Movie Review - Annie

Annie (2014)

Starring Quvenzhané Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne, and Bobby Canavale

Directed by Will Gluck

The movie musical has been making a comeback in recent years and fortunately the remake of Annie doesn't seem to have caused the genre's demise quite yet despite the fact that it is one of the poorly written and acted movies of 2014.  Quite frankly, there's nothing redeeming about this film.  Will Gluck's horribly conceived direction and devastatingly inane musical numbers in this piece (which he co-wrote) are heinously bad with nary a good scene in the film.  In an age where we have an annual live-sung musical air on network television at Christmastime and successful $100 million-plus grossing theatrical musical releases on a seemingly yearly basis, it's flabbergasting to me that Gluck and his producers thought that this version of Annie would come off as anything other than a horrible joke.

Problem #1 stems from the fact that the songs in this "hip" version of Annie are so over-produced and over-digitized that there's never a moment in this film where we in the audience truly believe that these characters are singing.  Their lip synchs to auto-tuned versions of themselves make all of the actors appear to simply be going through the motions rather than actually feeling what they're singing.  This problem is painfully obvious from the get-go and doesn't get any better as the film progresses.  The lack of emotion in the musical numbers makes the whole film kind of moot -- what's the point if the songs can't carry the true heart of the story?

As for the story, the updating of Annie to the modern era isn't grating all of the time mainly because the overarching storyline is similar enough to the 1982 version (of which I barely remember so there are no childhood memories associated with it).   Here, Daddy Warbucks is now Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), a politician who sees political gain in befriending foster kid (not "orphan") Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis).  With the overall premise not changing a lot, perhaps the reason for the remake is because kids today can't relate to a film if it doesn't contain scenes with cell phones or Twitter.  Of course, mentioning Twitter reminds me of the heinous ending in which Annie, who has been kidnapped at the film's climax, is saved by fans of hers (because she's being touted as a celebrity in this current pop-obsessed culture) telling Will Stacks where she is via Twitter.  Even just typing that out has me disgusted.  Let's just call these modernization elements Problem #2.

Problem #3 is that there's not a single actor here who rises above the shlock they're forced to portray.  Jamie Foxx perhaps comes off best (a phrase I never thought I'd type), but considering he's forced to spit up food at least three times in the movie for purportedly comedic reasons, he certainly doesn't come out unscathed.  Quvenzhané Wallis continues to carry the moniker of "overrated" for me.  The young Academy Award nominee has yet to impress and her take on the title character certainly does nothing to change my mind.  Worst of the bunch, however, is Cameron Diaz whose grating and obnoxious take on the grating and obnoxious foster mom Miss Hannigan is so grating and obnoxious that I can't believe she and the director thought this interpretation would be watchable.  Granted, Hannigan is a sleazy character, but Diaz overtly ups the sex quotient and piles on the vocal screechiness so much so that her scenes are some of the worst I've seen in a movie this past year.  She manages to take two of the film's most underrated songs -- "Little Girls" and "Easy Street" (the latter of which is my favorite from the score) -- and make them unlistenable.  It doesn't help that both of these songs are shot with such awkward cuts by the director that they're not only unpleasing to the ears, but also to the eyes.

I've peppered the above review with a few "nice" words, but I can't stress enough that this version of Annie is horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  There's not a thing redeeming about it, making it truly one of the worst films of 2014.

The RyMickey Rating:  F

Movie Review - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Starring Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry

Directed by Benh Zeitlin

Although you may not have heard of the little indie flick Beasts of the Southern Wild, rest assured that this film is the hot topic amongst cinephiles in the midst of this big budget-filled summer.  The Oscar buzz is already circling this debut feature of Benh Zeitlin featuring a cast of virtual unknowns, the huge majority of which are starring in their first film.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure the praises heaped upon this at its Sundance Film Festival premiere, its Camera d'Or best first feature film award win at Cannes, and its subsequent overwhelmingly positive critical reception are warranted.

In the Louisiana bayou is a place known as "The Bathtub" -- a small island community that is nearly completely blocked off from the rest of the United States attempting to live and without the everyday necessities we deem integral to our lives.  Us folks on the dry land are too caught up in the hectic hullabaloo of our fast-paced lives and the residents of "The Bathtub" have learned to appreciate the slower pace of things.  Our glimpse into this community comes via young Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a young six year-old tomboyish girl whose mother left her at an infant and whose father (Dwight Henry), in between the bouts of heavy drinking (which is de rigueur amongst the Bathtub townies), epitomizes the meaning of tough love trying to help his daughter learn the lay of the land as he finds himself growing sicker and sicker with each passing day.

When a huge storm hits Louisiana (which we can all presume is Hurricane Katrina although that natural disaster is never mentioned), many residents of "The Bathtub" abandon the area, but a select few including Hushpuppy and her father stick it out and survive.  They soon find themselves facing the possible end of their simple existence.

The film seemingly is full of heartbreaking reality, but also abounding with the imaginative fairy tales of a young girl and I'm quite certain that the fantasy world is supposed to connect with the real world in some fashion.  In fact, I can one hundred percent guarantee that this movie is filled with all kinds of metaphors, but I'm not really sure what they all stand for.  And I'm not really sure I care.  Granted, I certainly was thinking about the flick after the movie ended, but it lacked the heart that a movie like this should have in order to make it truly enduring and endearing.  I never found myself connecting at all with young Hushpuppy and her poetic voiceover narration, her father, or the citizens of the Bathtub.  While I don't think it's the fault of the untrained and fresh cast who bring a sense of naturalism to the whole affair, there's something here that doesn't quite mesh.

Director Benh Zeitlin has crafted an oddly pretty looking film, but I can't help but think that he got lost somewhere between the reality and fantasy he attempts to bring together.  Neither world is successfully combined to create a cohesive whole as the increasingly overbearing heaviness of reality fails to balance with the Where the Wild Things Are-stylized imaginings of the young Hushpuppy, ultimately leading to a film that doesn't work as well as the Oscar bloggers and the majority of the big-time critics would have you believe.

The RyMickey Rating:  C