REVIEW: Alice in Wonderland

21 03 2010

No matter your opinion on director Tim Burton, it can’t be denied that the man has some true creativity.  This spark is what gained him notoriety in the late ’80s and early ’90s with hits like “Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands,” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”  Recently, however, Burton has seemed to have found that creativity isn’t always synonymous with originality, and has mainly spent the past five years retooling other people’s work.

But while Burton puts his own unique spin on these projects, I have felt that each of them has lost a very distinct part of their original identity.  With his remake of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” the movie lost most of its original charm and fun.  His film adaptation of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” dropped a sizable portion of Stephen Sondheim’s songs, and the story lost a great deal of character development.

Unfortunately, “Alice in Wonderland” falls into the same pattern.  This time, Burton has stripped the movie of a lot of its sense.  Granted, this is a fairly non-sensical story, so this isn’t the worst movie to receive this treatment.  But Burton makes it lose even the most basic coherency, and no movie can be excused for that.

It’s hard to describe what exactly Burton’s take on “Alice in Wonderland” actually is.  It is not a remake of the Disney animated classic like I assumed it would be.  But it is not any sort of sequel, prequel, revamping, or modernizing of anything we have ever seen.  This version is just off in its own little world, reminding us of our favorite characters but never giving us any reason to fall in love with them again.

Read the rest of this entry »





Random Factoid #235

20 03 2010

This factoid isn’t so much about the I, it’s about the you.  There is something that I would like you to do.

The movie blogging conglomerate that I belong to, the Large Association of Movie Blogs (or LAMB for short), has kindly featured me in their “Brutally Blunt Blog Blustering” post of the week.  They invite anyone to leave an anonymous comment with honest suggestions for how I can improve the site.

So, what I would like you to do is venture on over to the site and leave your two cents.  Do you hate that my factoids are so utterly random?  Do you have an issue with my layout?  Is my writing style for reviews absolutely unbearable?  Do I need to use a more lively font?  Anything and everything is welcome, I only ask that you be completely honest. This is your big chance to make a big difference on the way this site is run (and avoid any direct reaction from the author), so make the most of it.

CLICK on the picture below to see the “Brutally Blunt Blog Blustering.”





F.I.L.M. of the Week (March 19, 2010)

19 03 2010

It’s been a long time since I have been so enthusiastic about presenting a movie as the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

I acknowledge my tendency to sensationalize and exaggerate as a blogger and critic.  In a way, it’s what I have to do to get my feelings across and make it read.  So I throw around a word like triumphant quite a bit.

I’m not sure that I have ever seen a movie that fits the word triumphant better than Julian Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”  Simply put, the film tells the story of one of the greatest triumphs of the human will over obstacles that has even been told – no exaggerating.  And it only makes it more extraordinary to think that the movie is based on a true story.

Yes, it is entirely true that Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle in France, suffered a massive stroke that left him comatose for three weeks.  When he woke up, he found himself a victim of “locked-in” syndrome.  All mental and cognitive functions worked, but nearly all physical functions were shut down because of the lack of activity in the brain stem.

But notice that I didn’t say all physical functions were shut down.  Bauby had one functional body part: his left eye.  Thanks to the help of two patient and ingenious hospital therapists, he eventually learned to talk and communicate not with his mouth, but with this eye.  And as Bauby’s confidence in the system grew, he began fulfilling his previous book contract, albeit in a manner and about a subject that no one could have expected.  His strength and determination shocked everyone, but more importantly, it inspired them.

Director Julian Schnabel, deservedly cited by the Academy for his work, does an excellent job bringing this story to the screen.  He begins the movie by showing us life from Bauby’s new perspective; that is, from a fixed position down below.  We feel the frustration as he tries to speak but slowly realizes that no one can her him.  We sense the disorientation as his right eye fails to catch up to his left.  Slowly, as Bauby comes to terms with his condition, our view expands.  We see Bauby as the world sees him.  We see Bauby as he sees himself.  We see Bauby’s dreams.  By the end of the movie, Schnabel ensures that we have fully explored the man, and he uses plenty of technical weapons in his arsenal to achieve it.  The cinematography and editing, both nominated for Oscars, are absolutely phenomenal.

I feel like triumphant is almost an understatement for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”  It’s the kind of movie that makes you wonder why more foreign films aren’t nominated for Best Picture – this easily makes my top five of 2007.  But I digress; I don’t want this to become a discussion of the politics of movie awards.  This is a movie that shows the power of the human will to overcome the most grueling of physical obstacles in a way that stirs the soul, and it needs to be seen.





Random Factoid #234

19 03 2010

I came to a realization the other day that I found rather shocking.  To my knowledge (and my memory could potentially fail me here), I have never seen a foreign language film in theaters.  I see plenty on video, but I don’t think I’ve ever slapped down the cash at the box office.

Perhaps I’ll break the streak with “A Prophet” – I intended to break it with “The White Ribbon,” but they yanked it too soon!





Random Factoid #233

18 03 2010

For the first time in a few months, I checked my Rotten Tomatoes profile.  The last review I entered was “Nine” – and that was back in the last decade.

I decided that I wasn’t satisfied with the shady sillhouette they had so courteously provided as my profile picture, so I decided to change it.  And no, I didn’t actually use a picture of myself.

If you were to find me on Rotten Tomatoes now, my profile icon would look like this:

Why?  Because Pixar is the best, and I just want to go give this cloud a hug.





REVIEW: The Girlfriend Experience

18 03 2010

I have a great deal of respect for Steven Soderbergh because in all of his directorial projects, he has never played it safe.  Even in his more conservative films, he is never afraid to take risks – for example, he gives “The Informant!” the double punch of a smart satire and a deliberate character study.

But whenever Soderbergh isn’t doing well-received studio movies, he makes a fair amount of experimental cinema.  And the thing about these movies is that they are incredibly polarizing – you either think it works or it fails; there’s not much of a middle ground.

With his latest experiment, “The Girlfriend Experience,” it doesn’t.

I’ve been taught the scientific method throughout my entire schooling career, so I can systematically dissect where the movie fell apart.  I admire Soderbergh’s hypothesis, or the general idea he had for the film.  He wanted to make a movie about how the failing economy affects everyone, even those who you wouldn’t expect.  You know, like call girls and personal trainers.  It’s a movie with ambition, and I would much rather spend my time watching a bad movie with ambition than a mediocre movie without it.

The error is in the execution.  Technically speaking, there’s nothing really wrong about the acting, even from Sasha Grey, whose only previous experience came from the adult genre.  But every performance lacks in urgency, and I felt no reason to care about the fate of any character in the slightest.

The writing also lacks, mainly because it fails to match the movie’s daring premise.  It’s too caught up in clichés and predictability, often the deciding factor of mediocrity nowadays.  We are still in the middle of this financial crisis, and maybe taking such a bold look at it is best served to wait until after it all subsides.  C- /





Random Factoid #232

17 03 2010

In first grade, I was required to write in my journal for school purposes.  Usually, we could write about things that we wanted, such as our weekend.

I wrote in this journal a great many times, but the only entry that I distinctly remember is an entire section devoted to my adoration of a cup for “The Road to El Dorado” that I got at the movies.

I meant to say that it was a really cool cup, but I accidentally forgot to write the word cool.  It came back with the comment: “That sounds great, but what is a really cup?”





Random Factoid #231

16 03 2010

The first time I had ever seen the Best Picture-winning movie on the day of the ceremony was in 2004. I had seen “Million Dollar Baby” a week or so before the show. A trend didn’t catch on until 2007; since that year, I have seen the winning movie by the Oscars ceremony.





REVIEW: The Last Station

16 03 2010

The Last Station” is a movie that would have played well in ‘20s and ‘50s.

It’s a classic battle of communism vs. capitalism as Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren) fights for the right to the profits from the writings of her husband, famed writer Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer).  Her fiercest opponents are the forces that hope to turn her husband into a saint and his work into a movement, led by the ruthless Chertkov (Paul Giamatti).

Caught awkwardly in the midst of all of this is Valentin (James McAvoy), a secretary for the family hired by Chertkov to document all the proceedings in the Tolstoy’s dwelling.  A devoted “Tolstoyan,” Valentin believes in abstinence and rejects private property.  Yet as he becomes intertwined in the affairs of the house, he finds himself smitten by one of the commune workers and sympathizing with Sofya’s plight.

In “The Last Station,” I saw in Helen Mirren what I feel like everyone else in the world saw in “The Queen.”  As supposed to her passive and gentle Oscar-winning work in the latter, I saw truly powerhouse acting that absolutely commands the screen.  It wasn’t just her reputation that earned her these many nominations; this performance is completely deserving.  I’ve never advocated that screaming plus shouting with some crying equals an Oscar nomination, but plenty of people claimed that the trailer just screamed awards attention for Helen Mirren.  She does plenty of it, but it is executed with the utmost perfection that it never feels like she begs for attention.

Christopher Plummer is charming and delightful as Leo Tolstoy.  This isn’t the best of 2009 or of his career, but it’s another great reminder of what a treasure he has been all the way back to Captain Von Trapp in 1965.  The fact that this was his first Academy Award nomination is truly criminal.

“The Last Station” is a movie that succeeds because of its phenomenal acting, mainly from Mirren and Plummer.  But it’s also one of those movies that can win you over with the stunning beauty of its setting.  In fact, it almost becomes difficult to keep your attention on the actors during the scenes in the forest and not let your eyes drift to the gorgeous foliage.  The movie often tries to focus on love and romance, but the theme isn’t played out with great success.  Thankfully, it plays a smaller part to the conflicting ideologies, and it is here where the film is at its strongest.  B+ /





Random Factoid #230

15 03 2010

I have a Post It note on the dashboard of my laptop reserved just for factoid ideas. This comes in handy on the days when my brain is running pretty low on juice.

Obviously, since the Post It note itself has become a factoid, you can tell that I could use a few more brainstorming sessions. Thankfully, it’s spring break, so I have time for that.