Be The Flame, Not The Moth

Casanova

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, Lena Olin, Natalie Dormer, Charlie Cox

Released: December 25, 2005

Viewed in theaters: January 12, 2006

This movie had a bit of an unfair advantage when it was released because it came out around the same time as Brokeback Mountain and that was the movie Heath Ledger was (rightfully) getting all the attention for. I saw Brokeback Mountain two days before I saw Casanova and the former is so, so, so, so good and the latter is....not so good. It's an enjoyable little film in its own right and it's probably unfair to compare it to Brokeback Mountain just because they both star Heath Ledger and came out around the same time. So I'll compare it to some of Lasse Hallstrom's other works and say I didn't like it as much as I liked Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, or Hachi: A Dog's Tale. The problem with Casanova is that it has no substance. First and foremost, this movie is pure eye candy: the setting (the film is shot and takes place in Venice and it definitely makes you want to visit the historical Italian city); the costumes (SO gorgeous!); the location they used for the Bruni's home (I loved the pink walls of their living room); and the classical music (ear candy?) And the casting director must have had a daughter who was a teenager circa 1999-2001 because if you asked any high school or college aged girl around that time who her Hollywood crush was, I'm willing to bet nine times out of ten she would say Heath Ledger. (Every tenth girl would probably say Freddie Prinze Jr. (blah!!)) In fact, if you go back and read my review of Ten Things I Hate About You, you can read about my experience when I watched it when I was in college with a bunch of other girls for our dorm's movie night. Good times, good times. So what I'm saying is that Heath was a good choice to play Casanova, however I am surprised he took the role because he liked to challenge himself and wanted to get away from just being another pretty face. This role for him seemed pretty simple and didn't really require any heavy lifting, so to say, on his part. I'm sure a big incentive for him to take the role was because it was filmed in Venice! 

Of course since this movie is about the famous lover (or manwhore, whatever you want to call him!), Giacomo Casanova, then you need the strong, beautiful, feminist woman who is against everything Casanova stands for. This is Francesca Bruni who is played by Siena Miller. Francesca is a big advocate for women's rights and writes books about feminism under a male pseudonym. She is engaged to be married to a man named Paprizzio (Oliver Platt) who she has never met. Her mother (Lena Olin) wants her daughter to marry him because he is rich. Francesca is about the only woman in Venice who doesn't fall for Casanova's charms, so of course he ends up falling in love with her. He knows she is to be married to a man named Paprizzio and reveals himself as her fiance. 

Young Margaery Tyrell

While it's pretty predictable how the movie will end, there's many cases of mistaken identity, especially with Casanova pretending to be Francesca's betrothed. Meanwhile, as himself, he's engaged to the beautiful, young blonde virgin who Francesca's brother, Giovanni (Charlie Cox) is in love with. This was my third time watching Casanova, but the first time that Victoria, the young blonde virginm looked familiar to me. I looked her up and she is played by Natalie Dormer aka Margaery on Game of Thrones. The last time I saw Casanova was in 2009 and Game of Thrones didn't premier until 2011 (although I only just watched the first four seasons of it last fall). 

There's a funny/amusing scene where Casanova's at Carnivale and he comes across Francesca's mother and Victoria's father, and of course, they both think he's marrying their own daughter so he has to be careful of the conversation and keep it ambiguous. He does confess his true identity to Francesca and she becomes angry with him because she could never love a man like him, but of course she does still love him (and meanwhile the real Paprizzio has ended up with her mother...though he was a bit older than Francesca!) 

Jeremy Irons plays Pucci, someone who has a lot of authority around that time in Venice and arrests Casanova because he has taken the blame for writing the illegal books that Francesca wrote. (This was when she knew she was in love with him). However, she confesses she wrote the books so both she and Casanova are set to be hung. Since his true identify was revealed, he is sentenced to death for his promiscuity. But his mother and stepfather come to the rescue when his stepfather pretends to be the Cardinal and reveals that since it's the Pope's birthday, he has granted a pardon to all people sentenced to death on that day. While Casanova is escaping with his parents, Franesca, her mother, Paprizzio (who is helping them escape on his large boat), Giovnni, and Victoria (yes, it does get a little muddled with all those characters!), the real Cardinal arrives and Pucci and his men try to chase after all of them. In the end, Giovanni decides to stay back and be Casanova so the real Casanova can escape with the woman he truly loves and spend the rest of his life with her, awww. And even though Giovanni did marry Victoria, the girl he's been in love with for so many years, he continues on Casanova's legacy and sleeps with many other women...even though he's married to the love of his life! What a jerk!!! But I guess he has to keep up his reputation for being the famous manwhore. 

Lasse Hallstrom said the movie had an R rating because of the under the table, uh, fellatio scene, even though you don't actually see anything beside the table being knocked around. I saw The Ugly Truth a few months ago and there's a scene where Katherine Heigl is wearing these panties with a vibrator that is controlled by a remote control and while she's out to dinner with a bunch of people, a kid gets his hands on the remote and starts pushing the buttons (don't ask!) and that scene was a lot more obvious that something was going on with her and a lot more raunchy! The sex scenes in this movie make the sex scenes in Game of Thrones look triple X rated! While you know what's going on, there's no nudity and every thing is strategically covered. If anything, Casanova should have received a PG-13 rating or they should have just gone all out if they had already gotten an R rating with that one scene.

While a very visually stunning movie, it is very forgetful. 

Music Class

Mr. Holland's Opus
Director: Stephen Herek
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Glenne Headly, William H. Macy, Olympia Dukakis, Jay Thomas, Terrance Howard, Alicia Witt
Released: December 29, 1995

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor - Richard Dreyfuss (lost to Nicolas Cage for Leaving Las Vegas)

This film, about a music teacher, expands a time span of 30 years. Richard Dreyfuss plays Glenn Holland, an aspiring composer, who takes a job as a high school music teacher to make ends meet while he writes his composition in his spare time. He teaches at John F. Kennedy high school in Portland, Oregon. Okay, follow along with me here for a second: the first class he teaches is the class of '63, which means that he started in the autumn of 1962...JFK didn't die until November 1963 so they kind of jumped the gun on that! And I suppose they could have named the school after him while he was in office, but does that ever happen? I'm certainly not aware of any Barack Obama High School that may be lurking out there! And even if they did, the school would have to have been brand new since Kennedy began his Presidency in 1960. All I'm saying is that they should have chosen another president to name their fictional school after. The timeline just didn't match. 

He is not thrilled about being a teacher and is exasperated with his students because they fail the tests and are horrible at playing their instruments. His teaching method is just to have the students read the text book and give them a quiz at the end of each lesson, but soon realizes that's not working for them. He starts playing records for them and tells them that rock and roll music and classical music aren't so different from each other and plays cords from famous songs of both genres on the piano. His wife, Iris (Glenne Headly) tells him to hang in there for four years and then they'll assess their situation to see if he can work on his compositions full time so he can become rich and famous, except it doesn't exactly happen like that. 

Iris becomes pregnant and gives birth to their son, Cole (his full name is Coltrane as he's named after John Coltrane and he's lucky they could shorten it to Cole because Coltrane is a horrible first name!) who is deaf. It's not until he's well into his first year that they don't notice there's something off about him when they're at a parade where a loud siren goes off and everyone is covering their ears and babies are crying, but young Cole remains oblivious in his stroller, asleep. Unless Cole became deaf right that second, I'm a little confused. Didn't they notice there was something wrong with his hearing within the first week of his life? Even though babies can't communicate, they usually look at you if you're talking to them. My cat looks at me when I make a noise! They take Cole to a specialist who tells them not to use hand gestures with him. Obviously this was a time when sign language was uncouth and that specialist was an idiot because Iris finds it very difficult and frustrating to try to communicate with Cole while her husband spends most of his time busy with his work and students. 

We see a few of the connections he makes with his students. The first ever was with a student from the first class he taught, the class of '63. Gertrude (speaking of horrible names...) is a redhead (played by Alicia Witt) who needs help with the clarinet. I think he gives her good advice and bad advice. The good advice is when he tells her to just have fun when she's playing the clarinet after he plays her a record of "Louie Louie" and asks her what's the first thing that comes to her mind and she says, "They're having fun." The bad advice (and bad screen writing) was when he asked her what her favorite thing about herself was and she replied her hair because her dad told her it reminded him of the sunset and he said, "Play the sunset." What does that even mean? That doesn't make any sense. But maybe it wasn't bad advice because as soon as he said that, she nailed her solo. It was still cheesy, though. 

Another one of the students he mentors is a football player who has trouble keeping the beat played by a very young Terrance Howard...who would later star in August Rush, another movie about love and appreciation for music. 

When the '80s roll around, his son is now a teenager (and attends a school for the hearing impaired) and there are hints that he and his wife are having marital problems. Rowena is a girl from the class of '80 who is part of the spring musical production. She has aspirations of going to New York after she graduates (like, literally right after) to make it big there and she and Mr. Holland develop a near bordering creepy relationship. She invites Holland to run away with her and while he does meet her at the bus stop and give her an incredibly awkward kiss, he declines the invitation. He is working on a new composition that he has named "Rowena" and when his wife sees it and asks who Rowena is he makes up something about her being a mythical goddess and when Iris is at the school's production she sees the name of the main singer is Rowena and how many people are named Rowena? Plus Rowena is looking right at Holland when she's singing "Someone to Watch Over Me" so it doesn't take much for Iris to put two and two together, but she never mentions it to her husband. The movie is 2 hours and 25 minutes and if they had dropped this entirely pointless plot line, it would have been two hours. 

The death of John Lennon brings Holland and his son closer together. I was listening to a podcast review of this movie...one guy had seen it before and the other hadn't. The guy who had never seen it made me laugh when he commented, "Did people really treat John Lennon's death like it was 9/11?" Obviously he was exaggerating a tad, but I do see where he was coming from. It was all over the news, which was understandable...I remember the next morning after Michael Jackson died, the radio was playing a tribute to him, but the characters in the movie acted like it was one of their own family members who had died. Cole wants to show his dad something when he comes home from work, but Holland tells him he's not in the mood because somebody died and that Cole wouldn't understand and then Cole tells him he knows who John Lennon and the Beatles are and Holland realizes that despite his son being deaf, he can still understand and know about music. At a music function Holland puts on for his son's school, he sings a John Lennon and Yoko Ono song for Cole called Beautiful Boy. I had never heard of it until I listened to it on the soundtrack. Holland apologizes in advance for his singing ability and let's just say this song sounds better when John Lennon is singing it. It's a sweet sentiment, but I can't think of too many teenaged boys who would be thrilled to have their dad singing such a sappy song to them! At least Cole couldn't hear his dad's awful singing!

The make-up department did a great job with aging Richard Dreyfuss. He was 48 when he made the film. At the end of the film, Mr. Holland was 60, so they aged him down and up for the role. They didn't do such a great job with aging William H. Macy (or W.H. Macy as the opening credits has his name) who plays the assistant principal to Olympia Dukakis's principal, then the principal when she retired - he has the same buzz cut and glasses throughout the entire movie. It's as though the entire movie's make-up budget went into aging only Dreyfuss! When the movie wants to skip a few years, it will show clips of famous events that happened in those years. The only jarring part is when it skips from 1980 to 1995 without any clips. This is the biggest gap that the movie passes through and apparently nothing happened in the entire decade of the '80s! Nothing at all! I also have to laugh at how hard they're trying to make the 1995 class look so cool. Oh, look, there's two boys holding hands - we have gay students at our school now! It just felt like they were trying to hard to try to be cool with the times. At least in '95 it makes sense to have a school called John F. Kennedy High School! 

Mr. Holland is forced to retire because the school is taking away the budget for the music and drama classes. The school has put on a warm reception for him where many of his students from pass classes - including Gertrude, who is now the mayor, have come to perform one of his musical oeuvres. 

While a bit saccharine at times, it's an uplifting story. I would recommend watching it, but feel free to fast forward through all the scenes with Rowena! 

Knight Moves

A Knight's Tale
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk, Paul Bettany, Shannyn Sossamon, Berenice Bejo, Laura Fraser
Released: May 11, 2001
Viewed in theaters: May 11, 2001

This was Heath Ledger's first movie where he played the lead. There are three main instances where he became known in the public eye. The first, was this, his first starring role; the second was his Oscar-nominated turn in Brokeback Mountain; and the third was his critically-acclaimed performance in The Dark Knight which was sadly overshadowed by his death. Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but I was a Heath Ledger fan (oh, okay, fangirl!) before any of those movies. Heath had a lot of female admirers before 2001, but, trust me, A Knight's Tale cinched many more! I know this for a fact because after 10 Things I Hate About You and The Patriot, I raved about him to my friend. Did I praise his amazing talent and tell her to watch out for a few Oscar nominations in his future? Haha, please! I was a shallow college student! I was going on about how hot he was and how I loved his Australian accent (those are seriously the best!) I was a little infatuated, you could say. My friend agreed he was cute but she wasn't as into him as I was....until she saw A Knight's Tale (more than once!) and suddenly starts raving to ME about how hot he is and I'm thinking, This is what I've been telling you all along! It was like she suddenly saw the light. It was pretty amusing!

I wasn't the biggest fan of this movie the first time I saw it. I just couldn't get past how these 14th century people could sing Queen and dance to David Bowie when obviously that music didn't exist back in those days, duh! (Or, in the words of Wat, "Hellooooo!") But after seeing its sort-of-but-not-really sequel, The Order (same director and stars Ledger, Addy, and Sossamon), I came to appreciate this movie and realize, despite a few flaws (and if you can look past the music, which I have), it is quite an entertaining movie. Or maybe The Order was just that bad! Ha!

Ledger plays William Thatcher, a poor peasant who takes on the alias of Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein so he can compete in jousting tournaments. He has to hide the fact that he is poor because only nobles are allowed to compete in tournaments. He practices jousting with his friends, Roland (Addy) and Wat (Tudyk). They meet famous writer Geoffrey Chaucer (Bettany)  - even though they don't know who he is - and he's the one who comes up with William's new name and forges his signature so he can compete as a noble.

"Excuse me, did you just say you named
your son Audio Science?!?"

William falls in love with the beautiful Jocelyn (Sossamon) who is wealthy and only knows him as Ulrich. She is a little weary of his courting at first as he is just another guy trying to get her attention. I used to think she was a major bee-yotch for making him lose those jousting matches to prove his love for her, and furthermore, I thought he was a love sick fool for going through with it and letting her walk all over him, but now I can kind of understand where she's coming from. It doesn't mean anything to her that knights tell her they'll win a tournament for her because that's expected of them anyway. Making him choose between her or winning the match was brilliant on her part. Evil, but brilliant. It's a great ultimatum for every woman to have! And it was sweet of him to lose to show her that he did love her, but honestly, if some guy, no matter how hot he was, came up to me and said the things William said to Jocelyn, I'd probably laugh in his face. Or roll my eyes. "Love has given me wings so I must fly!"; "If I could ask for one thing, it would be for time to stop so I can be in this moment with you forever!"; "I would give my ears just to hear your name!" And let's not forget the love letter. Good Lord, that was filled with cheesy goodness.

There are two actresses (basically the other two that aren't Shannyn Sossoman since there are only three women in the whole movie!) who would go on to become more well known in projects much later on in their careers. The first is Berenice Bejo who would later go on to play the female lead in The Artists ten years later. (A perfectly nice movie, but a bit forgetful even if it did win the Oscar). She plays Jocelyn's lady-in-waiting, or personal assistant. Wikipedia says her character's name is Christina, but honestly, I don't even remember her ever being called by her name. At first, whenever she is on screen she doesn't have any lines (early practice for The Artist, ha!), but she does eventually get to speak. I would be totally annoyed if I were her because whenever she's around Jocelyn, Jocelyn gets complimented about her looks by everyone and they just treat her lady-in-waiting like she's invisible when she's a very pretty girl too!

And then there's Laura Fraser who plays Kate, the blacksmith, who joins William's entourage and makes William a new suit of armor that's thinner, but still as strong, so he can easily move around in it. Fraser is best known for playing everyone's favorite stevia-addicted neurotic who can provide an "ocean of methylamine." That's right, I'm talking about Lydia Rodarte-Quayle from Breaking Bad, which just so happens to be my favorite show of all time. It's a good thing William wasn't interested in Kate since we know she's not into blondes! (Oh, Todd, you poor, creepy, guy). She's very fresh-faced and cute and not so uptight in this film! And she does speak with her own natural Scottish accent. There's not a murderous bone in her body! 

"Will, I am!"

After reading Michael Crichton's Timeline (which also takes place in the same century), I became quite intrigued with the time period. There's a chapter where two characters are jousting against each other and I didn't realize what a dangerous sport it was until I read that book. I mean, from the movie I could tell it looked a bit painful, but it takes a lot of precision and you can easily get killed if someone aims the lance at your head. Which is why the last scene where William jousts without his armor or a helmet AND just got stabbed in the chest if a little bit WTF?, but I think everyone knew he was going to win. After all, his blind father was "watching". Supposedly they have modern-day jousting with "strict guidelines" (yawn!) and "development of the use of breakable lance tips for safety" (boring!) You know it's lame compared to the bloodshed and excitement of the real thing. Don't you wish you lived in the 14th century? Yeah, me neither. 

Argo see this movie now!

Argo
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Victor Garber, John Goodman, Alan Alda
Released: October 12, 2012
Viewed in theaters: November 5, 2012

Ben Affleck, I forgive you. I forgive you for Pearl Harbor, for Gigli, for Daredevil. (I would forgive you for Armageddon, but, uh, I kinda like that movie). I forgive you for your relationships with, ugh, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez. Even during your not so great moments, I have always liked you...perhaps even a little more than your BFF, Matt. How can you not like somebody who was in the music video for After 7's "Can't Stop" and who settled down with Jennifer Garner, an actress I like (and how nice of you to give a role in your new movie to her television father!) Plus with each movie you direct, I like it better than the last one!

I know Ben Affleck isn't reading this, but perhaps I have the attention of you, dear reader, and if you have not seen this movie, then I very much urge you to (Ar)go see it now! It's based on a true story, that, to be honest with you, I had never heard of until recently when I was listening to a few podcasts that were talking about this film and that's how I became aware of the movie and the events that happened on which it's based.

It's a small, but remarkable story within the Iran hostage crisis which started on November 4, 1979 when militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran because the U.S. supported the recently overthrown Shah. There's a brief history lesson as a prologue to the movie which makes things very helpful and easier to understand. It's a scary scene because there's a mob of militants and when you see they have broken the gates and are coming into the building, you feel their fear. Classified documents are being destroyed and shredded as fast as they can, tear gas canisters are being thrown at the militants, the Embassy staff are concerned about the Iranians who are already there to apply for U.S. Visas.

Since there's no place to escape, most of the Embassy are taken as hostages, but six manage to escape before the mob makes it in the building and find refugee in the home of the Canadian ambassador (played by (real life Canadian!) Victor Garber) and his wife and Iranian housekeeper, who suspects that his house guests are hiding out since they have been there two months and never go out.

Affleck plays CIA specialist Tony Mendez who is in charge of getting the six of them out of the country safely. A couple of ideas are thrown out on the table but none of them seem plausible. When Tony is watching Planet of the Apes with his son, he gets the idea to pose as a Hollywood associate producer and create fake names and Hollywood professions for the six hostages for them to be a Hollywood production team scouting out different areas for a sci-fi movie they are making, Argo. Tony believes this is the best bad idea they have.

With the help of a big shot Hollywood producer (Alan Arkin) and John Chambers, the makeup artist for Planet of the Apes who has worked with the CIA before (John Goodman), Tony picks out a script and gives each hostage a name and profession - scriptwriter, location scout, director, etc. Even though the movie is fake (well, the script was real!), and will never be made (let's face it - this movie is way more interesting than what the actual Argo would have been!), they still want everything to look as authentic as possible. While the producer is more concerned about choosing a script that would be a hit ("If I'm making a fake movie, I want a fake hit!"), Mendez chooses a script that calls for a location that could be set in the Middle East and Argo, a sci-fi fantasy movie that calls for a desert location, is their best bet for that. They also set up a casting party and an ad and article in Variety.

Also with the help from the CIA and Canadian government, Tony gets six fake passports. Their biggest obstacle will be getting past airport security. When a person enters the country they are given a white copy of their documented flight while the airport keeps the yellow copy so they can check when the person flew in. The six Americans are given (fake) white documents, but Tony instructs them to play dumb and tell the airport employees they don't know why they don't have them.

Even though I already knew the outcome of the story, they still did a great job of keeping you in suspense and on the edge of your seat. I haven't felt my heart pound that fast since I watched an episode of Breaking Bad! (Speaking of which, Bryan Cranston, Walter White himself, is in this movie!) In an odd way, I was reminded of United 93 in that both movies are based on true events and even though one movie has a successful ending and the other has a tragic ending, both movies made you worried (or hopeful in the case of United 93) that the opposite of what really happened would be the outcome.

I predict a Best Picture nod come Oscar season!

Will the real Anastasia please stand up?

Anastasia (1956)
Director: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes
Released: 12/13/56

Oscar nominations:
Best Actress - Ingrid Bergman (won)
Best Score - Alfred Newman (lost to Victor Young for Around the World in 80 Days)

Anastasia (1997)
Directors: Don Bluth and Gary Goldman
Voice Talent: Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Angela Lansbury, Kelsey Grammar, Christopher Lloyd
Released: 11/21/97

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Musical or Comedy Score (lost to The Full Monty) Do they even still have this category?
Best Song - "Journey to the Past" (lost to "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic)

I have to admit, even though I did see the animated Anastasia film in the theaters, I was not very familiar with the story of the Romanovs until I recently listened to a Podcast about them, found their story quite fascinating and put these two movies in my Netflix queue.

If you're not familiar with Anastasia's story, here is a quick overview of it with help from the Podcast, Wikipedia, and notes I scribbled down while watching her Biography. She was born in 1901, the youngest daughter of Nicholas II, the Russian Tsar.  Her official title was  Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Being born into a royal family, she resided in a palace with over a thousand rooms. (Dang, can you imagine if you had to be the interior designer for that place??)  In 1914 her father declared war on Germany and Austria and during his reign, Imperial Russia went from being a great world power to an economic and miliatry failure - 80% of his subjects were in poverty. The country became corrupt and Nicholas was blamed for everything wrong with Russia.  Let's just say he wasn't one of the best world rulers from history. The Romanovs fell completely out of power and Nicholas abdicated the throne in 1917 and his family and their loyal servants (eleven people in all) were placed under house arrest at the Alexadner Palace during the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks were now in power of Russia and they had to choose between murdering or exiling the family and wanting to take no chances of the Romanovs ever becoming in power again, they choose the former and murder the entire family in a small room in the palace in 1918.

However, it's leaked in the papers that not everyone died that fateful night and many people believe that there may be some survivors, especially that of Anastasia. In 1920 a woman who is about to commit suicide by throwing herself in a river in Berlin in rescued. She is mentally unstable and doesn't speak for weeks and has no identity. Coincidentally she has the same eye color, identical ears, and foot disorder the real Anastasia had and recognized people in photos that only Anastasia would know. However, despite all that, she failed to prove she really was the Grand Duchess by the German courts. The woman went by the name Anna Anderson and her claim to be Anastasia became known around the world and there was still speculation about was she or wasn't she? Turns out she was just a mentally disturbed woman who spent most of her life in asylums. Her DNA did not match that of the real Anastasia and in 1991 Nicholas and his three oldest daughters were exhumed from where they were believed to be burned and buried. In 2007 the body of Anastasia and her little brother were found quickly putting any claims that Anna Anderson really was Anastasia to rest.

Okay, I guess that wasn't that quick!

So while the real Anastasia perished along with her family and did not escape and live her life under the alias Anna Anderson, Hollywood still found her story fascinating and thought it made a great movie, which it does. Imagine not knowing where you came from and learn someday that you are from royal descent! Both movies follow the same plotline, beginning with Anastasia not knowing who she is or where she came from and wanting to have a sense of belonging. Both versions meet a man (who she'll eventually fall in love with...spoiler alert! ) who is trying to find someone they can teach to learn everything about Anastasia because her grandmother is offering anyone who finds her granddaughter a hefty cash prize. He is pleased when he finds this woman who could physically pass for the real Grand Duchess and teachers her everything she needs to know...while she begins to remember things on her own, because she really IS Anastasia and everything is coming back to her. She proves herself to her grandmother and a tearful reunion ensues and both movies end on a happy note. The animated film has musical numbers (I have the soundtrack and I LOVE "At the Beginning" and "Journey to the Past") and a villain with a campy sidetrick who is trying to kill Anastasia because he thought he had murdered all of the Romanovs. I loved the set decoration of the '56 version with all the antique European-style furniture.

The movies may have been based on something that happened in Russian history, but have been deemed fictitious, but nevertheless still a good story to tell even though it was only a fairy tale.