Freaky Friday
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Movie Reviews of Freaky Friday
Movie Review: Take Me Back!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've wanted this version that I remember from my childhood for some time, and was happy to find it. The sale was seamless and I'm excited to watch the movie!Movie Review: Freaky Friday
Summary: 5 Stars
Love this old movie. Quite the classic. I enjoyed it a lot, but actually thought the newer one was more funny!
Movie Review: Makes my wife happy
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife loves this movie... and as always the original is much better than the remake.Movie Review: Not as slick as remake, but still great fun
Summary: 4 Stars
I love the remake, with Lindsay Lohan & Jamie Lee Curtis, which made me curious about the fact that there's a remake. With nothing else to do before Christmas apart from having DVD-buying withdrawal symptoms, I bought this, mainly because it wasn't on my wishlist, therefore, safe. And cheap too. I'm not that keen on Jodie Foster, and her hair in this was an absolute mess, plus, she had a (fake) mouthful of metal. Boy, do I remember that all too well. There weren't a lot of stars apart from her that I knew, although Barbara Harris looked very familiar.
Apart from some very dodgy shots - mainly featured during the water-skiing scenes, where it was perfectly obvious the actors were against a blue screen, and it looked so fake - the movie was really good! Not a patch on the remake, but it still had its funny moments, and funny deadpan lines, coming mainly from Barbara Harris a lot of the time. Disney did a good job with this movie, and even managed to include some extras!
It's a lot more faithful to the book as well, more so than the recent update, which was updated beyond belief to fit in to the 21st century. This did come across as rather OTT at times, and almost sickly sweet. The movie also owed a lot to the old slapstick of Laurel & Hardy movies, amongst others. And very bad 70s fashion & hair! It's also a lot more simplistic, but with both the original & the remake, little is featured of the love interest. And the bit where they swap minds is really corny (flashing green/blue colours over the bodies), but the bit where they actually swap BODIES is pure genius. There are a lot of Disney cliches thrown in, and your typical Disney chase scene, which doesn't hold a candle to the one from Ronin. The slapstick comes when a police car goes through a very narrow tunnel, and comes out shaped like a triangle or when they go along a patch of road, and the car splits in half! (Also watch out for the patch of storm drain, which was also featured in the car race in Grease!) The film also has interesting feminist implications and the heavily hinted-at subplot involving teen alcoholism is compellingly unexplained, and would have been funny.
Jodie Foster doesn't really come across as a great child actor. For one thing, her voice can sometimes be very monotone, and she has a very 'old' voice too. (Now that sounds very weird.) The voice does not match what she looks like. Plus, in a few scenes, it's really clear how much difficulty she was having talking with her metal train tracks. She also doesn't have a lot to mess up/learn unlike her mother. The mother calls her husband "daddy", and plays a hot game of softball with a group of little boys. Jodie has less to work with - she screws up a typing class, a photography class, band practice AND field hockey, but does OK in social studies.
There are only two extras, but you get your money's worth with an up-to-date interview with Jodie Foster - although I think she was talking before the 2003 remake. It's quite a long interview, and she doesn't just talk about Freaky Friday, she talks about a lot of her other Disney movies, and how she auditioned to be a young Princess Leia, but was contracted to do another Disney movie. The Memory Game is mind-numbingly slow, and isn't worth wasting your time on.
All in all, this is a great movie, although some people will go too much into it, and think about all the complications, like how the mother is a smoker, but the daughter isn't - surely they'd experience cravings etc? The movie's meant to be enjoyed not analysed, and if you can get past the dodgy blue screen scenes, then you'll thoroughly enjoy yourself, and put a smile on your face.
Movie Review: Thank you, Disney
Summary: 4 Stars
At last, Disney DVD presents a fine, widescreen print of one of its '70's classics with an accompanying twenty-minute recollection by Jodie Foster of her formative years on the Disney lot. Although this DVD of the original "Freaky Friday" is not a special edition, it is exactly the kind of product we Disney fans and DVD purists have been begging for. Hopefully, good sales will lead to new widescreen releases of previously botched fullscreen DVDs of "Follow Me, Boys," "Son of Flubber," "The Gnome Mobile" and "Blackbeard's Ghost," among others.One of the first of the popular body-switching genre, 1977's "Freaky Friday" is a fast-paced, perceptive comedy about a typical mother-and-daughter relationship and how the two react when they literally switch personalities for a day, with Foster's Annabel trapped in her mother's body, and Barbara Harris' Ellen going to junior high as Annabel. The complications are obvious but nonetheless funny and engaging, with Harris proving herself a skilled physical comedienne while skateboarding, playing baseball, and suffering through numerous pratfalls and humiliations. My only problem with Harris' performance is she seems to be playing Annabel too young--perhaps as a nine-year-old instead of a bright thirteen-year-old, so she's never entirely believable in the role. (Jamie Lee Curtis, on the other hand, nails the teenager-in-a-grownup-body role in the remake.) Foster, on the other hand, is just about perfect in her characterization of daughter/mother Annabel. Even in 1977 it was easy to see this phenomenal young talent was destined for great things as an actress. Indeed, "Freaky Friday" was part of an incredible string of top-notch performances Foster gave from 1973-1977 ("Tom Sawyer," "Echoes of a Summer," "Bugsy Malone," "Taxi Driver," "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane" and "Candleshoe") that turned her into one of the finest (if not THE finest) child actresses of all time.
Rounding out the cast is a fine group of veteran actors: John Astin as Bill Andrews, Annabel's confused father; Patsy Kelly as the family's grumpy and unlikeable housekeeper; Dick Van Patten as Bill's boss; and Ruth Buzzi, in a funny cameo as a field hockey coach (her strategy: "Get Annabel Andrews and get her good!") Gary Nelson's direction is crisp, and the script by novelist Mary Rodgers perceptive for the time, although she was forced to change the plot somewhat to include that tired Disney '70's staple: a protracted slapstick car chase involving Ellen/Annabel outracing several police cars without facing any consequences whatsoever. Like most Disney films of the era, the production values are stellar and the film is colorful and reminiscent of a live-action cartoon. Even the opening cartoon-credit sequence is engaging.
Yes, there are some creepy sexual subtexts here (which Foster amusingly comments on in the documentary) involving Bill and neighbor-teen Boris (Marc McClure) both coming onto Ellen/Annabel, but they will go right over younger kids' heads and older kids will be as amused by it as their parents. Regardless, this is perfect family entertainment and will make a fine double-feature with the 2003 remake, which is equally good with its own merits. (I prefer Jamie Lee Curtis over Harris, and Foster over Lohan and think the remake is more successful in dealing with the sexual subtexts; i.e., the makers wisely scuttle the father's role and make Curtis a widow with a fiance played by Mark Harmon, which was the smartest of many changes made in the plot.)
So, once again, thank you, Disney, for a fine DVD of one of your best '70's films. Please, please, please follow this one up with more widescreen releases.