Another big surprise here and an instant addition to my annual Christmas viewing (hmm, that list’s getting a little big there, lol :P) Two kids find a temperamental weather-making machine in the garbage at Santa’s summer home in L.A. Chaos ensues. And there’s a “boring weatherman”, kinda reminded me of bad guy Vince from “Alex Mack”, trying to find the origin of the unexpected snow storm they cause to get off the last day of school.

This is just so much fun all the way. Hallee Hirsh can pull a sorry face like I don’t know what, makes me cry instantly when she realises she’s “ruined Christmas” etc. It’s just a great Christmas movie, I don’t know what else to say.

Ah, I thought this was gonna be the better-known 1998 Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie so, nice surprise, uh, kinda … Basically this is my third Christmas movie of the month and I really hope that ends the streak of disappointments, lol … I’m glad I got them out of the way first, I guess. This is just another Christmas TV movie by the numbers. It has its moments, it has Jack Palance … Ann Jillian is quite infectiously impish as the romantic interest. But nothing special.

It’s actually perilously close to a, “Dammit, man, you’re a doctor!” moment towards the end and when the doctor in question is the guy who brought the plane down in Airplane!, well, it’s harder to keep a straight face than it ever has been in TV melodrama. I kept waiting for the screen to dissolve and go into a flashback, lol. I think perhaps it might’ve been better if this had been the Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie afterall …

“What’s the secret of time travel doing on Fry’s ass?!”
“It was bound to be somewhere ...”

Sometimes it’s surprising how pleased you find yourself to see something again, and this was certainly such a case for me. This straight-to-DVD feature is absolutely a fans-only affair, right from the opening almost entirely dedicated to gags on the whole “cancelled” situation. I don’t think there was a second here I wasn’t either laughing out loud or just beaming with some kind of nostalgia.

There really isn’t a lot for me to say that won’t be either preaching to those who are already gonna buy it anyway or plain make me sound dumb since I’m not a massive Futurama fan to begin with. It still bears the hallmarks and flaws of other animated TV-to-movie switchers, though it mostly avoids feeling too much like 4 episodes strung together and certainly has more fun with the time travel thing than 2005’s Family Guy movie. I laughed a lot more than expected (“I thought you were happy! Your tail was wagging!”), and honestly, the twist at the end is one of the most surprisingly moving things I’ve seen in a movie this year – in the context of Futurama, it’s up there with the last episode, that stuff with the flute, I forget the details except how beautiful I found it at the time. It really got me so much I was almost inclined to give this 5 stars. It’s definitely close for me. There’s even a massive festive element in the second half – making me kinda wish I’d saved this for my Christmas viewing, hehe … but maybe I’ll watch it again that soon anyway

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.

My first instinct is to not bother saying the first thing that comes into my head about this one – a fake reality show, are you kidding me? Like as if I was expecting some kind of scathing satire on modern mass media culture from the Olsen Twins. Then I realised, no, the criticism still kind of stands. No, of course I don’t expect high art from the Olsen Twins, I’m not dumb. But y’know, considering reality shows are the ultimate fakery to begin with, I don’t care who is involved, a movie that is basically nothing more than a 90 minute fake reality show is still a monumentally insulting waste of time and resources – behind the camera, in front of the camera, and in front of the TV screen. I’d say, oh well, the twins are cute and the soundtrack’s pretty good, but they don’t begin to make up for the awfulness here. Do yourself a big favour and get Series 7 – The Contenders instead. It’s not perfect, but at least it tries.

Addendum: I wrote this before the movie finished, twasn’t particularly hard to see where it was going. But I just wanted to mention the actress Sera Bastian, who wasn’t at all bad compared to everyone else in the abominable display.

I really want to say this movie rocks, because the show itself has so many scenes that inspire that sentiment, as does the movie. But overall, this movie is not enough. I remembered it as being just as much a letdown, but I was surprised this morning watching the DVD by how many times I literally laughed out loud. The initial scene where the girls destroy Townsville is wonderfully extreme, disaster piling upon disaster like a Pink Panther movie or something. And the idea of doing a prequel to the series as the main story rather than a few episodes strung together to length as so often happens with this kind of thing is interesting. What’s bizarre is that Craig McCracken chooses to cover the actual physical creation of the Powerpuff Girls so quickly, in a short, but effective, title sequence. This could easily have been extended to up to 10 minutes longer.

But, at least it’s as good as the series which is saying a lot. I can’t quite imagine seeing it on the big-screen, though. It still looks like a TV animation – or even, a web-based Flash animation, which I’m sure can’t be far from the truth. Not that I’d like it any other way, because the solid outlines are part of the whole style of The Powerpuff Girls. It just feels like it’s lacking something when presented as a feature length movie.

The DVD is merely okay – one I’m glad I only rented and didn’t buy when I saw it a few months ago. There are cast interviews (literally, newly created animations of Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Mojo Jojo, the Mayor… and, if you let the Mayor interview run on, a cut extra, which is slightly funny), and a very short documentary which I appreciated since you get to see Tara Strong and the other voice cast in front of the microphone doing the voices. I love this on any animation DVD, but here, where the voices sound so much like they must be enhanced, pitch-shifted or whatever, it’s particularly interesting (there’s no enhancement, it seems). That’s all you get though. Average DVD for a technically average movie… but if you’re a Powerpuff Fan, it’s all must-have.

I know, it’s hardly the right time to be watching this movie but I’ve been intending to watch it since the beginning of December. It’s one of my favourite Christmas movies, I had it lined up to watch, it was even on TV, but I never got round to watching it until now. Really all I wanted to do was see if the reason I cried last time I watched it was because I was drunk (more likely than ever at Christmas) or if it’s actually a crying movie. The answer – it’s actually a crying movie.

I don’t know if I’m right in saying this because I have odd misconceptions about the 80s and I often rush into saying things like, “No good movies were made in the 80s!” then I realise that loads were… but this movie really seems ahead of its time to me, even the way the Paramount logo sweeps out of view as Danny Elfman’s brilliant title theme plays.

This is another movie like You’ve Got Mail for me – it does everything ‘wrong’ that I hate, yet here and only here, I love it. Bill Murray’s yelling, screaming, speaking to himself while walking down the street… it all just works. I think it’s down to the supporting actors – Carol Kane and others as the 3 ghosts, but Carol Kane in particular, there’s something devilishly thrilling about her kicking and punching and pinching Bill Murray for the duration of her little segment. Then there’s the brother with the perfect life, the threatening new employee with the perfect behaviour (hand on the shoulder, shake so patronisingly), Murray’s secretary and her poor family, dressing the little mute kid up like a Christmas tree, and that little mute kid, the Tiny Tim of this retelling, the reason I cry, his delivery of “God Bless Us Everyone” is perfect, and enhanced by the mother’s reaction. And of course, the beautifully wide-eyed Karen Allen as the ex-girlfriend… she is incredibly cast here, I desperately need to catch up on her other work because she was more beautiful than ever here.

There’s little to say about comedies except all I can say, this is one of the best Christmas comedies there is, up there with Bad Santa and Elf, and I think before those last two appeared last year, Scrooged was probably about all we had.