Alice In Wonderland 3-D: movie directed by tim burton
well, it's considerably after breakfast, but exposure to this movie has led me to believe six impossible things, at the very least:
1. johnny depp's makeup was more cool than it was annoying. i never thought that that would be the case.
2. mixing the music from coraline together with an averil lavigne single wasn't a great idea for the soundtrack. oh, wait, no, that's not an impossible thing. that's a quite possible thing, one that proved profoundly and omnipresently true.
3. no matter how often alice shrank, grew, snagged herself on things, changed outfits, and beheaded stuff, her hair just kept looking better and better.
4. questions about ravens and writing desks DO make for a bittersweet goodbye.
5. girls can do anything they want to! i mean, my head can hardly believe it, but my heart knew it all along. even in edwardian england, you know, girls can be arrested and scorned and starve themselves for the right to vote...or they can become merchant marine apprentices, and go all the way to china. wearing cute, butch baby blue coats. yeah, alice, as she was portrayed at the end of this movie, definitely went on to make passionate, sapphic love to a series of women, much like that tom-lady in tipping the velvet.
6. i liked it.
i liked the pacing, for one thing--it didn't go too slow, and it wasn't overly irritating. i liked the plot--i feel like it mixed up a few too many things, but at least there was a plot. i liked the acting, mostly, and the cgi animals were really fun. i even liked the parts that they borrowed from lord of the rings, because said borrowings seemed appropriate, and possibly cut down on at least some of the cgi budget. i liked all of it, in fact, except when they were talking at each other, because the serious dialogue was a little bit unendurable. i mean, lewis carroll was a master of nonsense, but even he couldn't have anticipated the way that "serious" dialogue in films such as this--films that don't actually have time for such things as serious dialogue--would go.
and really, tim burton? you're really going to turn the mad hatter into a quasi-heroic love interest? next time just cast johnny depp as the doormouse. or maybe the red queen. either of those characters would have made just as appropriate romantic leads as the mad hatter, plus johnny depp playing either of them would have been impressively quixotic as opposed to overly tim burtonesque: it's time to let edward scissorhands go, man! i mean, when david bowie and jennifer connelly rode that romantical yet oh so creepy fantastically-costumed older man/teen girl wave, that tension was basically the only thing that made labyrinth interesting (aside from the puppets). i'd say the opposite is kind of the case with alice in wonderland. not that both alice and johnny didn't play their parts well, just that, i mean, give them a fighting chance.
ah, it feels good to snark again. speaking of lewis carroll references. go ahead and start hunting it, for i have unleashed the snark. i really did enjoy the movie. if you're going to see stuff that's currently in 3-d, why not not make it ferngully? that is, avatar. sorry. (snark--away!)
i also really liked the fashions, but not as much as i bet hot topic's going to when they start selling alice spin-off dresses.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Paper Heart, or, let the dating start!
Paper Heart: documoviery starring charlyne yi and michael cera and its director
...because when lacking any idea for the blog title, always go for the rhyme.
i liked this. a lot. two thumbs and a couple toes up. i thought maybe the puppets were a little too cute, and the wonder years footage in the middle was maybe a little too emphatic, but i'm pushing myself here to find something bad. i really liked it--and as usual, when i like something, i find it difficult to think of anything to say about it.
what can i say? usually i object to characterizations that don't ring true and plot developments that aren't genre-ically sound; paper heart had neither of these problems. the storyline went all the way through (it kebabed itself...hmm); the characters were captured really nicely. there's a moment when the charlyne character is listening to the story about the dead boyfriend of one of the gay guys and he's making a joke about it and her face is so full of empathy and sadness, it kind of tells the whole story of what makes her resist love in that moment.
it's possible that i watch movies weirdly. i mean, there are things like her going on the biker's motorcycle that, if one were as paranoid as i can sometimes be, one could see as hooks to get the viewer, to make him or her think that he or she is participating in a cute movie with all its alternative trappings. but i don't think that stuff is just for show, i guess. i mean, while she's riding on the motorcycle, we see her, you know? "charlyne" gets revealed to us. it's sensitive of the director to be able to capture her, and the people he's filming, without making it exploitative. he switches valences sometimes, but that's because she's the focus of the film, i think, anyway--and she's got layers. maybe i'm seeing something that's not there, but i don't think so.
note that i'm not focusing over-much on the reality/fiction thing, because that whole argument annoys me. i am trying to be cautious, however (notice the quotes around charlyne above? yeah, i learned that in lit class! it's a technique. i know it, pretty much, yeah).
as might be inferred, i identified pretty strongly with the whole discomfort-with-love thing, which makes me distrust my own judgment. maybe i should just distrust my own judgment with greater frequency--or maybe i should trust it more in this case.
hell, i'll go for option b. see paper heart! it's great!
...because when lacking any idea for the blog title, always go for the rhyme.
i liked this. a lot. two thumbs and a couple toes up. i thought maybe the puppets were a little too cute, and the wonder years footage in the middle was maybe a little too emphatic, but i'm pushing myself here to find something bad. i really liked it--and as usual, when i like something, i find it difficult to think of anything to say about it.
what can i say? usually i object to characterizations that don't ring true and plot developments that aren't genre-ically sound; paper heart had neither of these problems. the storyline went all the way through (it kebabed itself...hmm); the characters were captured really nicely. there's a moment when the charlyne character is listening to the story about the dead boyfriend of one of the gay guys and he's making a joke about it and her face is so full of empathy and sadness, it kind of tells the whole story of what makes her resist love in that moment.
it's possible that i watch movies weirdly. i mean, there are things like her going on the biker's motorcycle that, if one were as paranoid as i can sometimes be, one could see as hooks to get the viewer, to make him or her think that he or she is participating in a cute movie with all its alternative trappings. but i don't think that stuff is just for show, i guess. i mean, while she's riding on the motorcycle, we see her, you know? "charlyne" gets revealed to us. it's sensitive of the director to be able to capture her, and the people he's filming, without making it exploitative. he switches valences sometimes, but that's because she's the focus of the film, i think, anyway--and she's got layers. maybe i'm seeing something that's not there, but i don't think so.
note that i'm not focusing over-much on the reality/fiction thing, because that whole argument annoys me. i am trying to be cautious, however (notice the quotes around charlyne above? yeah, i learned that in lit class! it's a technique. i know it, pretty much, yeah).
as might be inferred, i identified pretty strongly with the whole discomfort-with-love thing, which makes me distrust my own judgment. maybe i should just distrust my own judgment with greater frequency--or maybe i should trust it more in this case.
hell, i'll go for option b. see paper heart! it's great!
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