The Addams Family and Addams Family Values are two of the best comic adaptations ever, and are also in my top 50 comedies of all time
For context, Charles Addams drew comics for The New Yorker and other publications, and his characters eventually became The Addams Family which is where we got the show and then subsequent films. His one-panel comics are some of my favorite cartoons ever--dark, succinct, acerbic, witty all of them.
I recently rewatched The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family values (1993) and not only do they hold up, I think I actually like them more now than I did seeing them in the theater as a kid. Barry Sonnenfeld's direction is so perfect in both films--everything is so carefully blocked and lit and there are so many little fun details from Charles Addams's work. The set design is phenomenal. I don't know who thought up lighting Anjelica Huston's eye's like that, but it's a joke in itself and I appreciate it. The casting is perfection. I would never have thought "oh sure Christopher Lloyd" for Fester but he's the best. Raul Julia was such a good Gomez that he put John Astin to shame and I love John Astin. Anjelica Huston, come on--it wasn't common at the time to see women in their 40s cast in lead roles like that, and she was just the best. Christina Ricci hadn't done much before this film (except for Mermaids which I loved because I was an 80s girl of course I loved Mermaids) and she is so good at playing Wednesday that really no one should ever try to play Wednesday again. She even nails microexpressions and she was only 10 at the time, it's nuts. Jimmy Workman played Pugsley and I think he's often overlooked but he serves as the straight man to Wednesday and he does a fine job.
The sequel, in some ways, was even better than the first one. Joan Cusack made a much better villain, plus you have the whole camp B plot. Christine Baranski and Peter MacNichol as the camp counselors are a major highlight. Everything about these two films is just about perfect.
Submitted March 08, 2022 at 01:29AM by TheLadyEve https://ift.tt/o8Qm7bx
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