Mommie Dearest

Pros: Outstanding performances
Cons: Is it truth? Does it matter?

For the longest time I have been signing notes to my daughter Mommie Dearest. It's a bit of a running joke between us, and she oft times will respond with quotes from the T he Seed. ...

Pros: Faye Dunaway, costume and makeup, reasonably balanced portrayal of Joan Crawford
Cons: For me, none. The movie is what it is -- gussied up tabloid sensationalism.

Always a big fan of glamorous movie stars and vintage films, and a lover of biographies or novels that are based on fact more than fiction, I bought Christina Crawford's tell-all book about her mother, Joan Crawford, the instant it was available in...

Pros: Recreation of period Hollywood.
Cons: Howlingly bad performances, script and idea.

I am still smarting from the collapse of my new reality series, American Idyl, where we were busy training young girls in the proper mode to be a true diva of stage and screen, while eliminating those who simply didn’t measure up. Filming ...

Pros: Amazing makeup, set, and costumes.
Cons: Over the top acting turns serious subject into a joke.

I wonder how many kids dream about growing up the child of a movie star. On the surface, it seems like it would be such a sweet life of untold indulgences. After all, movie stars don’t have problems. They all live in mansions and never have to ...

Pros: Campy, trashy entertainment. You'll probably be howling with laughter.
Cons: It's not a film truly faithful to the original book.

Let me get right to the point: Mommie Dearest is savory trash- overdramatic, overacted, pure campy trash. I think what keeps me watching this film is Faye Dunaway's fantastic performance as Joan Crawford. When you see Dunaway as Crawford in a ...

Pros: Some unintentional laughs.
Cons: Not enough of them.

On May 10 1977, an era in film history came to an end when legendary film star Joan Crawford died. Crawford's amazing career spanned all the way from the silent era to the early seventies. Throughout, she had played just about every role from glamorous ...

Pros: The unintentional comedy...
Cons: Few if your watching for the right reasons. ;)

Mommie Dearest was meant to be Christina Crawford’s revenge. This movie, based on her book of the same name, was written after the death of her mother, the Queen of Hollywood. At the end of Joan Crawford’s life, she willed nothing to her ...

Pros: An over the top performance that rings true.
Cons: An over the top performance that rings true.

This could be the shortest summation of a DVD release ever: biographical story of actress Joan Crawford as seen through the eyes of Christina Crawford. That is if that were all this movie was about. In fact this movie hits and misses on a number of ...

Pros: Faye Dunaway, Mara Hobel, production design.
Cons: Diana Scarwid, Diana Scarwid, Diana Scarwid

For most all of us, we see the lives of Hollywood celebrities as they want to be seen. Publicity releases, touched up photos, and manufactured biographies are the mainstays even today. They were the hard and fast rule when Joan Crawford was on top of...

Pros: The campy acting by Faye Dunaway
Cons: The serious message gets mixed in the movie

When I was nine, the TV stations started to show coming attractions to "the biggest movie of the year!" Reds? Chariots of Fire? You're think high class, quality movies. It was Mommie Dearest, my dears.

I wanted to see it mostly...

Pros: The sets, the production values are very well done. The dynamics between mother/daughter
Cons: Makes light of child abuse, overacting galore

Mommie Dearest, a film made in 1981, definitely made an impact when it was released. Based on an account of adopted daughter Christina Crawford, this movie views the movie star Joan Crawford through her eyes. Whether those eyes accurately shed ...

Pros: How lives are destroyed by child abuse
Cons: This movie provokes emotional reactions, some inappropriate like laughing

I saw Mommie Dearest a few weeks ago and found it riveting. How surprising to find that Leonard Maltin refers to this film as a "camp classic" (whatever that may be). Searching the web I find that this is a common view, and that early 80's audiences...

Pros: faye dunaway, the child actor who portrayed christina, the costumes
Cons: none

Not only have I seen this movie several times, the most recent being this past week, but I've read the book. The story is told by Christina Crawford - Joan Crawford's adopted daughter. The book was written by Christina after being cut out of Joan's...

Pros: Good acting, some good direction
Cons: Badly edited, generally ridiculous

I know that child abuse exists; I've been working with kids long enough to realize that some people do dreadful things to their children. But there is something about "Mommie Dearest" that doesn't ring true. One has to wonder if this is merely...

Pros: A true life story of an actress who was a raving alcoholic.
Cons: Sadly, this actress' adopted daughter never received anything out of her mother's will.

This movie is the true-life story of an actress who played in several different movies during the 1940's and 1950's. She may have made lots of money, but she was an alcoholic and had a very mean violent temper on top of that. She adopted two children...