Alice in Wonderland (3D)

While not quite the same story as most of us remember from our childhood, this Tim Burton film sees Alice back in Wonderland after 10-12 years when she’s 19. Alice gets invited to a really large garden party where the surprise of the day is that this stuffy ginger boy is going to propose to her.

Alice has been seeing what she thinks is a rabbit all day and when the ginger finally proposes, she says she needs time to think. After chasing the rabbit, she falls in a hole and goes to Wonderland. When she arrives, the characters we all know (Cheshire cat, Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dum, etc.) don’t recognize her and are unsure if she is the same Alice as before. The Red Queen’s men (or cards, rather) show up, led by Crispin Glover and a giant attack dog – a Bandersnatch (which is now my new favorite word) and capture some of them. Alice escapes and runs into the Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp) who gets captured while trying to protect her from the Red Queen’s men.

When Alice shows up at the Red Queen’s palace, she says her name is “UM” and befriends the queen. There’s all the “off with their heads!” yelling, as you’d expect from the previous story, but eventually the Red Queen and her men find out she’s the Alice that’s been sent to kill the queen’s champion – the Jabberwocky. Alice is trying to get the Vorpal sword which is the only thing that can kill a Jabberwocky, so it’s up to Alice to find and free the well-protected sword. There’s an epic battle at the end of the film between the White Queen and the Red Queen to determine who should hold the crown.

As many of you know, I loathe CGI. This movie is sort of an exception since I liked what they did with CGI about 40-50%. I especially liked what the director TRIED to do with CGI. For example, the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) had an enormous head which I absolutely loved and totally bought 100% – and sadly, found strangely arousing. But then Crispin Glover’s character had Crispin’s head and a tall, skinny, and awkward CGI body. WHY?!?! Isn’t Crispin Glover tall, skinny, and awkward? YES! Another fun and cool thing was Johnny Depp’s eyes. Just his eyes were CGI’d – and totally believable and realistic. I buy it. But then some of the talking animal stuff was absolute bullshit and hokey. Almost all of the landscape and background stuff the CGI people did was exquisite though – I loved that part. Either I’m becoming numb to CGI now or they’re just getting better at it.

Secondly, I saw the 3D version of this film, just to make sure I got ALL the awesomeness. And truly, they did an amazing job with the 3D aspect of the film – about 75% of the time. Lots of cool visuals with things flying at the camera and very cool shots where you could definitely see the depth of the shots. Then they’d computer-generate some dumb-ass flying rocking horse fighting a sea horse or something and it would completely ruin the illusion. During the scene where Alice fell into the hole to get to Wonderland, there were ridiculous CGI things happening that just angered me – the falling part was cool and you felt like you were falling as well, then you’d see something that made you yell “Come on!” and then you’d just get angry (or maybe that’s just me. Hahaha).

I loved the little things that happened in this movie. For example, the Red Queen has animals holding all of the furniture and fixtures around the palace. Monkeys are holding candelabras and desks, pigs are underneath chairs, walking fish are serving drinks, frogs are butlers, and flamingos and porcupines are croquet mallets and balls. Very imaginative and mostly well-depicted with CGI. I loved the fact that they explain that Alice had been wrong all along calling it Wonderland instead of Underland – which is actually what it is called. I loved the voices playing the CGI animals and people. Alan Rickman (Snape) played the opium-smoking caterpillar, Stephen Fry played the Cheshire Cat (who was awesome), I love Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway as a hilariously aloof White Queen, and one of my favorite actors – Matt Lucas playing both Tweedle-Dum AND Tweedle-Dee (it took me forever to realize it was him playing both parts and arguing with himself hilariously – I LOVED these guys, especially because they almost looked like Matt Lucas).

There is, oddly, lots of eye-gouging in this movie. Multiple characters get their eyes plucked out in this film, so at least be ready for it. None of it is actually bloody and it always ends up being sort-of comical, but it’s still people and animals getting their eyes poked. Weird. And also look for the woman with the shelf-boobs on the Red Queen’s court – they’re awesomely hilarious and only in one scene where she catches Crispin Glover putting the make on Alice, even though he and the queen are an item. Finally, when you put dancing in my movies, I’m going to get mad. Sorry. There was ridiculous AND computer-enhanced dancing in this film that was 1000% unnecessary and infuriating. What a waste of the movie goers time – thankfully, it was only like two scenes.

Overall, I thought this film was really well done and pretty entertaining. It is a great spin on the original story and doesn’t try to copy it for the most part. I was annoyed with the CGI, but I knew I would be. Despite the oddly used CGI and ridiculous dance scenes, there were enough cool CGI things and fun parts (and 3D parts) that I really enjoyed the film. Go see this one with friends or a significant other. You’ll be entertained, fo sho.

Salò o le 120 gionate di Sodoma (Salo)

This Italian film from 1975 takes place during the Nazi era of Italy’s past. The film starts out with some aristocrats signing some sort of document. Turns out they’ve all agreed to marry each other’s daughter to make some sort of unbreakable pact between them all. A group of gentlemen round up a handful of teenage hoodlum boys and talk about deflowering them, though I’m not sure that’s what they mean. Then a group of men round up a group of girls and the girls are forced to strip in front of a panel of guys who are judging her.

The children are taken to a mansion in the countryside where they are forced to “perform” for the men – both boys and girls. Apparently, the “instructors” there are training them all to become whores. The trainees are humiliated and beaten and sexually abused for the pleasure of this group of aristocrats. They are forced to do pretty awful things, including a banquet of excrement. Yeah, really. The woman who plays the storyteller is pretty creepy as are every one of the adult actors in the film – many of them are recanting sexual stories (which apparently are taken from Marquis de Sade and other erotic authors). The big shots decide to have a contest to see which child (girl or boy) has the best ass, and the winner of the contest gets the grand prize of being killed. In fact, the aristocrats get off on watching the children being tortured and murdered in gruesome ways.

Once again, the Italians have succeeded in making me say “WTF? Do these things really happen in Italy?” I have asked this question soooooo many times before, I’m beginning to believe it. This film, despite containing about 90% nudity, is pretty uncomfortable to watch. It’s disgusting and is intended to horrify viewers. If you are into graphic and violent sex movies, this film is for you. If you are not, then I would steer VERY clear of this film. It’s not a pretty film and I’d be surprised if you made it through the first 20 minutes of the film, honestly. Apparently, this film has a few different versions with some very rare scenes cut out. If found with all of the scenes, this DVD is one of the most expensive DVDs known to collectors (thank you IMDB). Still not sure if I’d track it down though. That’s just me.

Whip It

Being a big fan of roller derby, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see this film. Sad, but true. This film is kind of an exaggerated expose drama on women’s banked-track roller derby in Austin, Texas. A young girl named Bliss, Ellen Page (from Juno fame), lives with her parents in a rural town. Her mother keeps signing her up for beauty pageants with her little sister, but Bliss just wants to experience life. She works at a local diner with her hot friend Pash, played by Alia Shawkat, and their friend Birdman. Bliss runs into some roller girls while buying new clothes with her mother and grabs one of their flyers. She sneaks away with Pash to go watch derby and falls in love with it (like you do).

Bliss shows up for try-outs and makes the team, despite being underage for the league. While her parents think she’s taking an SAT class, Bliss is practicing with the team becoming a phenom. There are after-parties where there’s a lot of drinking and sex and Bliss and Pash get caught up in it, resulting in Bliss getting a boyfriend from a band and Pash getting arrested for underage drinking. Bliss’ parents find out about the roller derby and freak out on her. However, her father watches some videos online of his daughter and realizes that a) this sport is awesome and b) his daughter is really good at this sport. However, the championship bout is the same night as this major pageant, so there’s a pretty major problem.

I like that the basic rules of derby are explained in this film. Yes, some of the rules are outdated and there are serious penalties (punching, tripping, tackling, fighting) that are not called. The acting by Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden, and Daniel Stern (probably one of his best acting roles ever, to be honest) is REALLY good. However, the rest of the actors have a lot of unbelievable moments.

I will be the first to say that I LOATHE Drew Barrymore and the fact that she plays a completely unbelievable idiot in this film only furthers my rage at having to see her on a screen. I applaud her for making this film, but I humbly ask that she hang up her acting hat so I don’t have to scream at her on the screen any more. The film is really innovative, especially since there really hasn’t a big Hollywood film about roller derby. However, the film itself really wasn’t phenomenal, especially due to the acting and the fact that the film took all of the real athleticism out of a sport that I love. It’s probably good for the sport that more people have been exposed to it and now know some of how the game is played, but I’m worried people will get the wrong impression of what Is an actual sport. (And for the record, it is completely accidental that I’ve been seeing everything Alia Shawkat has been in recently. Happy to do so, but still accidental.)