I am back in my home sweet home, with my cats yowling for attention in the background. I’m currently cleaning up a mess on the blog. I have a ton of real work to do, and though I had a great weekend, I will be busy the next few days. Posting may be light.
I do have some random thoughts though.
Alice in Wonderland was brilliant. If you liked Edward Scissorhands, you will love Tim Burton’s version of Alice. I want to see it again. And again. And again.
The Neil Patrick Harris song opening the Oscars was mean, nasty, stupid, and unfunny. Here’s a suggestion for the Oscar writers: Cut the opening number. And get rid of the dance numbers. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
So glad Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Director. Ditto Sandra Bullock, because she’s one of my favorites. (Funny speech!)
Now I have four more movies to see: Crazy Heart, Avatar, Hurt Locker, and District 9 (not in that order). Plus, I have to see Alice in Wonderland again. Oh, and reread the books. I didn’t catch enough of the references because it’s been too long since I read them. I got bored. Burton made me interested again. Probably because he wove a narrative that doesn’t exist in the novels, and made it far more interesting and a little less a compilation of bizarre and disparate scenes. I really liked the narrative. It made the story so much better. That, and Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, and a fantastic cast, the special effects—I kept wondering “How did he do that?” every time I saw the red queen’s bulbous head—I highly recommend the film.
Back to the usual stuff later.
I hope you’ll pardon me for sharing an uffish thought with you. This is, simply put, heresy. When a slithy director such as Tim Burton takes his own story and puts the name “Alice in Wonderland” on it, he is not enhancing the story. I am disappointed to read such manxnome opinions on this frabjous blog.
Sincerely,
David, Knight of the Vorpal Sword
The real question is: when was the last time the Cheshire Cat had a good skritch?
Well, David, all I can say is that I grew extremely bored with the books years ago, after a lifetime of loving them, and Tim Burton has reignited my love for the stories. I think you should go see the movie and see what I mean.
I’m sorry if my note seemed severe. I was trying to work in as many Jabberwocky words as I could. I was trying to be silly. I guess it didn’t work.
To date I’ve seen two Tim Burton movies, Bettlejuice and Batman. I can’t say I have any great interest in seeing either again. (I’d love to see Sweeney Todd again, but since it’s a Tim Burton movie, if I ever see it again it will have to be a filming of the Broadway show.)
The commercials for Alice in Wonderland totally turned me off to the movie. It was very clear that there’s an invented plot to string the story together, and I’m too unimaginative to appreciate that. Additionally, Alice in Wonderland is whimsical; nothing Burton does is.
Well, you won’t like it if you hate Burton that much. I didn’t like Beetlejuice on first viewing, but the more I saw it, the funnier it got. I like it now. Edward Scissorhands is my favorite of his films. Didn’t like what he did to Batman, though. Didn’t care for his version of Sweeney Todd for two reasons. Three, actually. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter can’t sing. Plus, there was far too much blood. Buckets and buckets of blood. Because that’s just what an already dark story needs, more darkness.