Author: mfordfeeney

Annie (2014)

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Let’s hear it for lowered expectations. After everyone, including my daughter, panned it, I couldn’t help but like this more than assumed…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Annie:

Here’s the quick version: Annie is a completely unnecessary re-imagining of a story you’ve seen a dozen different times that contains little of the characteristics of the more enjoyable tellings. It messes with the formula with varied results and ends quite badly. Still…

Annie really isn’t as bad as you’ve heard. I’d even go as far as to say it’s got enough decent direction to become a good movie someday and is halfway there.

I attribute the majority of the bad reviews and reception to two main points:

“It never should have been made.” Some people are so weary of reboots and re-imaginings that it would never have gotten a fair shake. The analogue to this thought is the beloved status of the 1982 John Huston film version. It was never likely to touch that version and to many audiences was DOA for trying.
The film goes downhill and fast; despite a strong start and competent early going, the last half-hour is awful, leaving audiences exiting the theater with the feeling they saw a worse film then they actually did.

This factor worked to my personal benefit, as I expected nothing and couldn’t help but be pleased with a film that failed to be truly terrible.

Make no mistake, Annie is not a good film. It just doesn’t really work. But it is nowhere as poor as you’ve been told.

For starters, while I truly loathe the Hollywood project to remake every single earlier film, bear in mind that the seminal 1982 film was already an adaptation of a Broadway musical, itself an adaptation of an old comic serial. So let’s not pretend this 2014 remake was somehow the nadir of originality. And the original film version is hardly without warts.

The story certainly deserves an update, although I disagree that a modern setting is required for modern audiences. It was always a period piece. But if they can create modern-day versions of every other stage production, I don’t know if it’s for me to be critical of a desire to reset the tale in a new time. For the most part, the move to 2014 works.

I generally don’t take notes when watching a film for the first time, believing that I’m not devoting my full attention to the picture. I departed from form on this occasion simply because I fully expected the picture to stink. Shame on me for pre-judging. I’d like to point out, however, that the majority of my comments were positive and I ended up with a favorable review of the picture, so I feel that I made up for my initial read by being particularly attentive.

Love the rhythmic opening – signals that you’re in for a better movie than you’re likely to get.
Mixing in the tunes almost like an overture
The whole picture has good musical and rhythmic flourishes, which is entirely appropriate.
But auto-tune, ugh…
What on Earth is going on with this thing?
Miss Hannigan gets a backstory? She doesn’t need a backstory. Oh, she’s a failed star who was in a band before they broke? C&C Music Factory? Really? Who’s going to explain to 2014 youth who that is?
Despite my utter dislike of Beasts of the Southern Wild, I like young actress Quvenzhané Wallis – she’s charming and perfect for this role.
“Maybe” was and is the best song in the whole play. Thankfully they didn’t mess with it too much here.
Kid is cute enough, but she has no voice at all. She sings ok, but there’s absolutely no projection. Maybe it would be ok to have thin voices, but not since they have amped up all the backing music. I actually don’t mind the updating of the songs, honestly. But it just makes the singing seem even more amateurish by comparison.
When you make a film out of a Broadway show it should seem more epic, not less. There are only 5 kids and it’s a foster home, not an orphanage.
I like the action during “It’s A Hard Knock Life”.
I just don’t know why they feel like they need to hit every song with a backbeat, no matter how inappropriate – we get it – you’re hip.
Fantastic imagery during “Tomorrow” – she sees happy families everywhere, even when it’s just workers carrying supplies. Really imaginative and well executed.
I really like the narrative update, making the meet cute of Annie and the Daddy Warbucks character (reimagined as a mobile phone magnate named Will Stacks for some reason) a random event and providing a plausible reason for him to get involved in her life. Works better than the original story, actually…
So many extraneous characters…
“I Think I’m Going to Like it Here” – first song totally off-book – big mistake
Man, every Sony movie looks like a glossly, brightly-lit commercial. They could have spliced in scenes from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and you’d never have noticed. I’m not sure they didn’t…
Cameron Diaz is so miscast. I can’t believe they let her sing…
Wow – they even rewrote the song (“Little Girls”) – not that I liked the original, but this whole updating of the character and backstory is so absurd. Ms. Hannigan doesn’t need a backstory…
Of course Jamie Foxx gets a song, which is fair enough, since he’s arguably the only person in the main cast who can sing. I don’t care for his singing, but he certainly knows how.
I know Daddy Warbucks had “NYC”, which was admittedly a pretty crap song, but this new New York tune is really dreadful.
Sandy the dog is cute…
How did they not have enough time to use all of the original showtunes, but enough time for a bunch of “originals”. Why would you adapt a massive hit and then play so loose with the source material? It would have been easier and cheaper to have just made this as an original film…
Why does there have to have to be an additional plot – she can’t read? That’s like the 10th plotline going on here…
Now Cannavale is going to try Easy Street? You’re out of your depth, son…wait, Diaz is back singing again – he looks and sounds better already…
Rooster is my favorite character in the whole story – and they cut him…
Diaz gets a second song? Or is this the third? C’mon folks, stop writing new songs…
Man, the wheels came off of this fast. I was mostly enjoying it, due the power of low expectations. But this is going downhill fast…
The last tune is like the first tune from the musical they’ve done in like a half an hour. Annnnndddd, they’re rewriting it, too…
Rose Byrne’s voice is a bit thin, too…
Umm, they forgot to kill off Annie’s parents. Hello? You’re giving up on your parents there, kid. Remember them, they’re your raison d’être? Every other version of the story made sure that it was known that her parents died some way or another so it wouldn’t be weird that she’s willing to be adopted after protesting for the entire story…
Mercifully, it’s run out of film before they got themselves into even more trouble.
How’d they go so wrong? Here’s a clue: there were eight producers of this film. Not executive producers – producers. Eight…

After re-reading those notes, I’m beginning to doubt my opening words about how poor this film wasn’t. See? You have to take time to reflect on the whole picture, not just how a film ends. Many good films have weak third acts. This isn’t a good film, but the theory still holds…

No, it’s not as good as the play. No, it’s not as good as the 1982 film. No, it’s not even as good as the 1999 made for tv film. But it does try some new things by updating the story, a few of which even work. Faint praise, maybe, but have you seen any of the other reviews? Trust me, I’m doing Annie a solid…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: (12 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” url=”http://www.annie-movie.com/site/homepage” name=”Annie” description=”A Broadway classic that has delighted audiences for generations comes to the big screen with a new, contemporary vision in Columbia Pictures’ comedy, Annie. Director/Producer/Screenwriter Will Gluck teams with producers James Lassiter,Will Gluck, Jada Pinkett Smith & Will Smith, Caleeb Pinkett, Shawn “JAY Z” Carter, Laurence “Jay” Brown, Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith with a modern telling that captures the magic of the classic characters and original show that won seven Tony Awards. Celia Costas and Alicia Emmrich serve as Executive Producers. The screenplay is by Will Gluck and Aline Brosh McKenna, based on the musical stage play “Annie,” book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and on “Little Orphan Annie,” © and ® Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Academy Award® nominee Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) stars as Annie, a young, happy foster kid who’s also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they’d be back for her someday, it’s been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz). But everything’s about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) – advised by his brilliant VP, Grace (Rose Byrne) and his shrewd and scheming campaign advisor, Guy (Bobby Cannavale) – makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Stacks believes he’s her guardian angel, but Annie’s self-assured nature and bright, sun-will-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life just might mean it’s the other way around.” director=”Will Gluck” producer=”Quvenzhané Wallis” ]

Main Cast	Quvenzhané Wallis Annie, Cameron Diaz Hannigan, Jamie Foxx Will Stacks, Rose Byrne Grace
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 19 Dec 2014 UTC
Director	Will Gluck
Genres	Comedy, Drama, Family, Musical
Plot	A foster kid, who lives with her mean foster mom, sees her life change when business tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in.
Poster
Runtime	118
Tagline	It’s a Hard Knock Life
Writers	Will Gluck (screenplay) and, Aline Brosh McKenna (screenplay) …
Year	2014

April 27, 2015

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Not technically a remake of Pretty In Pink, it nevertheless sort of is. But not as good. Or good at all, really. Guess you had to be there.

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Some Kind of Wonderful:

Definitely a case of a film that, not having seen it after all these years, I probably should have just continued to not watch it. Because I find it hard to be truly fair with Some Kind of Wonderful. I know lots of people love the movie, and it was fairly well received by critics at the time, with some suggesting it was an improvement on Pretty In Pink. But I just don’t see it.

Would it be petty and simplistic to say that the biggest issue I have with Some Kind of Wonderful is that it does not feature the fantastic Gerry Coffin/Carole King song of the same name? Not totally serious (not totally joking either)…

No, the real problem is the pacing and execution of the narrative. The whole film seems like a Reader’s Digest condensed book, as though someone took a better, nuanced film and severely edited it for TV run-time. It’s just in such a rush. I know John Hughes wrote astonishingly quickly, a product of his start in advertising and then magazine publication, and maybe those roots inform this picture more than anything. Featuring the same director, Howard Deutch, writer (Hughes) and some of the same production team, it was released only a year (almost to the day – actually only 364 days) after Pretty In Pink. Maybe it really is that advertising instinct of rushing a product to market.

The anecdotal / apocryphal line on this film is that Hughes was forced into an ending he didn’t want for Pretty In Pink due to test audience reactions and studio pressure, so he made Some Kind of Wonderful to get the ending he wanted. He simply swapped the genders in the love triangle and made sure it was the two kids from the wrong side of the tracks who got together this time. (Maybe it should have been called Pretty In Pink 2: Duckie’s Revenge…)

I have no idea if this story is true. It feels true, but there are many stories that seem too perfect not to be true but are nevertheless not borne out by the facts. (e.g., the prevailing belief that Big Trouble In Little China was originally written as the planned sequel to Buckaroo Banzai but was re-purposed into a new story when Banzai flopped. It seems true, it feels true – they share a main filmmaker, the timing makes sense – but it’s simply not so.)

If this is indeed the correct information on the provenance of Some Kind of Wonderful, it may help explain why Molly Ringwald took a pass on essentially making the same film twice. What seems irrefutable is that Ringwald turning down this film ended both her collaboration and friendship with Hughes, who was certainly known to hold a grudge. It’s really a shame they fell out, as their partnership produced three classic films, and any reasonable person can understand why an actor would want to move on to avoid being typecast.

Here are a few of the reasons I found Some Kind of Wonderful so unsatisfying:

The actors are far too old. Sure, this is true of many if not all teen movies, but Eric Stoltz was 25-26 at time of filming. C’mon…
It’s simply not believable that anyone would choose Amanda (Lea Thompson) over Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) for any part of the story. I’m not talking about the actresses themselves (well, maybe a little) but their characters. The whole plot of Keith (Stoltz) being obsessed with Amanda makes perfect sense – until they meet. At that point the complete lack of chemistry or even coordinated conversation should have been a deal-breaker. What makes it worse is that the two have most twisted interactions once they actually have their date. Which leads me to:

THE DATE. I put it in caps because it clearly is this enormous momentous event in the picture. This is what I’m talking about with the sprinters pace of the picture; every agent of change in the picture occurs before the big date. It’s like they are dealing with the consequences of an action before the action itself. The second these two characters are even contemplating going out on a date everyone turns the volume up to 11. We never really get to see Watts & Keith’s friendship. It’s not the slow burner of a friendship that gains a new aspect. They know each other – not even really well, and then she’s grilling him about this other girl. Really within the first conversation between these two friends where Keith asks Watts about Amanda the dynamic changes. Instead of the feeling that maybe Watts is beginning to see something else in her friend, it comes off as a knee-jerk jealous reaction, as though she is only interested in Keith once he’s attracted to someone else. And I don’t think that’s what the character’s arc is meant to be.

Since Hughes is such a great writer, I’m quite sure this is supposed to indicate the intricacies of personal relationships and the subtlety of those interactions. But it doesn’t. Some Kind of Wonderful feels like a typical teen movie in this and only this respect; everything leads to the big event (usually a dance or party).
The internal logic of the characters and the narrative simply don’t make sense. I still don’t understand Keith’s actions or what the whole money subplot is about. I don’t get why he’s spending to put on a show for Amanda, I don’t get why he still wants to go out with her if he thinks it’s all a set-up, or if he does why he then acts the way he does. I don’t understand what she’s after or why they come together only when they’re being jerks to each other. I don’t get why Watts wants to tag along and I don’t get anything about how this thing ends. The ending makes every character less likable except possibly Amanda. Even Duncan seems lessened…

On the plus side of the ledger, the acting is quite good. Stoltz, Thompson and especially Masterson are excellent, though I wish they had a longer run-time to let things simmer a bit more. It was great to see Springfield, MA native John Ashton get a role that let him show that he’s more than just a hard-ass; he’s really been under-utilized over his career. Elias Koteas is a lot of fun as the tough-guy Duncan, justifying the sizable amount of screen-time for such a minor character.

The music is also quite good; it even has two separate versions of the Stones’ Miss Amanda Jones – the source of the character’s name, I presume. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. When I heard The March Violets version I actually groaned, not recognizing the original tune and thinking they’d written a theme song for the milquetoast character. But the original recording effectively anchors the pre-date montage. The opening credits sequence works very well, too.

Despite all of the above objections, I can’t be too hard on Some Kind of Wonderful. I can recognize the bones of a better movie in here, and more importantly I know enough that these things never quite play out as well after the fact. When the film was released in 1987 I’m sure it was incredibly meaningful to a lot of people – some of my friends among them – and I probably would have gotten more out of it at the time.

The really funny thing is that I actually have grown to appreciate this film more in the weeks since I watched it. As I wrote this piece and looked for images and quotes and just generally reflected more on it, I found myself re-evaluating my earlier criticism. While I still steadfastly insist that Some Kind of Wonderful is a hurried and unsubtle mess, as I’ve let the film rest in my head for a bit I’ve come to respect what they’re going for here. If you look at the film as a selection of “John Hughes” moments rather than the cohesive film that it isn’t you can find some good stuff here. That’s without re-watching it. Funny how that happens with movies sometimes; they take on additional value or meaning if you leave yourself time to let them settle in your mind. Of course, I’d argue that if the filmmakers had taken that same advice about leaving room to let things slowly germinate, I wouldn’t have had to deal with such a mixed bag in the first place…