A Little Princess

Rating:
Summary: I hated this movie!
Review: If you liked the book, don't get this movie. I don't know why they named it A Little Princess since the story is so different. I bought the VHS version thinking it would be good seeing what book it was based on. Boy was I wrong. In the movie Sara goes to New York to be at a boarding school to be safe while her Dad goes off to fight in WWI. In the book she is sent to London to learn to be a lady while her father stays in India apparently to do nothing and invest in diamond mines. In the movie Sara does naughty things all the time. You would never catch Frances Hodgeson Burnett's Sara doing such a thing. There is also a feminist slant to this movie where you find 10 year old girls hanging on to wet brick walls by one finger. Sara does not act like a princess, all she does is go around boasting that it is every girl's right to be a princess. It is not. Girls should act like princesses, be polite, kind and ladylike, not go around feeling haughty and better than every one else. Maybe the acting is suberb, I don't know. I've probably watched less than 20 movies in my 16 years, but I was very disappointed with this one.

Rating:
Summary: A must see, even better a must have
Review: I've had this DVD since 98 and have watched it dozens of times without ever growing tired of it. I never read the book so I don't know how close the movie follows the book but this is a truly inspirational movie very well cast and acted. The lead role is is amazing and Liesel Matthews plays her part to perfection. Adults should enjoy the movie as much as kids, I'm an adult and this is probably my favorite family movie of all time. A beautiful story of courage, strength and never giving up no matter how bad things get, this is definitely better than The Secret Garden. I love the contrast between her story world and her real world, that's all I will give away about the movie, I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Some very moving tear jerking moments, anyone who doesn't like this may as well give up on watching movies, there is no hope for you. A masterpiece of storytelling don't miss seeing it, in fact buy it and enjoy it over and over for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: A Review On... A Little Princess
Review: I think it is a great book and DVD. I think it has a great ending, I would write more but I don't want to give away the plot for those who haven't read or seen it yet, but I do have one more thing to say, you should!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A Little Princess
Review: Sara Crewe is a girl that lives in India but had to move to New York because her father had to go to war. In New York, she stays in a place called Miss.Minchan's Seminary for girls. One day when it is Sara's birthday, she is having a fun time with her friends. They have a big cake and they are very happy until Miss Minchon comes in. She takes Sara away and tells her that her father died in war. Sara has to go in the attic to live with the servant Becky because she has no money to live on. It is very cold in the attic. The end is for you to find out when you read it.
I liked this book because it has a very good ending and a supprising middle. It's not one of those books where you can tell what is going to happen. I think that you should read this book whoever you are.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Princess
Review: I think that the book A Little Princess was a very good book . The reason that I thought that it was so good was because they made it sound really real by making some people mean,some poeple nice, and some people anoying. I thought that Mrs. Michin was too mean.

Rating:
Summary: The princess. 16th april 2004.
Review: BRILLIANT. Sara a girl from india, who gets put into a school cos her dad has gone to work in the army. When sara has to work for them as a servant, she feels really upset as she as just had some terrible news that her father has just died. Also the other girls like her except one. She hates working as a servant and wishes she could be like the other girls. One girl who she gets bestest friends with also is a servant too. They make there own plan to try and get out. She finds a big piece of wood and walks bravely to the house just across her with a man genie and his monkey. She gets caught by the head and she finds a way to hide herself in the building. Suddenly she sees somebody that she says is just like her papa. And really he isn't dead after all, she makes up with the girl who never liked her. Becky her best friend, goes back home with sara and her dad.

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Book
Review: I'm not going to go through what this book is about, because you can read any of the other reviews here to find that out. I'm just going to say that this is my all-time favorite book. When I was little I read it over and over again, and I modelled myself after the main character. I still do. I love her because she's gentle and kind, she was rich and everyone thought she was spoiled but it wasn't true, she bore her trials well and remained true to herself when things took a turn for the (extreme) worse. She was generous and smart and she didn't have a short temper but she wasn't afraid to get angry if she had good cause. And just a million other things. If I had my way every little girl would have a copy of this book, and also every adult woman.

Rating:
Summary: The Little Princess
Review: The Little Princess
By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reviewed by: G. Lee
Period: 2

This book is about a little girl named, Sara Crewe. She was a very rich little girl and also bratty too. The father was famous because he was a Captain and he set off for a trip and he sends Sara to a school where she can be learning and studying. when she was sent to the school she fixes up her attitude and turns very nice and caring to one another and to the other girls in the school. During his journey he had a surprise death on Sara's eleventh birthday. She soon became poor and had to live in the attic of the school. Now, Miss Minchin, the woman that took care of her, treated her really badly. She also took Sara's riches, but she didnt know it belonged to Sara. The father's friend thought he lost their riches but Sara was just next door to where the father's friend lived. The father's friend soon founded out that Sara was there. Sara had a choice to go with the father's friend or Miss Minchin, of course Sara was smart enouh to pick the father's friend. All those days when she was stuck in the attic made her become ery helpful to the poor, so now she gave food to the poor.

I liked this book because she used to be very bratty and mean to peoples and ever since she lived in the attic of the school she became helpful to the poor. I also liked this book because it also became a movie. The movie was a little different but it was still reasonable to the book. i also liked this book for being a fairy tale like story. This book also had many graphics to help me know whats going on sometimes.

I didnt like this book a little because of the death of the father. Ever since the father died Sara ot treated very badly from Miss Minchin and i dont like people being treated badly, especially when they dont deserve to be treated like that way. Plus, i dont like how Miss minchin lied to the father's friend about treating Sara like she was treated very well and how she was supposed to have been treated. Everybody should show every other person all the respect or loyalty to all peoples, for example to rich or even poor people they should be treated well equaly.

My favorite part of this book is when the father's friend finally found Sara. I was very surprised that he just lived right next to the school and didn't know that Sara had been stayin there for all this time. I was also glad when Sara picked to live with the father's friend and not the evil Miss Minchin. plus, i also liked when Sara was treating the poor well and giin them food and charity appliances, that was very nice and helpful. Lastly, I liked how she always believed in herself een though she had a bad time she always was succesful somehow and accomplished what she had to do to stay alive and wealthy.

Rating:
Summary: "All the Women of this World are Princesses"
Review: Warner Brothers' "A Little Princess" followed the critical success of their previous adaptation of Frances Hodgeson Burnett's classic story "The Secret Garden", which despite being one of the best children's movies recently created had a reasonably quiet (though by no means unsuccessful) run at the box-office. Sadly it seemed that children needed explosions and action and strobe lights and goodness knows what else in order to justify their time at the movies. But this didn't stop Warner Brothers' from creating "A Little Princess" and I for one am glad they did. Wonderful casting, beautiful visuals and a tearful ending make this a family classic.

Sara Crewe is the daughter of an adoring father; Captain Crewe, a high-ranking army officer stationed in exotic India. Raised under the belief that she and every other woman in the world is naturally a princess, she knows of no hardships in her life. But the year is 1914, and war is on the horizon. With her father called away to fight, Sara is taken to a New York boarding school for girls under the control of the stately Miss Minchin. It is with this matriarch that Sara goes head-to-head with, as their philosophies on life are so utterly opposite. Harbouring resentment and jealously toward the little princess, it is as much cruelty as it is kindess when Miss Minchin employs Sara as a servant girl after news of her father's death.

Suddenly Sara has gone from the girl who has everything to the girl who has nothing. Her faith in magic and storytelling shattered, she refuses to acknowledge the good she has already done in befriending several classmates, and it is up to the very real presence of magic in her life to intervene: watch how one "coincidental" gust of wind blows her shawl into the feet of someone who can change her fortunes once more, setting off a chain reaction that just might lead her once more to her father...

Liesel Matthews begins her debut as Sara Crewe, and creates her wonderfully - youthful innocence and wisdom beyond her years combine to create this wonderful character who brings joy to the life of so many, from the distraught Lottie to the servant girl Becky, with whom all contact is strictly forbidden. Her fall from grace to her gradual renewal of faith is just beautiful to watch in a performance not matched until Rachel Hurd-Wood played Wendy in 2003's "Peter Pan". Likewise, Liam Cunningham as Captain Crewe plays a devoted father, and I loved how his scenes of war coincided with Sara's storytelling: the magic poison of the demon Ravana becomes mustard-gas in the trenches, and Ravana's roars become the scream of war-planes overhead.

Eleanor Bron excellently plays the aristocratic Miss Minchin, with her exterior of charisma, grace and culture underlying her inner spite and nastiness. However, Bron does not play her simply as the one-dimensional bad guy, and neither is she without her moments of humanity: she obviously finds it difficult in telling Sara that her father has died, and when Sara finally confronts her head-on, Minchin's hastily wiped-away tears tell us better than any words that she never had a father as loving as Sara's was.

Alfonso Cuaron directs "A Little Princess" and does so beautifully, from the povery-stricken streets of New York, where a single yellow rose is the only splash of colour, to the bright and exotic worlds of India that appear at intervals as Sara tells the mythological tale of Rama and Sita throughout the movie(and it's interesting to note that the actors that play these two lovers are the same that play Sara's own mother and father!) There are some sublime moments of imagery and beauty captured here, including the flower-sellers in the streets, Sara threading the dew-covered rose in the handle of the door, the black-clad lawyer watching the laughing girls, Sara spinning in the snow storm at her window...I could go on. And as all these scenes are coupled with appropriate music, be it strains of exotic India or a sorrowful choir, they remain in your mind for a very long time. In the simplist possible terms, this is a beautiful movie.

There are some things I didn't particulary like, such as the amnesia plot device that they use on Captain Crewe (though I admit there wasn't really a way around this), the fact that Sara has the upper body strength of a grown man when she manages to hoist herself up on the windowsill by her fingertips, and the completely un-neccessary love story between Minchin's sister and the milkman. However, worst for me was the last scene in which Miss Minchin appears: beforehand we had witnessed the depths of her her wickedness when she lies about Sara's parentage even though Captain Crewe is standing right before her. After the father and daughter's tearful reunion, we see her standing in the rain and turning away, alone with her hate. Her story should have ended here with this powerful scene, but instead we get a truly awful continuation where she is working as a chimney-sweep - a conclusion as implausible as it is silly. I close my eyes and fast-forward every time I see it.

Although ultimately I think I liked "The Secret Garden" more, "A Little Princess" is its more than worthy follow-up, with almost every particular magnificently created (though incredibly different from the original novel!) See it - it's a thousand times better than any of the rubbish aimed at kids these days ("The Cat in the Hat" anyone?) and I look forward to seeing more of Alfonso Cuaron's work in the next "Harry Potter"!

Rating:
Summary: A Little Princess
Review: A Little Princess
By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reviewed By: J. Lee
Period: P.1

This book is about a girl named Sara Crewe. Her father is a captain, and he is very rich. Sara Crewe is sent to a school so she will be educated, while her father goes on a journey. At first, no one likes her, because she is so rich, but she makes a friend named Ermengarde. There is also a young girl named Lottie, who has no mother like Sara, herself. Sara becomes close with her as well and acts like a mother to her. Sara tells many stories to little children, and they all become to like her. However, Miss Minchin and her sister are not very welcoming. All they care is for Sara's money and inheritance. But on Sara's 11th birthday, a tragic thing happens. Sara finds out that her father died from a fever and his friend lost all of their money. Sara becomes poor and is immediately put into rags. She starts to dwell in the attic, and she runs errands on the worst days. The cooks don't feed her well, and she is tired, however, Sara still has her warm, caring heart. She makes friends with a mouse up in the attic and she provides him and his family with crumbs. Sara now knows how it feels to be hungry and cold, but what she doesn't know is that her father's friend is looking for her. He never actually lost their fortune. It was that he just thought he did. So, he looked and looked for the girl, not knowing how she looked like or even her name. But he found her right next door, at the school, in the attic. He of course, handed her the fortune, and decided to take care of her. When Miss Minchin found out that there actually were diamond mines and that it belonged to Sara Crewe, she was in shock. Miss Minchin acted as she never treated Sara badly, and suggested her to stay at her school. But of course, Sara knew better, and she refused. Sara decided to help the hungry, and the needy, because she knew how it felt to be in that situation.
I liked this book because it had much description in the chapters that I could actually imagine and feel what the author was thinking and writing about. I could feel as if I was in the character's shoes and it was an experience reading this book. The first sentence of this book got me interested in reading this book. "Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows glazed as they do at night, an odd-looking girl sat in a cab with her father and was rather driven slowly through the big thoroughfares." I was able to imagine this scene, and it made the story livelier. Towards the end of the story, Sara Crewe says,
"You know much more why I wouldn't stay at your school." I was shocked when she said this, but I was pleased at the same time. I realized that Miss Minchin got what she deserved. She treated Sara badly, so in return, Miss Minchin didn't get Sara's money. I learned that you should truly act to others as you would want to be treated.
My favorite part of the book was when Sara woke up in the middle of the night and found great things. A warm bed, cozy fire, delicious food, and everything she could think of. I liked this part because Sara believed that it was magical. This is what she really needed, and that night, her wish got granted. Also, I like it when people keep their hopes up high. I realized that those who keep wishing and those who believe that things can come true somehow end up getting what they've needed or wanted. As for the people who just laugh and say, "That'll never come true," never receive anything. Sara kept her hopes high even though she was in a rough situation. She believed that things could really happen and it did.