Cheap Mommie Dearest (DVD) (Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid) (Frank Perry) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mommie Dearest

Christina eat your dinner.
Faye Dunaway is Oscar-quality. Her performance is flawless and riveting. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the actress who played the grown Cristina Crawford. Her performance is wooden, mundane, and unendearing. The movie itself is an interesting look into the personal life of one Hollywood's biggest stars of yesteryear. It's well-edited and generally flows well. I'm unsure if the movie/book was meant to attract sympathy for Cristina Crawford or not. I imagine it was, because if it wasn't what would've been the point of showing a normal homelife? So if that's the case, then it seems to fail at certain points. Showing a young Christina, for example, refusing to eat her dinner does nothing to evoke sympathy for her nor does it evoke disdain for Joan as it seems it's meant to. At times, it seems Christina was more of a brat than Joan was a poor mother. It's also interesting to note that the other Crawford children have denied Christina's allegations. At any rate, Joan is shown to be a poor mother most of the time, with a good deal of screaming and crying permeating the film. A unique look into the personal life of Joan Crawford and worth viewing if only for that reason alone.

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Faye Dunaway's performance as over the top as her eyebrows
Although unintentionally hilarious, one cannot help to revel in the madness of movie queen Joan Crawford's, out of control perfectionism. Though sloppily edited (it's obvious many scenes were omitted that effect the continuity of the film), it still is a highly entertaining study of one of the greatest actress's in Hollywood's, behind the scenes so-called "horror show," with her adopted children...Most notably her daughter Christina. Faye Dunaway is at her campiest best, showing us the many sides of a very abusive, yet very insecure("They say she's getting old." "Box office poison." "When You say Mommie dearest, I want you to mean it")complex woman. Dunaway steals just about every scene in this film, chewing at every ounce of the scenery she can muster. The infamous wire hangers moment, although admittedly humorous at times, has got to be the most chilling thing since Linda Blair's head spinning in the 1973 film, the Exorcist. The kabuki make-up alone that Dunaway sports is horrifying in itself...Just over look the flaws, and sit back and enjoy this rollercoaster ride of a movie.

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"Tina!... Bring me the Axe!"
This movie scared me to death when I was a kid. I had absolutely no idea who Joan Crawford was, so I just naturally took the whole thing as a tale of a goofball mother who abused her kids a lot. I had nightmares of Faye Dunaway wearing a facemask beating me with wire hangers while screaming, "Don't f--- with me, fella!"

Seriously, I never had the nightmares, but as a child, Faye Dunaway played one vicious bitch who I was glad wasn't my mother. I'm 22 now and know who Joan Crawford is. The physical resemblance between Mrs. Dunaway and Mrs. Crawford is striking at times. As far as Faye's acting goes, well... I'm suprised she didn't gain a little weight during the production from all that scenery she chewed. This is THE definitive "ham" performance. It's just so over the top and hysterically wacko. There's so many instances where the character does something off the wall that it'd be impossible to list them all. In short, it's one of the most memorable performances of the 80's. I would say "bravo," but I'm not sure if this is what Dunaway was going for.

It's also the only interesting performance in the entire movie. At least Dunaway knows how to deliver her lines in a SLIGHTLY realistic manner; the rest of the cast is basically just pathetic. The girl who played Christina (name escapes me) is god-awful in this film. Behold:

"I'm... not... one of yourrrr [FANS]!"

It must be seen to be believed. The entire film revels in the realm of all things bizarre and awful. And that's exactly why it's so darn entertaining. Some of the quotes are so nutty that they've earned a permanent rank into the lexicon of pop culture, the most famous being, of course, "No wire hangers... EVER(....)!"

If you're into this goofy stuff, I'd highly recommend buying it. No interesting extras to speak of, but the price is good. Place it on your shelf right next to your MST3K collection.