Annie (1982)- Page 2

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 4:56pm

"And the Punjab character was good from a little kid's 1982 point of view because he was so mysterious and he was able to practically hypnotize Annie, and when he helped out that girl and made her faint? That was really cool. "


Uh, okay...

But from an adults point of view, it didn't have anything to do with the story. It was just extra added crap.

[george95]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 4:59pm

well its impossible for me to look at this movie objectively because I fell in love with it as a 5 year old. It would be like trying to critque the Smurfs. They were fun.

[blueroses]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:00pm

Diva, wasn't Aileen Quinn AWFUL? How did she manage to nab that part?

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:01pm

Apart from a brilliant comic turn by Bernadette Peters and Tim Curry, I cannot stand this movie.
Sorry but Carol Burnett is pretty awful in it, if you guys were replacing Kathy Bates with Burnett in the Marshall TV Version, I was replacing Burnett with Dorothy Loudon in the original film and I didn't even see Loudon live. It's just THAT bad of a performance.
Eileen Quinn deserved all her Razzie nods.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:01pm

Believe me, I understand about "loving" movies from my childhood that are "crap" from an adult perspective. I loved the 1973 Bacharach musical of "Lost Horizon" when I was ten years old.

It was so brilliant, well done, moving and inspiring.

And I was ten, and I grew up, and I saw it for what it was. I still LOVE it... don't get me wrong. I'd even go as far as to say it's one of my favorite films! But it's more about reminding me of when I was TEN than it is about it being a fine cinematic achievement. I can laugh at its failure, its clumsiness, its campiness, and my own "limited, wide-eyed taste" back then. It's charming to me... but that doesn't make it GOOD.

1982 Annie sucks. Can't help saying it. There are no redeeming values or aspects. They got nothing right in this movie.

It's bad.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:08pm

Hasn't anyone slapped Eileen Quinn yet?


I'm planning on slapping Lorna next time I see her for Grease 2.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:14pm

I'm slapping Sally Kellerman for Lost Horizon.

...Then giving her a big hug for being so divinely wretched.

You're right about Aileen Quinn! I kept looking for the key stuck in her back. She was a total wind-up toy, right off a Raggedy Ann assembly line. Nothing about her was real, from her hair color to her line delivery.

And she beat out something like 750 billion little girls for the part. Go figure.

Updated On: 2/18/08 at 05:14 PM

[baddadnpa]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:30pm

It always amazed me that they removed TOMORROW from the narrative of the film and had it sung over the credits. It's like removing PEOPLE from Funny Girl or HELLO DOLLY from, well, you know.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:35pm

A dog of a movie.

Burnett tells a story of having a chin implant after shooting had wrapped. She get a call after her surgery that they need to do some retakes. She tells the director that she has a new chin.. and Houston pretty much says "who cares." So she returns to do the retakes.

Burnett says that during the Easy Street number(?) she goes into the closet to find the locket without a chin and comes out of the room WITH a chin.

I keep meaning to check ... but it would mean I have to watch this turkey again.

[mmousefan]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:39pm

if you can't truly find something positive in a film with such talented participants, maybe you're not thinking hard enough. it's so much easier to discount someone's work because it's not what you would do....sure, you're free to disagree with a LOT or even MOST choices, but the critical thinking shown in "it sucks" doesn't add to a discourse very much at all. Just sayin....

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:39pm

I disagree that there are NO redeeming values though. I find the scenes featuring Peters and Curry to be an idea of how good the film could have been with you know good direction, a good screenplay, better casting, etc.
Isn't this the version where she sings "Tomorrow" in the White House? I remember it being somewhere in the narrative.
And whoever decided that ANNIE had to have a car chase or whatever chase they have at the end?

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:42pm

What interested me about that movie is that they used two of the beautiful buildings on the campus of Monmouth University for the Warbucks mansion. Every time I pass them, I think of the film.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:42pm

The stage version has her singing at White House too, but with Roosavelt and his cabinet as opposed to his wife.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:45pm

Thanks for your input mmouse, but this is the way we chat here.

Bad,
I am SO agreeing with you. It's the purpose of that song to lift you up and carry the spirt of the show, and they just plopped it in there with no regard to story line at all.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:53pm

mmousefan,

The movie does SUCK.

I'm the customer here. I took my ass to the theatre, plunked down my cash, bought my popcorn and sat through a piece of crap.

It isn't my job to "find" something redeeming in the experience I PAID FOR. That job of "spinning" is for those who are selling the film. Not those of us who are buying it.

Just saying.

Updated On: 2/18/08 at 05:53 PM

[george95]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:55pm

mouse....dont let them intimidate you.....keep your standards high.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:58pm

If you keep your standards high, you won't like this movie.

Updated On: 2/18/08 at 05:58 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:00pm

LOL

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:02pm

"mouse....dont let them intimidate you.....keep your standards high."

As high as that of a child's?

The only people here who liked it were/are kids. The sdults don't.

Face it.

[singingwendy]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:04pm

I was in 4th grade when this movie came out...and yes I'll admit I loved it. I had the sticker book and the movie book. I saved box tops to get teh Annie doll. My mother made me a sailor dress based on the Annie pattern for Easter (which I still have and use on kids in shows I do with my students ) A group of us dressed up as "the cast of Annie" for Halloween. (I was Miss Hannigan) We would "play Annie" when we got together with friends (and it's always fun to hear a 7 year old boy yelling "I wanna be the Asp! I wanna be the Asp! at the top of his lungs across the neighborhood.... )

However, even as a 4th grader I could never understand why Annie had to climb that bridge. That scene NEVER made any sense to me....and still doesn't. It made even less sense when I got to see a stage production of the show.

For me, it might be sentimental, but it's not a great cinematic achievement.

[mmousefan]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:05pm

I have posted here a long time, just not under this handle always. I know discourse here varies. But an initial posting asking for "thoughts" does not imply unthinking comments like "it sucks" and "there is nothing good in it." If you want your opinion taken seriously, do some better writing.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:06pm

My children enjoyed the Kathy Bates TV movie but even they knew that the Carol Burnett version was bad, bad, bad. And they're 5 and 11.

[george95]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:08pm

Yeah singing wendy I agree with you....its not a cinematic masterpiece.....not sure if anybody on here suggested that it was (???) but its good just for sentimental reasons. : )

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:08pm

I don't mind "it sucks" as an opinion. I get the drift. If I need specifics I'll ask for them.

[mmousefan]

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:13pm

For the record, I was an adult when I saw it in 82, and an adult when I saw the TV version too. So watch the use of "only". If you're okay to only ask for specifics on "it sucks" and "it's bad, bad, bad" and such comments, good for you; different strokes for different folks. Please note that I didn't dismiss anyone's view, but just suggested more interesting reading comes from better constructed critiques. If your true feelings on a subject in a thread title only amount to a general "I didn't like it" no matter how it's worded, why post at all? It's not a poll. Those are found elsewhere on the site.