Friday, March 5, 2010

Alice


Compliments from the company I work for, I was privileged an early screening of the latest Alice in Wonderland yesterday and despite what the critics are saying, and even my own lack of anticipation, I really enjoyed the movie. I actually think it was one of the better productions of Burton out of his most recent films.
The imagery was nothing short of stunning, I can barely begin to imagine the amount of work that went into the designs of this film. And the characters were nothing short of delightful. I was probably most impressed with (didn't catch her name...Ah! There it is, don't you love Google?) Mia Wasikowska's portrayal of Alice, not only as new actress, but how she skipped over the stereotypical, overdramatized reactions of a "girl," and delivering a cool collectiveness that I found to be far more endearing.

However, if you must pick apart every character out of your own pretention just as your high school English teacher instructed, you must at least admire the art. But some...apparently can't even do that, such as James Rocchi's painful read, "'Alice' in Blunderland," that I was greeted with on this morning's homepage.

Why I bother wasting my breath (or finger-strokes, rather) on an MSN critic who not only has to explain his own use of quotations, but does so in the introduction of his argument is beyond me. Though, it reminds me how I feel these ever-renowned "critics" are no longer "critiquing" as much as they are flat-out, thoughtlessly bitching on highly anticipated or popularly adored books and movies simply to achieve the shock value of going against the grain. Kind of like a novice hipster that heavily criticizes the bass player of his favorite band or complains of people selling out in order to appear as if he is immensely knowledgeable about music.

My only complaint would be the title, which is well misleading considering that it isn't even based on Alice in Wonderland. Something like "Return to Wonderland" would be much more suiting, not stunningly original though I think most could agree.


So, if it's not obvious by this point, I recommend seeing this in theatres, larger-than-life, and through dopey 3-D glasses. And I'll have you know I rarely find films worth anything more than forgetting about them until they appear on OnDemand six months later.

If you're asking, that is.

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