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Little Orphan Annie (1932)
I have waited 9 YEARS to see this! My favorite Annie film now!
I have waited 9 YEARS to see this lost gem! And, leapin' lizards!, it was better than I ever could have imagined! I'm 18, as of this review, and when I was 9, I was obsessed with Little Orphan Annie. I was particularly fascinated with the original comics. Like most, I fell in love with Annie through the 1982 musical film, and the film "Annie: A Royal Adventure", which was very close to the comics. Since then I have gotten tired of the musical version though. You say Annie, and people only think of the musical. So, as a kid, I was very interested in the Annie before the musical. There were two Annie films made before the 1982 version. This 1932 film, and a 1939 film, which I still have yet to find any footage of. Though, I doubt the 1939 version will top this one. I found a Amazon listing for this film on DVD a few weeks ago, and I couldn't believe it. When it finally came, I was trying not to get my hopes up, because I couldn't believe that someone actually found a copy of this lost film after all these years, but it was it! I was so happy. I just LOVED it!
Daddy Warbucks is a poor man, who is taking a trip across the world to dig and find his fortune, while Annie says home with Sandy. On the way home, she finds a little boy crying for his grandmother, who has died. He is scared of going to the orphanage, so it's up to Annie to show him that being a "little orphan" isn't so bad. She takes the boy, Mickey, to the orphanage, but when it is revealed that she is home alone, she is put into the orphanage too, of course, she doesn't go with out a fight first. Little Mickey eventually gets adopted by an older, and very wealthy woman, who learns to adore him. I won't go into anymore of the plot, because I don't want to spoil it, but it is such a sweet, funny, well written, and excitingly simple little film. It's not overly glamorous and un-realistically bubble gum happy, but it is very warm and fun. Mitzi Green is perfect! She looks and acts exactly like her comic strip counterpart, she has that perky 30's way of acting, but it is endearing and funny. And as for Mickey, they couldn't have found a more precious, and heart-wrenching little boy to play him. This is really more so the story of "Little Orphan Mickey", but that's not a bad thing, because you will feel for him every minute of the film. Though, It is too bad Daddy Warbucks wasn't more of a main character, because I love Edgar Kennedy (of The Little Rascals). This may be the best, or at least, my favorite "Annie" film, and I'm hoping that more people will realize that Annie is more than just the tired and overdone musical.
I'm so happy I can put the 9 years of wondering what this film is like to a rest. I loved this film, and it deserves all the love and acknowledgement it can get, as do the original comics that started it all.
Benji (1974)
Warm, smart, charming, simple, children and animals in realistic peril, and a loveable mutt.
I'm 18 as of this review. I saw Benji back in 2013, when I was 8 years old. My 3rd grade teacher had an old paperback novelization of the movie in her classroom and it had a bunch of b&w stills from the movie inside it. It was specifically the cover photo on the book and the picture of the Paul and Cindy being kidnapped that really interested little me so much, that that same day, me and my mother went out and bought the DVD that included 4 of the Benji movies on it.
I remember watching it for the first time and how exciting and powerful everything was. There is a scene that will stay with me, where a dog gets kicked really hard, eight year old me had to fight back tears, because my brother was in the room:), but it was a thrilling experience and actually made an IMPACT, for growing, and simply just spending time, in a small and warm little town, living life through the eyes and heart of a dog. For whatever reason, so many young Americans today simply just can't enjoy movies like this. There always has to be a point, to every single scene. They cannot just live in the moment of the scene, and walk with Benji, encountering all the colorfully normal people around him. It is very nice.
I will never forget the huge Benji phase I went through from ages 8-11. Thrift stores and found vintage books and novelizations, VHS tapes, DVDs, View-Masters, all kinds of things. This film, "For the Love of Benji" and "Benji the Hunted" were great! I also watched the Christmas special quite a bit. One of the reasons I love those first two so much though, is because of the beautiful music and songs. I mean, I must have listened to "I Feel Love" and "Sunshine Smiles" a million times when I was younger.
Children like action and scary things, I sure did, and I think they should see movies like this at early ages, to help them grow, instead of being sheltered like these other reviewers seem to let on. Also, it can teach them to open their eyes and be more perceptive, to even the most normal seeming things around us.
To illustrate the lasting appeal of these "dog" movies, when I was 10, I was sent to a place called Youth Villages for kids with unstable homes, and I spent 6 months living with about 15 other boys, ages 7-13. There, I brought a lot of my own movies from home to watch, and the Benji VHS tapes were amongst them. Every single one of those boys sat and watched this movie from 1974, completely invested in the lives of the characters and the story. I remember thinking how cool that was, that they were invested. We watched all the Benji movies, and they were enjoyed. Very talented, and well trained dogs, larger than life crime plots, peril, chase scenes, humor, likable human characters, and an underlying tone of charm and simplicity; I can't say half of those things about most newer kids movies.
Annie: A Royal Adventure! (1995)
More like the original comics, rather than the musical, and I'm glad.
With all the different screen versions of Annie the musical, it's nice that there is a film that feels like the forgotten comic series that started it all. There were two Little Orphan Annie films in the 40s that I have been dying to see since I was 9. I'm 18, as of this review. Other than those lost films, the other Annie films have been remakes of the tired musical version. I love the 1982 version for various sentimental reasons, and even the Kathy Bates one, but this one is really something new, and unlike the others. I first saw this when I was 7, back in 2012, in a double pack with the 1982 Annie, and I have many fond memories of watching it quite a bit as a kid. For one, the beautiful, amazing Joan Collins is in here, and she is clearly having fun as the villain, and just as glamorous as ever. Also, I think the actress playing Annie is really spunky and likable. I won't go into the plot other than Annie takes a trip to the U. K. and helps solve a crime. That plot sounds exactly like one of the comics, right? I used to collect Little Orphan Annie things when I was 9-12, so I read a lot of the original comics, and listened to some of the radio plays. I'm sure most people nowadays have never heard of the original Little Orphan Annie stories, and they only know of Annie the musical, so that is why they are put off by this film, seeing as there is only one musical number, but watching this will give you an idea of what Annie was like in the beginning, mixed with just a little bit of the musical.
A Little Princess (1995)
Misses the point entirely! "A Little Princess" for dummies!
I really do not like this movie, even as a kid I never wanted to revisit this version. Let me explain, I'm 18 as of writing this, I'm a boy, but my whole life I have loved classic stories, be that classic children's literature or classic fairy tales, whatever, I love beautiful and smart stories. And a majority of my absolute favorites involve young girls as the protagonists. My two favorite stories ever to exist are Lewis Carroll's Alice stories and L. Frank Baum's Oz stories. I also LOVE The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Pollyanna, Heidi, Oliver Twist, Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan etc. I mean those stories I named are part of me, my personality, my life, and I have seen every surviving film version of them, most as a kid.
It annoys the hell out of me that so many people today think that this is what A Little Princess is. This takes all of the intelligence, reality, and complex beauty from the book and finds a way to dumb it down for little American girls of the 90s. It is so sickly sweet, and most of these superficial messages can be found in any movie about little girls standing up and being strong from the 90s. The book was so nuanced and didn't shy away from showing kids the fact that death and tragedy happen, this one shies away from a lot of the bitter sweetness of the book, and just goes full on sugary kids movie mode. The whole point of Sara's character is that despite the fact that her father dies, and people mistreat her, she is always a lady, and carries her pain with grace and compassion to others. This movie just says things like "all girls are princesses" simply just because they are girls and whether or not they practice being graceful and compassionate is irrelevant. The Secret Garden film, that came out a year before this one, did such a better job at telling a story like this, and keeping the intelligence, sadness and beauty of what the story is about.
Even though I mainly dislike this version for it's stupid messages, I just don't think its a very well made movie. It does look very beautiful, but that's never enough to make a movie great, if good. Another problem I have is the really bad child acting. I blame the filmmakers for hiring children who cannot act, and these girls were not selling any of it at all. Maybe the little girl who played Ermengarde, she did capture the essence of her original character the most, but she wasn't even given a whole lot to do here. I think I can back this up by saying that the Shirley Temple version, the version this film is most inspired by, is still a pretty good movie, despite being equally different from the book, cutting out many characters and keeping Capt. Crew alive at the end. At least two of the main focus characters, Sara and Becky, were honest and believable child actors, which for the 30's style of acting, says something. It also had much better writing, even with the songs and subplots.
Please watch the BBC Amelia Shankley version instead. It is the most faithful version to the original novel, but, whereas good adaptation doesn't always mean good film, in this case miniseries, this version is freaking amazing and has such rich and real characters, not the copy and paste Hollywood characters in this version. I really love the BBC one and urge anyone who loves these stories to see it.
A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017)
Emotion is sacrificed for stupid jokes, and terrible acting.
When this series was first announced, I was 9. I was a huge fan of the 2004 film version, I used to rent it from Blockbuster all the time. I also had all the books as a kid, and starting in 3rd grade, I began to read through them, so far up to The Penultimate Peril. I remember in 2014, watching the teaser for the Netflix series on YouTube, and being ridiculously excited. All the references, the creepy, grimy feel, I wish we got more of that edge in the final product. I remember watching every teaser, looking at any promotional picture, or poster, over and over and over again. When the series finally premiered, I loved the hell out of it! All the waiting was over and I watched it all. I didn't develop any critiques of the show, until I was around 16, after all three seasons were produced, and I got most of the way through the book series. I was just as hyped for the second season, if not more so than I was for the first, and at the exact moment the third season dropped, I watched through all 6hrs of it in that one night. So I was definitely invested to the ASOUE show's world and characters. But now, as I'm more able to look back, this show relies way too much on comedy, often smug and lazy TGIF style comedy, instead on focusing the character's emotions in any real way.
I get it, the whole tone of this universe is a little tongue in cheek, and they were definitely going for that in the show, but the show got way to carried away with it. It suffers from what a ton of shows nowadays suffer from, too much damn humor, in places were it's emotionaly inappropriate. People have criticized Jim Carrey's portrayal as Olaf for being too jokey and silly, but that is complete nonsense, when you tally up just how many inappropriately timed and lazy jokes Neil Patrick Harris spews out. Jim Carrey is way more sinister and threatening, compared to Neil Patrick Harris. The films' humor is also timed much better, Carrey is funny and loud when it's appropriate, then one hell of a demented threat when he is supposed to be. Little babyfaced Neil Patrick Harris is not sinister or funny (mostly due to writing), and when he does get a little sinister, it has not nearly as imposing or deadly as wiled-eyed Carrey pulled off, and it is usually overpowered by some dumbass joke either before or after he tries to be serious.
The Baudelaire children here, good god! These should be the most sympathetic people in the story, but they are way too monotone, smug and snippy with their dialogue, it just makes me not care as much about what happens to them. They come off less like smart, sensible children, and more like smartass know-it-all pricks. They are not good actors, and aside from the very unnatural dialogue, the line reads are just terrible. There has to be some realism here, if I'm supposed to care about these characters when they are put in threatening situations. In the film (made by the same man who did the series), Violet and Klaus really seemed to mourn over loosing their parents. They seemed so shattered, the tone was so emotionally bleak and real, but here they follow it up immediately with a dumb, in your face joke from Mr. Poe, and later Mr. Poe's wife and on and on, without any subtlety at all. Another example of the bad storytelling is when, in the film version, after Olaf slaps Klaus, Klaus runs upstairs, Violet comes and sits next to him on the bed and tries to comfort him. And then they build a tent together, while Lemony wistfully tells us the meaning of a sanctuary. It's a very well written, small scene, but its so tender and investing and far more powerful than any goofy character moments in the series. The film did such a better job at adapting the novels, and working them to fit into a "movie" medium. I felt hardly any of that warmth
between our main characters. Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes didn't convince me that they cared about each other, throughout any of the three seasons, but in a hour and a half movie, I was on their side almost instantly. Uncle Monty even felt far more developed and human in only the 15 minutes he was in the movie, as apposed to this version, I could care less when he was murdered. It's not a horrible series, and I do enjoy it, but its not nearly as emotionally thrilling, interesting, or wrenching as the 2004 film adaptation, or even the books were. They could have, and should have done better! If only they didn't take the modern comedic route, that every other show uses nowadays, and put it in all the wrong places.
The Brady Bunch: The Winner (1971)
Poor Bobby.
This is one of my favorite episodes. Bobby is my favorite Brady brother, and this episode demonstrates why he is such a fun character. It's weird that the other review on here is so against Bobby. He is going through the same thing Jan went through, living in Marcia's shadow, and feeling jealous of all of her accolades and trophies. Except that now Cindy, the youngest of all, has won an award, and now Bobby is the only one who hasn't won anything. So naturally he feels sad and jealous. You really feel bad for him, like Jan, and any kid, he just wants to feel like he has achieved a title, and the way the scenes are directed (by Robert Reed) make the drama of the situation much slower and real. One of the reasons I identify with Bobby so much is that he is always the one who has the most outlandish dream sequences, and this episode has a lot of them. The ending is very sweet, and in true Brady fashion, Mike, Carol and everyone else, try their hardest to help Bobby throughout it all. Makes me wish I was a Brady.
The Brady Bunch: Kelly's Kids (1974)
I liked it. It's very sweet, but not very Brady.
This episode opens up the world of the Bradys a bit, seeing them from the eyes of another family in the neighborhood. Ken and Kathy Kelly are really likable characters to spend 20 minutes with. Todd Lookinland (Mike Lookinland's brother) is really cute, and a really good little actor. The whole story about adoption is really sweet and warm. If you like the Brady Bunch, because of how nice the characters are, then you should enjoy this. This definitely isn't an episode about any of the Bradys, but it's not bad. Any minor Brady fan is probably aware of the backstory for this episode, it being that this was a backdoor pilot for a spinoff show, and I almost wished it happened. I mean, part of the reason most of us love the Bradys so much is because they are the brothers and sisters, mom and dad we all wanted as a kid, so it's easy for me to apply that imagination when spending 20 something minutes with the Kellys and their kids.
Benji (2018)
I feel like it just took the 1974 film, and turned it into a more silly, generic "dog" movie.
I didn't feel a rollercoaster of emotions while watching this new Benji film. This was just a sillier, needlessly updated, and generic family "DOG" movie, everything the first Benji film managed to surpass. You weren't spending a day or so in the mind, eye, or heart of a dog, but more written and forced dialogue and scenarios.
The original series creator, writer and director, Joe Camp's son, Brandon Camp directed this Benji film, and thankfully, due to that fact, this film didn't feel as disrespectful as most remakes do, but it still wasn't any improvement over the 1974 film. That's the point of a R E M A K E right? Taking a second chance at telling an original story better or with a different perspective.
There was one new minor change worth pointing out. In the 1974 film, Paul and Cindy never discussed the recent death of their mother. That could have been changed in this one, as a reason for the kids wanting a dog to love so desperately, but they didn't really do that. Now there is some story about their father's watch... and it just seemed silly, I didn't really care that much. It felt very fake, I always knew I was watching a movie, but when I watch the first two original Benji films, or Benji the Hunted, it's like I said, you are in the mind, and heart of the dog, spending a day or more of your life with him. Much realer, meaningful, and powerful.
One thing that was very irritating were the two main kids, especially Frankie, the girl. In this one the kids just say all the dumb, unnatural, force, and cringy things you would expect kids to say in a poorly written kids movie. The suspense or the high stakes just were not being felt, the sweet and subtle dog romance wasn't meaningful... and there wasn't any diversions in this version to keep from reminding me that those elements weren't here. Unlike most of the other Benji films, specials, or series, I don't see myself revisiting this anytime soon. It's not really worth it, unless you have the attention span of 5 minutes.