Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful child actors....
Review: Well, I have to disagree with those who don't like this film. I read the book and I saw the film and the film is actually easier to take in some ways than the book. Both are pretty grim, there's no getting around that. Frank McCourt's childhood was a difficult affair. The film and the book are works of art. The job of the artist is to shake us up, to make us see what we did not see before. The Ireland that Frank McCourt experienced was poor, dirty, downtrodden and very Catholic. Although I am not Irish, I grew up Catholic, and his depiction of the RC clergy was right-on. I can remember at the age of eight having a nun scream so hard she grew red in the face. I was terrified. Well, read "Irish Immigrants and Exiles" if you think Mr. McCourt is exaggerating. The film faithfully follows the book and I thought the film was more "hopeful" than the book. The child actors who play Frank at three different ages are wonderful. Mr. Mccourt said that he thought the film was a wonderful film that exactly captured his family. Guess we have to trust his judgement. Whether you want to be subjected to this misery is another matter. The story reminds me of the films Carlo Ponti made about Italy after the War. Dirty, hungry children and pregnant 15-year olds. There are plenty of places still like that in the world, if only we can bring ourselves to look at them.
Rating:
Summary: Very Sad
Review: I went, and saw this in theatres and it was very sad, but it was 2 hrs. 40 mins but it's good. You'll like, it!
Rating: 
Summary: Faithful to the book, but that's not always the best thing
Review: Adaptation of the best-selling memoir of growing up poor in Ireland misses the point: the richness of the language does not come across, so what was inspirational on the page is simply soggy onscreen. Good performances all about, but the films lackluster pacing and all-around feeling of malaise make it more like medicine than storytelling or personal history. Add a star if you're a Celtophile.
Rating: 
Summary: A film can never be a book
Review: Like so many millions of people I adored the novel of Angela's Ashes with a passion and was horrified to hear that a film version had been made. My doubts were slightly dispersed when I read that the direction had fallen upon Alan Parker, who is a favourite, but still some doubts remained. Let me state categorically that it is a superb film from every possible perspective, except for the screenplay. It is not that the screenplay is bad, it's just impossible to condense the novel. It is hard to tell, but I think that anybody who has not read the novel, might have problems following the story and definitely will not get the indepth references. Parker has done a superb job with the direction and the fact that the cinematography did not at least garner an Oscar nomination is a crime (and a comment). The film is shot in sepia-coloured repressiveness and the use of colour is astounding. Take, for example, the red coat Angela wears, which jumps out of the screen. The acting from Carlyle as Malachy and Watson as Angela is likewise of the highest possible calibre, although the three boys playing Frank steal the show, which is as it should be. Carlyle does a particularly good job of making the boys' continued devotion to their father believable, when his character could so easily have become an arch villian. Watson's Angela is understated as it is in the novel: she is the life force as well as the life-draining force of the drama. An excellent performance from a most gifted actress. The final word, though, has to go to the "feel" of the film, which I felt to be spot-on with the novel. Comedy and tragedy are blended to perfection and sobs of tears and laughter were almost perfectly matched in experiencing it. That is what the film is: an experience, not just a film. Obviously it can never be the novel, but as Frank McCourt gave his personal seal of approval I see no reason why anybody else would not.
Rating:
Summary: sad, dark and beautiful .
Review: well, i really enjoy the film, which i saw just yesterday. i think that angela's ashes was descibe in a very good way, the scence all looked very real and i think the players were really convincing. the photography was also great, the movie is really sad and full with emotion... but also very funny and sarcastic in some scence. there were two things i noticed in this movie, that bothers me: the movie is really similar to another irish movie,"the butcher boy", which destroyes his originally and even the main player in the butcher boy, eamonn ewans, plays a small role in angel's ashes.the other thing , was the time-two houres and a half is too much for a normal human being to sit and watch(and i'm not a hyper person) a movie, and the last 40 min in the end- is really unnecessary,it makes the movie lookes to american, and loses it's great affect and his irish taste it had in the start.
Rating:
Summary: First of all....I didn't overly care for it, but you might.
Review: First of all....I didn't overly care for it, but you may like it. Here we have the true story of an Irish family and the many struggles they face. And yes they do face some pretty serious struggles and contend with tragedy around every corner. Unfortunately, the film is not able to adequately portray these tragedies so that the audience member can be emotionally moved by them. Now while this film is based upon a bestseller, which will undoubtably bring countless patrons to the theater to see it. I suggest that if you want to truly identify with the story, then read the book. I will attempt to briefly describe this movie for you...it's a story of an Irish Catholic family who comes to America only to turn around and go home when things don't turn out well for them. However in Ireland they face even worse hardships, but are at least close to family. But the family is definitely dysfunctional, so they probably should have stayed put in the USA. Now I am not trying to make light of their tragedies, but after watching 3-4 children die in their family and the father not being able to find a job for 15 years of daily looking, something should kick in and say you need to do something different. Everyday you watch the children get taunted by their peers at school and then return home to a parents who can't provide them food or proper shelter. That in itself makes the story sad, especially when you know it's true, but it's presented so repetitively that one gets bored watching it. Parts of the story are interesting, for instance, watching the unique relationships between the family members that are based upon the person's religious upbringing or where in Ireland they were born. But these interesting parts are not enough to bring this film to the level of recommending it. Bottom line...I provide this film with the rating I did, not because it deserves it, but because I too am an Irish Catholic and don't want to face the guilt of giving it a lower rating.
Rating: 
Summary: Poverty and desperation sucks
Review: Angela's Ashes, the movie, was one I waited for for 3 years, since I read the book. Frank McCourt pulled me into his story and never let me go, even after I finished the book, I wanted it to go on, I wanted to know more. Thank you for 'Tis. The movie, as most book movies go, did not affect me the same way. It followed the book very closely but how can you put a lifetime into 2 1/2 hrs? It did show, however, and made the audience understand, the desperation that the family lived through and somehow survived. I truly believe that it weren't for Mr. McCourt's sensibilities, hunger for knowledge, and his sense of humor, he couldn't have survived his childhood.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Angela
Review: As someone who read the book three times before seeing the film, and who watched the film with more than a dozen friends (some from Ireland) who loved it as much as I, I can only say "T'anks" to Alan Parker for doing the nearly-impossible...capturing the spirit of Frank McCourt's masterpiece! The unbelievably sad moments were there, as were the incredibly funny times that helped the McCourt boys survive their wretched upbringing. I thought the acting was universally excellent, and Parker did a marvelous job with his child actors ("Young Frankie" was a revelation)! My only criticism of the film had to do with John William's score...far too melodramatic, even considering the circumstances portrayed. Watch this with a loved one...and talk about it afterwards...the DVD is wonderful!!
Rating:
Summary: Alan Parker adapts Frank McCourt's memoirs
Review: It took a while for me to get interested in "Angela's Ashes," and I was surprised to realize that the problem with the early part of Alan Parker's film was that the music was laying it on too thick. This is a surprise, of course, because the music is by John Williams. A narrator's voice tells us that there is nothing quite as bad as being raised in a poor Irish Catholic neighborhood and the music tries to nudge us in that direction. But seeing as how the words were enough to have me thinking of all the other cinematic examples of the lives of the poor in Ireland, the music was just a bother.
The movie is based on Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning memoir and knowing that is important because despite everything that happens in this film--or, more properly, because of it--young Frank is going to make it back to America and become a success. The film begins with the irony of an Irish family on a ship passing the Statue of Liberty going east as the McCourt's leave New York City to return to Limmerick. Malachy McCourt (Robert Carlyle) will have no more luck there finding a job to support his wife, Angela (Emily Watson) and four boys, but at least there is a family that can provide some support and a dole that will pay 13 shillings a week (5 for the rent, the rest to feed the family). However, unemployment is not the only constant in the McCourt family. There are deaths and births, whipping from the teachers at the school and the drunken singing of Malachy, all of which become part of the cycle of Frank's life.
"Angela's Ashes" is a story about poignant poverty, where the humor of the situations tries to win out in the end. Clearly Frank loves both his parents despite the "shame" they bring upon the family, his mother because she will beg for the scraps from the priests' table and his father because he will drink away not only his wages but the money sent for a new baby. I have to admit to some disappointment that there is not a point where Frank turns on his father (the way he does on his mother at one point), because what limited value the man might have had does not make it to the screen. But then Frank never seems to connect the survival of his family to the shame his mother endures, both private and public.
The movie covers three main stages in Frank's life and there are a trio of young actors who capture each stage and their respective crucibles. For Young Frank (Joe Breen) it is his first Holy Communion and the onslaught of confessions that it engenders. Middle Frank (Ciaran Owens) faces a serious illness that does not succeed in killing him but does force him to be humiliated by going back a grade. Then there is Older Frank (Michael Legge), who bears the grave responsibility for sending a young woman's soul to hell and is working as one of Satan's emissaries on Earth, writing threatening letters to those who are behind in their payments to the local moneylender.
But for each crucible there is a corresponding minor miracle. My favorite is when Frank is ordered to write an essay on what would have happened if Jesus had been born in Limmerick, but the most significant one comes when for once in his life, a death becomes a blessing for Frank McCourt and every poor soul he knows in the lane. There are certainly moments of warm humor in this film, as there are moments of pathos, but somehow not quite as many as I would expect given the director and his source material. However, I am having an urge to track down my wife's copy of McCourt's book and am in "litigious anticipation" of reading it for myself and proving my grand suspicion that all of the limitations of the film version of "Angela's Ashes" are in the adaptation and not the original material.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Brilliant
Review: I watched this movie, after reading the book and there are absolutely no discrepancies. Everyone is portrayed to perfection. There are no "Holywood" moments, no models to dazzle your eyes on the screen; however, you will be shocked by the circumstances these characters endure. Every now and again you will have to remind yourself.........this is not a "made-up" story, It's someones "LIFE STORY".....FOR REAL!
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