| But it also degrades the brilliance of the show/concept AND misses the point entirely | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 02:10 am EDT 08/28/18 | |
| In reply to: It isn't unwatchable--just uninspired. - keikekaze 04:56 pm EDT 08/27/18 | |
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| So while on its own, if that were the only version of ACL that ever existed, it would be pretty good as a musical and not terrible as a movie... it isn't. We know what ACL is, and was in its original production, and what the movie gives you is like a raisin in the place of a grape. And beyond that, the movie manages to gut the show's soul with the rewrites/replacement material and making it a cheesy 80s romance between a director and an actor rather than a high concept deep romance between dancers and dance. So again, on its own it's fine - some bad stuff, some good stuff - and definitely stuff from the musical A Chorus Line that we love (albeit made to look cheesier with the 80s costumes instead of mid/late 70s), but since we know what the original material is, the effect it has, the concept and reason it exists, and all that... it's not only hard to watch as a film of that musical, but hard to know that it is what millions of people saw as the only version of ACL they saw or may ever see, and they think that's what the show is. While all that is very and tragically true - I also am a big defender of the movie of Annie, and I'm sure Martin Charnin and Charles Strouse and Tom Meehan would say similar things about that movie that I said about ACL. However I think their hatred of the movie is a bit overdramatic - while the things the movie cut were excellent in the stage show, the score still shines, the replacement songs are good and achieve the same thing (unlike in ACL movie), and I think the show is well represented. And the bigger point for me is that ACL is brilliant... I don't think Annie the stage musical is. I think it's actually fairly poorly written (book-wise) and one-dimensional... and I think they give themselves too much credit for the depression stuff that the movie cut, while I like "We'd like to thank you Herbert Hoover" as a song, it's not especially useful dramatically, and the FDR stuff gets down right ridiculous in the show. They also seem to think the movie reduced Hannigan to a sex-crazed drunk... I disagree, but I don't think the version scripted in the play is any more layered. Yes it's a good enjoyable musical and feel-good and insanely popular but that doesn't make it great. The movie of Annie is basically Annie, and personally I think some of the changes are just as good. ACL was great and they ruined what made it great when they made the movie. Anyway... no asked my opinion of Annie. |
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| Previous: | It isn't unwatchable--just uninspired. - keikekaze 04:56 pm EDT 08/27/18 |
| Next: | A CHORUS LINE vs ANNIE/Film vs Stage - hugoP 06:44 am EDT 08/28/18 |
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