Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Comments

  1. There are some books that should always and forever remain only books. (IMHO) Alice in Wonderland is one of those books.

  3. It is still worth the high price of the 3-D admission to see some of the amazing animation and design, but the writing is extremely boring and clumsy, and the performances cannot save it. Too many liberties were taken with the originals here, and in no way improve upon them, it only barely resembles either of Carroll’s books in theme and some specific scenes. There are some “Disney moments” that literally set off a gag reflex as well.

  6. I can empathize: the pipe between my house and the street failed, leaving standing water in my basement and killing my water heater (although, thankfully, sparing my furnace). Unable to afford the repair ($7,000!), I lived for more than 6 mos. without running hot water. Fortunately I still had my stove. Should (God forbid!) your situation become thus, I can give you some tips I discovered for bathing and dishwashing with water heated in a soup pot…

  7. > In the meantime, don’t waste your time with Alice in Wonderland.

    Sorry, I thoroughly disagree. I’ve been a fan of Alice for decades, having read both of Gardner’s annotated Carroll books, “Alice” as well as the “Snark” in the mid 1980s.

    This one isn’t aimed at children, and isn’t a strict telling of either of the books.

    That said, it does meld the chracters from the two books plus Jabberwocky into a single storyline which has appeal to anyone from early teens upwards (it’s probably too intense for anyone under 10 I believe), and does a fairly good job of telling an entertaining story of its own, using those books and the poem, and their related characters, as inspiration.

    The effects are particularly good, most appropriate for Alice, and the Cheshire Cat is just flat-out (ahem!) purr-fect.

    I wish you’d have stated more about why you disliked it, Madame, that way people could see where and why we disagreed so completely, me included.

  8. My own personal suspicion is that, if you go into it expecting to see Carroll’s books made into a movie, you’ll be disappointed — first off, the storyline that works in a single book isn’t necessarily one that works in a movie, especially for modern audiences which expect more steady action — Carroll’s Alice is more of a think piece.

    Second you have two books with two storylines, so interweaving them into a single movie would be difficult, fraught with “complainable alterations”, and generally guaranteed to disappoint.

    Better to use the classic as an inspiration, not a strict telling, and Burton did a very good job here. Many of the two books characters appear here, and have a reasonable part in the advancement of the story. It’s not a deeply complex story, one of basic good vs. evil, but that’s true to Carroll’s work, too, in which philosophical motivations (aimed as it was at young children) were hardly deeply complex.

    Expect that, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

    P.S., again: I LOVE that cat. He’s SO well done. AND very much like a cat, as well.