Alice in Wonderland (Burton 2010)

Let’s go back to 1992, and examine a little film known as Batman Returns from director Tim Burton. A sequel to 1989’s Batman, also by Burton, Batman Returns is a bit of a departure for fans of the first film, as it transforms Batman’s world into more of a fairytale as opposed to the fantastic noir hell of the first film: characters are resurrected by cats without any explanation; the settings or more fantastical and elaborate; the character’s more symbolic and stylized than before; etc. However, the film never goes far enough with this fairytale concept, as the film is still partly rooted in realism, with story lines involving backdoor politics and corporate maneuvering, which calls for more cohesive logic than a fairytale does. Hence, elements such as rocket launching penguins, which would work in fairytale logic, seem out of place and illogical as the two sides of the film battle it out.

Why do I bring up Batman Returns in a review for Alice in Wonderland, Burton’s newest film? In an odd way, the problem that Batman Returns suffers from also plagues Alice in Wonderland, only in reverse. Despite the source material offering Burton a chance to truly follow his imagination to its full, unfettered heart’s content, he has instead crafted a narrative that is oddly conservative, brining a level of logic and coherence to a universe that itself was designed to counter, or at least question, the logic of everyday reality.

The story of Alice in Wonderland is not that of the classic tales, but is rather something of a sequel. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now nineteen, discovers that the party she has been dragged to by her mother is an engagement party, with Alice herself being asked to marry the son of a wealthy lord. At the moment of decision, Alice flees, following the infamous White Rabbit down a rabbit hole, leading her to Wonderland, a place she has forgotten. However, Wonderland itself is now ruled by the Red Queen (Helen Bonham Carter), having used the Jabberwocky as a means of taking control from her sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). Alice is prophesized to slay the Jabberwocky, an idea which she resists, but when many of her friends, including the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) are captured, Alice begins a mission to rescue them, one which will force her to face the prophecy head on.

It’s no secret that Burton’s best characters, and the ones he always seems most interested in, are those that are outsiders to everyday society, each of these characters being visual and ideological contrasts to accepted societal norms. It is no mistake that Burton’s worst film, Planet of the Apes, forced him to work with an average, archetypal leading man and focus on the human characters: Burton is clearly far more interested in the apes and their world.

Thankfully since Planet of the Apes, Burton has avoided this issue and stuck with his outsider characters, including this version of Alice in Wonderland. Alice here is a woman conflicted by the path before her, with either the option of following tradition and society’s expectations by giving into the idea of marriage, or carving out her own path. Given to flights of fancy and distraction, Alice is a true Burton heroine, shy and awkward, but with big dreams which put her in conflict with the world around her. Alice thus becomes the film's main strength.

The problem with the film lies with Wonderland itself and the conflict Alice becomes wrapped up in upon returning to the fantastic world. By making the battle in Wonderland one over the rightful ruler of the land and having its citizens choose sides, Wonderland is politicized, thus reducing the contrast between the fantastical world that works against logic, and the world of rules from which Alice comes. It brings a level of organization to Wonderland which ultimately absorbs the supposed fringe characters into the mainstream: they are given official sanction to be crazed and peculiar by the White Queen, thus diluting their subversive edge.

This is made all the worse by the biggest casting mistaking in a Burton film since Mark Wahlberg in Planet of the Apes: Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Try as Burton might, he is unable to make Hathaway into a Burton character. Hathaway is too much of a mainstream Disney Princess to be an outsider. The battle for her to be restored to rightful leadership hence comes off as a battle for restoring the safe Disney brand more than anything else, and her performance only adds to this concept, appearing to put up with her subjects rather than actually like them. She is open to accepting certain levels of eccentricity, but no more than that. The White Queen, to work in this narrative at all, needed to be someone more subversive and not already beloved little children. Someone a little edgier like Winona Ryder would have worked better in the role.

However, to really understand how tame Alice in Wonderland has become, one needs look no further than Depp’s Mad Hatter. Now, Depp is in fine form as usual, and his visual look is amazing. However, the Hatter here isn’t really all that mad. He is far too aware of what is going on around him, too dedicated to a cause to be mad. He is transformed into a sympathetic clown, rather than a dangerous threat to law and order, bouncing between great anger and great sorrow. The Hatter should be more along the lines of Hunter S. Thompson, but instead we are given a sanitized figure that parents can feel comfortable with.

Flaws aside, Alice in Wonderland truly shines in its visual design. This is a Tim Burton world through and through, exaggerated and bordering on creepy in at least a few areas. It is a richly layered world, filled to the brim with little details and working well outside the special effects limits of previous live action adaptations. While it is still early in the year, I would honestly be surprised if the film is passed over for production design awards at next year’s Academy Awards. Only the Jabberwocky disappoints, coming off as a rejected Godzilla monster design, but that is but a small issue in an otherwise gorgeous film.

Still, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was slightly disappointed in the Alice in Wonderland. It isn’t terrible at any rate, but after the greatness of Burton’s last few efforts, it comes off as a lesser work. With any luck, the more dangerous Burton will come out to play next time, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Alice in Wonderland up Tomorrow

Hey everyone!

Yesterday, I had the chance to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and the review of the film will be up tomorrow.

However, the review that was originally to be posted tomorrow has been pushed to later in the week, becuase it is giving me endless trouble as I try and put my thoughts on it into words. The film in question? Surveillance, Jennifer Chambers Lynch's 2008 film.

Back tomorrow folks.

Film Geek Flashback: Saturday Night at the Movies

If you are a Canadian from Ontario, then chances are you have seen “Saturday Night at the Movies,” a program which airs on the provincial owned and operated channel TVO (Television Ontario). Furthermore, if you are/were a film geek with limited access to classic films, “Saturday Night at the Movies” is/was an absolute Godsend, ever since its debut 36 years ago.

The format of the program is simple: every Saturday, two films are aired which are connected in some manner, be it by director, stars, genre, content, etc. In between the films are segments which interview various filmmakers, stars, and critics, exploring film related topics in a meaningful and detailed manner. Most often, the films shown are of noted historical significance or lesser known titles, presented commercial free and (most often) uncensored.

While its place on television might be more questionable in the era of digital television, special edition DVDs/Blu-Rays and digital downloading, I cannot stress just how important “Saturday Night at the Movies” was for me growing up. As I noted in the first Film Geek Flashback, I grew up in a small town, where access to classic and foreign films was limited at the time, as were books and other informational pieces on filmmaking. As such, “Saturday Night at the Movies” was my gateway to seeing the works of Frank Capra, Orson Welles, Ray Harryhausen and Stanley Kramer among others, and to learning about the importance and relevance of these people and their films.

However, what really made the program memorable in the olden days weren’t the films or the interviews, as great as they often were. No, what truly made “Saturday Night at the Movies” was the host: Elwy Yost, a man so identified with the show that people often referred to the program by his name rather than by its title. Yost wasn’t some slick television presenter of the likes we see these days, who are more interested in trying to look clever, young and hip than discussing film. No, Yost was (and is) a full blown, card carrying film geek of many years.

And damn, he was proud of it.

Gentle and reassuring, Yost was one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever seen discussing film, wanting to share his love of cinema with anyone who would listen. He wanted YOU to be part of the cinema geek club, to take in the films and have them be part of your life as much as they seemed to be part of his. One of the famous stories told about Yost which illustrates this point was that he once took his son out of school to take him to a screening of Citizen Kane. True story or not, that was the kind of love that radiated off the man towards cinema every week, and what made the show so special for its fans.

I will never forget when I was a kid in the late 1990s and Yost held what I believe was a day long marathon run of films one Saturday. I was supposed to be doing homework, but my eyes were glued to the screen as Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad aired early in the afternoon, along with the eyes of my younger brother. It was a joy to watch, and was made all the more so because Yost was there, beaming like a kid in his introduction of the film. The man looked like a respectable adult, but secretly, he was one of us kids. At least, it felt like that, and I am sure that I was not alone when he was on the air.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and Yost retired in 1999. While “Saturday Night at the Movies” continues to this day, it is notable that its attempts at replacing Yost with a new host were short lived. Unlike long running institutions like “The Tonight Show” or “Saturday Night Live” which are able to reinvent themselves around new personalities, “Saturday Night at the Movies” is a show that has a very specific need of its host. The host needs to let the subject matter be bigger than anything else, yet not fade into the background at the same time. Not many people are able to pull this off, so it is no surprise that the idea of a host was dropped altogether.

These days, “Saturday Night at the Movies” is connected to the film department at York University in Toronto, and is in the hands of individuals who labour with love behind the scenes of the show to continue the work Yost did for 25 years. Still, the show does not quite fill the same need as it had in the past, with classic films more readily accessible thanks to digital media. Film websites and forums are a dime a dozen these days, leaving fans plenty of places to participate in meaningful conversation (as well as plenty of places to engage in meaningless conversations. I am looking at you Ain’t it Cool News). And of course, Turner Classic Movies has cornered the market on film history, often showing better quality prints of films, commercial free, almost all day long. Yet, when looking back, there will always be a place in my heart for “Saturday Night at the Movies,” and perhaps for some young film geek out there, it is filling the same need that I myself once had.

Update: New Film Geek Flashback very, VERY Early Sunday

Hey everyone! The Film Geek Flashback will be up very early on Sunday (after midnight tonight), so look for it then!

Also, two 2008 films will be reviewed this week, so be on the lookout!

Cop Out (Smith 2010)

Cop Out: it is a tribute to the buddy cop films of the 1980s.

That is about it.

Ok, Cop Out is a decent tribute to the buddy cop films of the 1980s that manages to amuse, but not much more than that. Director Kevin Smith, working for the first time on a script that he himself did not write, claimed that the reason he did the film was because it was one that his father would have loved. While that might be the case, I cannot help but feel that another reason Smith did the film was because he simply needs an outright hit, something which he has never quite managed to achieve thus far in his career. Given how conventional and safe everything is in Cop Out compared to Smith’s usual work, I can only imagine that it must have seemed like a possible contender to be box office smash, as it lacks the wit, warmth and daring of Smith’s best, but financially underperforming, work.

Cop Out follows the story of Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis), a cop who’s daughter is about to get married. With the wedding costing $48 000, Jimmy decides to sell a rare baseball card to pay for the whole thing. However, when attempting to sell the card, it is stolen in a hold up, leaving Jimmy and his partner Paul (Tracy Morgan), who is preoccupied with the possibility of his wife cheating on him, to try and recover it.

Cop Out is a work that is so indistinctive that the only thing that really manages to be of any interest is Smith’s involvement in the film. Outside of a few Star Wars references and the appearance in Jason Lee in a cameo, good luck finding anything to mark this as a Smith film. At his best, Smith has always been the most personal of filmmakers, wearing his feelings and ideas of his sleeves on just about any topic he wishes to talk about, from religion (Dogma) to geek culture (Clerks; Clerks II) and even fatherhood (Jersey Girl). Cop Out however is a film that is shocking in just how impersonal it is. Even in the fairly critically slaughtered Jersey Girl, you could feel Smith’s personality shine through, blending toned down crudeness with sweetness in his attempt to pay tribute to his father. Cop Out is just plain crude and not even inventive in its methods of crudeness, seeking no emotional investment on the part of the viewer, nor offering a unique take on the genre. It is pure imitation of better films.

My main question with regards to the film is this: why were Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis put together in this film? They are actors who work best when taking center stage by themselves, with well defined, bigger than life personalities. Morgan and Willis are not bad together, but they hardly have much in the way of chemistry. Bruce does his thing, and then Tracy does his. Their best moments are actually when they are apart or with other characters, and when a buddy film is at its best when the buddies are apart, then there is a serious issue here. In fact, arguably, the film would have been more interesting if it had followed the rivals of Jimmy and Paul, Hunsaker and Barry played by Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody. That pair are just so bizarre in their behaviour and relationship; it would have been fun to spend time inside their odd little world.

Actually, there is no point about talking about the buddies of the film because there is no reason why this needed to be a buddy film in the first place. The story is supposedly about Jimmy trying to pay for his daughter’s wedding, losing the baseball card that would do just that, and then trying to recover it. What role does Paul serve in all this? Well, nothing: he has his own story that is in no way connected, either plot wise or thematically, to Jimmy’s story. Meshing the two together just creates a narrative mess that goes nowhere. The wedding story is lost and seemingly forgotten until the end of the film, and at no point is the Paul subplot about his wife’s possible infidelity treated with any actual weight. The events simply happen, with no actual meaning or impact upon the characters. Cut down to one story, the film at least might have been focused.

I could go on Cop Out, but there is very little point. If you attend, you will be amused, but not much else. It is simply a film that exists as product, tying over the cast and crew until better film projects come along.

Update: March 1st 2010!

Hey Everyone!

Quick update: I will have a review of Cop Out, Kevin Smith's latest, up in the next few days. As for the "Film Geek Flashback," I have decided to start from scratch with that one, as the version I turned out was not up to what I hoped it would be.

Anyways, see you soon!

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (Liu and Montgomery 2010)

Here is the thing about Justice League - Crisis on Two Earths: it is a massive step up from last year’s Superman/Batman – Public Enemies. This time out, the whole film is more than just an excuse to throw together fight scenes, actually telling a story with a focus on characters with a better sense of plotting. When all is said and done however, Justice League – Crisis on Two Earths is perhaps the most disposable of the DC Animated films, telling an all too familiar tale in a rather tame manner.

The set up is straight forward: on a parallel Earth, Lex Luthor (Chris Noth) is a renegade hero who is working to stop the Crime Syndicate, a group of villains made up of alternate versions of the Justice League members, or their rough equivalents, whom control all the organized crime on Earth. The only thing keeping the Syndicate in check is the threat of nuclear retaliation; otherwise, they run the show. In a last ditch effort to stop them, Luthor crosses over to another dimension to enlist the help of the Justice League, which includes Superman (Mark Harmon), Batman (William Baldwin), Wonder Woman (Vanessa Marshall) and J’onn J’onzz (Jonathan Adams) among others. However, their arrival may be too late, as Syndicate member Owlman (James Woods) has a far more sinister scheme up his sleeve, a plan which will place more than one Earth in peril.

At this point, the usual compliments can be guessed at: the animation is solid, the character design excellent, and the music appropriate, if indistinctive. Dwayne McDuffie, one of the key writers on the Justice League animated series, delivers a solid script that keeps things moving while giving little character moments for most of the main cast, with only a few moments of bad dialogue to mar the proceedings (after this film, all speeches about how alike a given hero and villain combo are should be banned). Directors Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery are sharp and focused in their work, keeping things moving with a tight grasp on the narrative. Lastly, the cast delivers excellent performances, the most notable cast members being Baldwin as a more sorrowful than usual Batman, and James Woods as the creepy and philosophical Owlman.

All in all, Justice League – Crisis on Two Earths is a professional piece of work. My only question to everyone involved in its production is this:

Why this story?

Up till this point, I have understood the reasons for each of the films produced. The death of Superman is one of the big stories from the last twenty years of comics, so it was natural for it to be turned into a film, while New Frontiers, in addition to its popularity among fans, is an intelligent homage and meta-commentary on the rise of the silver age of comics. Filtering Batman through the eyes of anime’s top animators, along with some of the best writers available, made for an interesting experiment in Batman – Gotham Knights, while Wonder Woman and Green Lantern’s origins were fertile ground for films given how unknown they are outside of comic circles. And even if the execution failed, the premise and themes of Superman/Batman – Public Enemies had much to offer.

Justice League – Crisis on Two Earths however is just a long Justice League episode with a semi-celebrity cast. The parallel Earth angle has been done with more weight and purpose on the series itself. None of the League members undergo any significant development, the Crime Syndicate isn’t given enough time to be explored as characters, and the direction that the story heads into towards the end is standard fare. It doesn’t even really take advantage of the PG-13 rating: there are episodes of the series that are more intense than this film. Cut the cursing, and I can almost guarantee that a PG rating could have been secured.

The only thing I can think of that would have anyone pushing to have this story realized on film is the character of Owlman, who is fascinating and the best part of the film by far. His motives are creepy, if not nihilistic, and as performed by Woods, has a bleak humour that makes him compelling. The problem is that not nearly enough time is spent with him to make up for the time he is off screen.

I honestly don’t know if I can recommend Justice League – Crisis on Two Earths, at least as anything more than a rental. For hard core comic fans, it offers nothing that we haven’t already seen, and for non-comic fans, nothing that you will regret missing. As for Bruce Timm and company, how about for one of your upcoming films the Alan Moore story Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? If nothing else, no one can say that it has been done before, and it’s not as if you have to worry about pleasing Moore: he’ll hate anything no matter how well it is produced.