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The Main Characters
--Annie (Aileen Quinn) is an orphan living in an orphanage. She is a tough ten-year old but deep inside just wishes for her parents to return.
--Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett) is the woman who runs the orphanage. She hates children and has a special dislike for Annie.
--Daddy Warbucks (Albert Finney) is a billionaire who has been advised to let an orphan stay with him for a week to enhance his image. He doesn’t want Annie at first but then warms up to her.
The Setting
This is set in 1930’s New York City.
The Film (2:07:15)
Annie is a story about an orphan living in a hell under the thumb of Ms. Hannigan, the orphanage director. She has the girls scared stiff of her and makes them do chores at all times of day. Annie tries to escape once, finds a dog, but eventually is brought back. Luck comes her way when a wealthy man’s assistant stops by the orphanage to adopt a child. The goal is to make this wealthy man (Mr. Warbucks), seem a bit nicer and friendlier in the public eye. A wealthy man has an orphan in his house for a week? What a humanitarian! After initially disliking her, Warbucks starts growing fond of her, enough to even adopt her! Of course, Annie must fight feelings that her parents will return for her and must fight off Ms. Hannigan and her brother’s evil plan to masquerade as Annie’s parents to get some money from Warbucks.
Movie Review
I honestly thought I would be bored senseless by this movie. Maybe it had to do with all the little kids in the movie. My wife is the one who really wanted it. When I first put it on I was stunned it was over 2 hours long but thankfully, the movie flew by. I like musicals a lot more now than when I was younger and immature but this was really a good movie. Most of the songs were very catchy, especially It’s A Hard Knock Life and the story was actually pretty good. I found that I really liked it and although for a few parts (the dumb dog song and Carol Burnett’s song, two scenes usually cut for the TV broadcast), it didn’t drag at all. Aileen did a great job as Annie, Albert Finney was great as the tough millionaire Mr. Warbucks, Carol Burnett was hilarious as Ms. Hannigan and Ann Reiking was just superb as Grace Ferrill. Throw in Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters added nicely to the ensemble. Overall, this is a very fun and enjoyable movie to watch. This one gets about *** from me.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) My Hollywood Adventure with Aileen Quinn (12:03)
Aileen talks about getting the acting bug from her father and mother. She talks about her audition for Annie, filming her screen test for Annie with Albert Finney (which they show), and Aileen talks about how happy she was when she got the part, being the only one picked out of 8000. They show some of the press conference she had when they announced to the press she was going to be Annie. They show some archival footage of the cast and crew filming at the mansion, building the backlot, and filming at Hollywood. Of course they go over some of the musical numbers (especially, “It’s A Hard Knock Life”). She says filming took about 6 months. She talks about the New York premiere and how she traveled to many different countries for the international premieries. Aileen says her favorite song from the movie was Maybe. This definitely should have been longer with more archival footage and all.
2) Activities
---A) The Age of Annie
This is a short piece on the time that Annie lived in. It shows a clip from the movie, then asks a question about it. I like me some trivia. After answering the question you get some information on the historical era. It was informative if you were 10 years old but it was stuff most people already know.
---B) Sing Along with Annie!
This is the song from the movie with the words underneath like those old Disney sing-along videos. You can either watch it with or without vocals.
-------I) “Maybe” (2:16)
-------II) “Tomorrow” (2:27)
-------III) “It’s The Hard Knock Life” (3:42)
---C) Act Along with Annie!
Aileen talks about scenes she acted and how she had to practice them, Then, we get a chance to play Annie, with Aileen giving us a practice go at it, then we can try it ourselves. The first parentheses is the practice while the second is the one you do on your own. These were kind of annoying to be honest, with Aileen directing you how to act.
-------I) “Sandy” (2:39)/(1:44)
“Be persuasive,” sez Aileen.
-------II) “The Locket” (2:32)/(1:28)
-------III) “You Are Special” (2:19)/(1:30)
3) Musical Performance by PLAY: “It’s The Hard Knock Life” (3:19)
This is generic teenage girl band, complete with the neon clothes and strap falling off the shoulder look. This trio is very bland and I prefer the original song. This is the late 90’s pop where everyone impersonated Britney Spears. I don’t foresee me ever watching this again.
4) Trailers
The less said about these trailers the better.
---A) Daddy Day Care (1:46)
---B) Matilda (0:32)
Not for nothing, the video looked like crap.
---C) Stuart Little 2 (1:13)
---D) The Baby-Sitters Club (2:02)
---E) The Swan Princess Collection (1:31)
B) Audio/Video
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and the video is presented in Full Screen (1.33:1) format. This movie isn’t too old (1981) but it seems the video hasn’t really been remastered all that well. It is still grainy in some instances and I’ve seen better video on film much older than this. The audio does the job well for a musical.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
The special anniversary edition comes with nothing, no liner notes and no slip case. Oh well.
D) Easter Eggs
None.
Overall Review
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the movie. On the flip side, the DVD could’ve been a little better. There are very few extras, a 12 minute thing with Aileen and really that’s about it. No trailer, no commentary (one with Aileen would’ve been nice), and no making of, or even a cast retrospective. The only good things I have for this movie is that it includes the full version of the film, which is hardly seen nowadays on TV. Plus, I got this at Target on Black Friday 2007 for only $4.00. For that price you really can’t beat it, you get your money’s worth. I’d say that if you can find it for less than ten dollars its definitely worth it, if not, just wait for it to be on a cable channel and tape it. Overall, it’s a decent DVD based on the movie alone.
Overall Rating
5.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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