Annie (1982)

Genre

Comedy | Drama | Musical

Director

John Huston

Country

USA

Cast

Aileen Quinn, Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters, Ann Reinking, Edward Herrmann, Geoffrey Holder, Roger Minami, Toni Ann Gisondi, Rosanne Sorrentino, Lara Berk, April Lerman, Robin Ignico, Lucie Stewart, Lois de Banzie, Peter Marshall, Irving Metzman, I. M. Hobson, Colleen Zenk Pinter, Lu Leonard, Victor Griffin, Jerome Collamore, Jon Richards

Storyline

Annie (Aileen Quinn) is a fiery young orphan girl who lives in a miserable orphanage run by the tyrannical Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett). Her seemingly hopeless situation will change when she is selected to spend a short time at the residence of billionaire industrialist Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney).

Opinion

I didn't grew up watching Annie, and I've never seen the popular Broadway play. This film has been my very first approach to this world, and if the stage play is anything like this film, I really don't get what made the musical a classic. 

Annie does have few good musical numbers, but isn't much engaging, lacks comedy, and feels rather wooden.

The main problem here is the plot. Besides the fact that the course of events is very predictable, it is when the story turns into a search for Annie's real parents followed by a kidnapping that the film really hits the bottom.

The characters look fake and cartoonish, and some of them are almost pointless. I don't know what was Punjab's role in the comic strip, but he hasn't any reason to be in this film.

Also there are several things in the film that, in my opinion, are not very appropriate for a family movie. I don't get why Miss Hannigan is transformed into an alcoholic vamp - I read she wasn't like that in Broadway's version, and orphans and maids showing their underwear during musical numbers may please fathers, and perverts but are not family material.

As for the acting, Aileen Quinn is dreadful to watch, her reactions seem prompted by someone out of the camera range, and she doesn't look like an orphan of the 1930's, but like a sitcom orphan. Albert Finney is completely wasted in this film. Ann Reinking seems too cold, and you can't feel the maternal warmth she is supposed to deliver. Carol Burnett is a huge disappointment. 

Sophie's Choice (1982)

Genre

Drama | Romance

Director

Alan J. Pakula

Country

United States

Cast
Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin, Stephen D. Newman, Greta Turken, Josh Mostel, Marcell Rosenblatt, Moishe Rosenfeld, Robin Bartlett, John Rothman, Katharina Thalbach, Nedim Prohic, Jennifer Lawn, Adrian Kalitka

Plot
In 1947, Stingo (Peter MacNicol), a young aspiring writer from Virginia, heads to New York to seek his fortune.

Moved into a quirky Brooklyn house, Stingo's quiet and active life as a writer is disturbed by the turbulent relationship of other two tenants of the house: Sophie Zawistowska (Meryl Streep), a Polish refugee with a terrible past, and Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline), an intellectual jew, brilliant and sophisticated but moody, obsessed with the Holocaust and the subsequent death of six million Jews.

Opinion
Pakula, director and writer, manages to bring to the screen a very intense story. The most dramatic and complex character is definitely Sophie's. The flashbacks about what happened to Sophie during the war and her internment in the Auschwitz concentration camp, leads us to understand the behavior of the woman and her relationship with Nathan and Stingo. The scene in which we discover the facts behind Sophie's "choice" is a wrenching one. 

Kevin Kline - which makes his debut in this film - and Peter MacNicol are outstanding; Meryl Streep's Academy Award for Best Actress is totally deserved.

Quotes
Don't you see? We are dying. I longed desperately to escape, to pack my bags and flee, but I did not.

Rating
8.2/10