 5 stars ‘cos even in this wrecked form it perked my mood immeasurably.

Simple, but sweet, cute wittle doggie movie. I’d rather watch The Three Lives of Thomasina (yeh I know that’s about a cat, but same thing :-p) or Because of Winn-Dixie, really. I see they’re remaking, I have no idea why, since it’s really not much of a story (dog’s master dies, dog sleeps on the master’s grave for 14 years).