"In order to grow your audience, you must betray their expectations." Or, how The Dark Knight Rises should have ended.

SPOILERS AHOY. ABANDON SHIP, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

This movie is obsessed with symbolism. Lives shits eats breathes symbolism, and one of the biggest pieces of symbolism is the mask - who wears them and how, what they mean, what they protect. We are hit over the head with this symbolism, and most of all, that Bruce Wayne wears the mask because it doesn’t matter who Batman is, because Batman can be anyone. Batman is a symbol, not a person. And we get that, finally, at the very end of the movie when John Blake Dick GraysonRobin is bequeathed the cave. 

That should have happened sooner. And this is not just me being bitter that “Aw, nuts, I wanted to see Joe Gordon-Levitt in a superhero costume,” even if that is also part of it. This is the riskier storytelling choice. And it would have made the symbolism of the movie a lot stronger. 

Bruce Wayne is down in the bottom of the pit. Bruce Wayne has a goddamn death wish, has always had a death wish, is climbing the walls of the pit because he thinks the fact that he has a death wish makes him stronger because he’s not afraid of death. And it’s great that he learns you have to fear death if you want to live. But Bruce Wayne’s fatal flaw is that he doesn’t fear death. He doesn’t fear death, but at the same time, he has immortality granted to him by the story, because there’s still an hour left in the movie and he’s the goddamn Batman. So there’s no tension at all - you know he’ll make it out of that pit.

So, Bruce Wayne is climbing that goddamn pit. And he gets the clue that you have to climb without the rope in order to make it out. And he climbs without the rope, totally exposed. And he falls, because sometimes just wanting to get out of the pit is not enough to get you out of the pit. Sometimes a grown man can’t do what a five-year-old girl can.

Bruce Wayne falls, and he dies, and there is an hour left of the movie.

Back in Gotham City, Robin Blake confronts Gordon about the fact that he is a lying, useless fuck who let Batman take the fall for Harvey Dent. He loses faith in the man he looks up to, his hero, his boss, his father figure. He’s fiddling with some nondescript piece of black and blue fabric. 

Bane announces that Bruce Wayne, that Batman, is dead. It is the darkest hour. No one is going to save Gotham City now. 

And then we see Robin Blake and that nondescript piece of fabric again - it’s a batsuit! Robin Blake puts on a goddamn bat costume with that Nightwing logo he’s been drawing all over the city, and he’s Batman, because it doesn’t matter who Batman is as long as there is a Batman. Batman’s a symbol, not a character. And he hooks up with Fox and Catwoman and Alfred and they realize the autopilot is fixed and they storm the city and from there it’s pretty much the same but with less shitty pacing, and except Bruce Wayne is dead and stays dead because sometimes, heroes have fatal flaws. Sometimes the young guns have to stand up and take the lead.

The scene with Bruce and Selena at the cafe just seemed like such a total cop-out and it made the emotional bottom drop right out. If this is a movie about masks and Batman being a symbol and how anyone can be Batman, let it be that movie. If this is a movie deconstructing the personal sacrifices required to be a superhero, let it be that movie. If this is a movie where Batman and Catwoman get a tacked-on happy ending because early test audience didn’t like him staying dead, then you will never make filmgoers expand their horizons. It’s a tame ending. It’s a safe ending. Bane promised revolution - bring it.

Please, Mr. Pseudo-Feminist Film Critic, Enlighten Me as to Your Unvalidated Opinions About Female Characters.

This article by a certain Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was reprinted in the Florida Times-Union this morning. Never mind that it's two weeks old as of this writing, there's bigger stuff going on here. For example, the title it was printed with in the FL T-U syndication: "Women are bringing the action in today's thriller movies: tough breed of female action heroes take over roles that used to be male." Which sort of implied that this article was going to make a point, right?

Hahaha no.

What Mr. Williams does instead is list female characters, drawing vague connections between them without ever really touching on what makes these roles iconic, culturally significant, or important, all the while infusing his article with a weird brand of faux-feminism that is actually, frankly misogynist in places. The implication that all of these characters come from the same basic stock (Ellen Ripley, of Alien and its many sequels) is interesting, but it oversimplifies the roles these characters play entirely, as well as any sort of historical precedence prior to Alien (1979) for a woman to be (gasp) competent - for example, both Anna and Giulia in The Conformist (Bertolucci, 1970), who both manipulate the protagonist by weaponizing the femininity, and especially Anna, who sees right through Marcello's efforts at subterfuge. (And,  due to Marcello's ambiguous sexuality crisis, may present an even more masculine archetype than the protagonist himself)

Yes, Noomi Rapace's character in Prometheus is a deliberate reference to Ripley's role in the earlier series, but you could also say that Dr. Grace Augustine from Avatar has more in common with Ripley than just sharing an actress (Sigourney Weaver). Thesis papers have been written about themes of motherhood and creation in the Alien series. Prometheus plays with some of those same themes, though makes it more about parenting in general - the ability (or lack thereof) to create, and then responsibility towards those creations, whether you will see them come to fruition or whether they will destroy you. Williams seems more obsessed with violence in this article than concerned with the motivations behind these characters, and while he alludes to Ripley's connection to Newt, and the alien's role as a mother, he never really seems to get the parallels between the characters and instead gets bogged down in a moment of faux-feminism over the line "Get away from her, you bitch!"

....Which is actually a perfectly acceptable use of the descriptor "bitch." As is Molly Weasley's similar line in her showdown with Bellatrix Lestrange, "Not my daughter, you bitch!" The problem with the word "bitch" is when it is misapplied to mean "a woman in a position of power who makes men feel threatened on account of her competence and influence and the fact that she does not conform to traditional ideas about gender roles." For example, Hilary Clinton. Or Tina Fey. In fact, this fictional sort of application of the word bitch is probably the only appropriate application - excepting the possibility that you actually know someone as emotionally abusive and manipulative as Tangled's Mother Gothel in real life.

Moving on, we encounter a weird and problematic section where he glances over the fact that Aeon Flux was a horrible flop and Karyn Kusama also directed Jennifer's Body, (which is incredible in theory and horrible in execution and I've already written a term paper about and isn't really the point of this post, so I'm not going to go into it in detail and needless to say it has embraced and subverted thriller and horror tropes all over the place, and I love it for what it wants to be and hate it for what it is), and moves into some bizarre statement about how The Hunger Games "turned archery into a hip sport in which women can compete with men."


Because this isn't about how women can compete with men. This is about how we need to stop comparing female characters to male ones and judge them on their own merits and recognize that writing female characters presents its own tragedies and triumphs and the issues that are important to a male character are not the same as the issues that are important to a female character, and the whole reason the arc of Alien works so well is because Ripley is a woman, and having a male character do battle against an angry mother extraterrestrial from beyond the stars would be a completely different film with a completely different emotional center. And I could spend a really long time talking about menstruation and reproduction and why these are abject topics for men vs for women and where the horror derives in each, but that's not the point. Let's just leave it as "Prometheus and Alien are scary for women because they are about losing control of your reproductive ability, whereas they are scary for men because vaginas and uteruses are scary in general for men." (Which would bring us back around into a conversation about the concept of the abject and the uncanny, and menstruation and pregnancy in the horror genre, but again - not the point.)


Moving on to Mr. Williams's misguided statements about Kill Bill and female assassins, he again seems to miss the entire point of the duology, or of Quentin Tarrantino's body of work in general. Yes, The Bride goes on a bloody rampage in which she takes down a bunch of other ladies, all of whom are still employed by or willingly aided her former employer, Bill, in the brutal slaughter of her fiance and unborn child (this turns out not to be exactly the case, but I will refrain from spoilers). Somehow, Mr. Williams seems to ignore the series's title - Kill Bill, as well as the fact that there are some really repulsive male characters in the films (for example, "Chuck who is here to fuck"), and the fact that these various female characters have been complicit or accomplice in the various crimes committed against the protagonist makes them just as guilty, and all of the men get what they had coming as well? Somehow, the fact that the series is a feminist revenge fantasy completely escapes Mr. Williams's grasp.

I don't really understand Mr. Williams's decision to group Black Widow (The Avengers) and Catwoman (The Dark Knight Rises), when Black Widow would be more at home in the company of La Femme Nikita, Wanted, and Salt's heroines (or that Mr. Williams seems to omit Hanna or The Professional/Leon from this discussion entirely, despite their heroines most certainly being part of this trend). Perhaps it is because both characters wear black, leather catsuits? However, this is an oversimplification - Catwoman is a thief and historical love-interest of Batman. Black Widow is a former Soviet assassin who earns her keep at SHIELD by infiltrating Fortune 500 companies and tracking down fugitive scientists. As The Dark Knight Rises hasn't been released yet, I can hardly draw conclusions about Catwoman's motivations, but his description of Black Widow as "Although she's a bare-knuckle ninja, her super power emanates from her pout and posture" sort of makes me wonder if we were watching the same movie.


Yes, okay, Black Widow is pretty. However, she's also got the clearest motivations of pretty much any character in the Avengers - she has debts to repay. While the boys club behind her spends the first half of the movie bickering, angsting, trying to defend the actions of the villain, or being otherwise incapacitated, she is the only character to obtain useful intel from Loki, pilots a jet, brings Bruce Banner in from India, beats up some Russian mobsters (while tied to a chair), and turns Hawkeye from Brainwashed and Crazy into a useful member of the team once more. The femininity that Black Widow possesses is weaponized. She recognizes what people expect of her and uses it to advance her own goals.


In concluding his discussion of Catwoman (who he demeans by calling "kittenish" - pun or not, this adjective does not empower a character) and Black Widow, Mr. Williams states "A counter-balance to the sexy superheroine is the feminist ideal of self-sufficiency." What is problematic about this statement is that it implies a character cannot be both beautiful and self-sufficient. Catwoman is a world-class thief who I anticipate will seduce Bruce Wayne for some nefarious purpose and not because she needs a man in her life. Black Widow is a super-spy and master assassin, and she's nobody's love interest. I think that these characters are both demonstrably self-sufficient.


But it is perhaps in bringing the article around to arguably more "real world" heroines that Mr. Williams makes his most subversive point. No, Thelma and Louise does not have a happy ending. That doesn't make it any less of an iconic film - if anything, it should have been involved in the discussion of Kill Bill and not shuffled all the way to the end like some kind of sloppy segue. What are we supposed to take from the penultimate example in this list being two women who hit a "literal dead end" ? That female characters shouldn't take risks? Whether or not a story is a tragedy or a comedy in the Shakespearean sense doesn't determine whether or not it has merit as a story. If it were,  Measure for Measure and All's Well that Ends Well would be the Bard's greatest masterpieces while Hamlet and King Lear would be regarded as slop.


Are Thelma and Louise good role models? No, probably not, but the fact that their revenge adventure ends badly doesn't mean that little girls should be discouraged from looking up to characters who aren't afraid to kick ass and take names. Suggesting that we should settle for Norma Rae, who comes from a film in an entirely different genre, ultimately subverts the entire exercise of listing these characters. There wasn't a point to your article, Mr. Williams, except to vaguely imply that while the presence of female characters in action movies is an interesting trend, women should stick to tamer, more realistic fare.


The important thing to take away from most of these women (maybe not Laura Croft, who is basically Indiana Jones with tits and ass) is that although they take center stage (or something close to it) in a genre with traditionally male protagonists, they're still women. The idea that for a female character to be strong and powerful, she basically has to be a dude is erroneous and ultimately, movies that adhere to this notion wind up feeling patently false. These are characters whose strength comes from, in part, their femininity and the issues therein, whether it is the host of uniquely female reproductive fears, the responsibility of being a caretaker, or the ability to take society's expectations of you and defy them - or weaponize them. They are role models, and they are a fascinating trend in cinema, but to simply list them and draw superficial comparisons between them and pass these pedestrian observations off as genuine feminism distracts from their actual significance. You can't just take a script and change James into Janine and find-and-replace all the pronouns and have a good female protagonist - the best female characters embrace their inherent femininity and exist in story worlds that are built to showcase why these traits are strengths, and that's what these characters have in common, not superficial details like black catsuits or bows and arrows or revenge plots.

More thoughts on female characters in superhero movies

SPOILERS AHOY.

Dear Captain America,

THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE. You know how back in my Green Lantern review I was like "Carol is an awesome character when she's first introduced but sometime during act two/act three she gets turned into someone completely useless" ? Well, I see your supposedly-competent romantic interest and I raise you one badass british science officer. Peggy Carter is what all superhero movie love interests hope they can be. The people at the Bechdel Test can argue all they want about the dancing girls and their upskirt shots (which I honestly saw as an homage to the time period), but my primary focus on this blog when I get to ranting is love interests who are or are not fully developed characters in their own right. The Nostalgia chick has a term for it with a witty acronym and it's something like Love Interest Superfluous to Plot (LISP?) but here, I'm just going to go down the list and think of all the reasons why Peggy is such a cool character (or at least I thought so).

1. She's smart.
2. She's a woman in a male-dominated profession... and still gets shit done. Even in the military during world war II. Like, it's one thing to tell us your female character is an officer. It's another to actually have her go toe-to-toe with a superior and get what she wants because of sheer pluck and determination and not because she flashed him her tits.
3. She is more than capable of Punching You In The Face.
4. She knows how to handle a firearm, and rather than sitting back at base moping manages to help storm the Big Bad's base as part of a fucking assault team.
5. Her and Steve/Captain America's love story is really sweet. Someone got their ratios right, because it doesn't feel like a romantic plot tumor. This was actually something I really thought was kind of refreshing, was the total lack of emphasis on sex in this movie. It's been pointed out that nowhere between 98-lb weaking Steve and (SPOILERS) Down With the Plane Captain America does the hero find time to bed his love interest - and that's okay, because they spend most of the movie playing on this awesome romantic tension where he's still this awkward kid from Brooklyn at heart and she's too classy a dame to throw herself at him, which goes a long way to show that just because he's got the body of a hunk he's still the same person deep down. I really enjoyed that Captain America really has these "Greatest Generation" values and not this modern idea of oversexed masculinity, because that would have probably just turned him into another super-powered douchebag (CoughGreenLanternCough)
6. The way she's written, there's a lot of things she does that could just as easily been filled by some kind of male supporting character, even with very little changes made to the overall script (Well, at the expense of the love story, which would be a pity to lose). However, I don't think the movie would work as well if she were just another soldier - there's the Men In Uniform Maximum, and once you go over that line all of your characters get kind of muddled. Probably why all of the Captain's strike team have such distinct appearances - they get ethnicities instead of names because if he had a platoon of white guys, we'd never learn their names AND we wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Stock the hero's team full of tokens, and they're still tokens but at least we can have a favorite character and get attached to them because we can TELL THEM APART.  The fact alone that Peggy is the only woman in this male-dominated environment... and she's there as a capable member of the team, whose capableness is never for a second diminished... is a huge part of her character.
7. The actress is listed next to a picture of Rosie the Riveter in the credits. Which given they were using old War Propaganda posters for their credit design in general was a nice touch. I'm sure someone out there is rolling their eyes, but seriously.

Basically, it's not enough to present a female character in a male occupation to make the audience buy her competence - it's all about what you do with the character, and really it seems like there are two directions to go with this: turn her into a screaming damsel, or continue to prove her competence. She is in that position because she earned it, and she probably had to work harder to get there than the men she's working with. Your female lead is not just a pair of tits, and if you're writing her as such it's probably indicative of a much bigger problem.

There's also the matter of emotional investment in a love story. What I think makes the romantic subplot in Captain America work so well is that it's always there, but at the same time it's seamless. In the final action sequence, who is the captain talking to? Peggy. And it makes the emotional stakes of the scene so much higher than if he were just talking to one of his commanding officers. Why? Because we're invested in this relationship, and we want them to get their dance. If we weren't invested in it, the movie's last line wouldn't have any emotional resonance at all. But then you realize... Peggy is probably dead of old age, and you're like, "Holy fucking shit, this is tragic" and want to hug Captain America.

Contrast this to Green Lantern where Blake Lively just disappears for the whole final act of the movie and you can probably understand why no one had any kind of emotional reaction to Green Lantern besides "I spent my money to see this shit?"

Je voudrais aller a Paris, je pense...

For being a proudly Jewish dramatic writing major, I'd never in the past managed to make myself into a fan of Woody Allen. Maybe it's his persistent nebbishness: I never actively disliked him - I just wasn't a fan. I was perfectly ambivalent about Woody Allen movies, as strange as that may be.

And then I went to go see Midnight in Paris tonight, and it was brilliant, and oh, my goodness, you need to go and see this movie. Tomorrow. Do it. Because it is great. I mean, it's not a secret that I love literary inside jokes and time travel and magical realism, and this movie has all of them in droves. And it's lovingly shot. It's a love letter to the city. I want to go to Paris and try to speak what measure of French I have managed to retain. (Un peur, je suppose. Si j'arrete imaginer des mots, un peur plus...?)

Anyway, it's a great movie, and I'm not just saying that because I'm really fond of Owen Wilson.

I also within the last day finished reading Robert Sapolsky's book A Primate's Memoir about his work with baboons in Kenya, and it was fascinating right up to and including the point when all of the baboons got TB and died (although that was also really tragic and terrible). It was a nice change of pace after reading Sarah Gruen's Ape House, a novel which by all means should have been good (acclaimed author, interesting premise) but which was, in reality, just plain terrible.

Having female characters does not make you a feminist.

Watch out, I'm about to make another misguided post about feminism and Hollywood gender standards. Also, we might start talking about superheroes and race, because, you know what? When I was a little kid, The Green Lantern was a black dude. I know that the Hal Jordan is the "original" character to hold the title, but John Stewart is the guy I watched on Justice League when I was a wee little nerdling.

SO, LET'S TALK ABOUT SUPERHERO MOVIES.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT, LEEZ?

LET'S TALK ABOUT X-MEN: FIRST CLASS.

So, in general, X-Men as a franchise is pretty good about providing interesting, strong female characters. I mean, this is the series that brought us Rogue and Jean Grey and Storm and Kitty Pryde. Which is nothing to laugh at, because they're badass, but they're not in this movie. First Class has four main female characters, which is already more than most superhero films which will typically just have a love interest (we'll talk about that when we talk about Green Lantern. We're getting there.) And it passes the Bechdel Test, which is something not many superhero movies do.

So, is it feminist?

Let's look at the four female characters we get:

Angel: stripper.
Emma Frost: High-end stripper, like for governors and stuff.
Moira: FBI agent (masquerades as a stripper).
Raven/Mystique: Hero's sister, ends up naked by the end of the movie, may or may not sleep with Magneto, who may or may not grow up to be Sir Ian McKellen, who may or may not have played the character as militantly, metaphorically homosexual. (But probably did.)

So Angel is a stripper who defects to the bad guys at the soonest sign of a fight. She's not a very deep character and that's okay because she's mostly around to wear skimpy outfits and provide a bit of color to our otherwise pretty damn anglo-looking cast.

Emma Frost is a villainess, who runs around in her underwear, who gets chained to a bed, whose main power is turning herself into an incredibly cheesy diamond effect. Frankly I think January Jones is a really boring actress and the character was really flat beyond just hanging out and being eye candy for Kevin Bacon.

Moira... is in her underwear within five minutes of her first appearance. She is reasonably useful in a fight, but she shoots Charles in the spine and she winds up the butt of a joke that seems like it's trying to emulate Mad Men but the rest of the movie is so unapologetically modern that the 1960s setting feels like an afterthought, like they needed a reason to point nukes at each other.

Raven/Mystique is probably the most interesting female character, but she gets reduced as the plot goes on until she is A) naked and B) sleeps with Erik C) to distract from the fact that he and Charles are basically having the most epic bromance since Kirk and Spock. Or something. Actually, why the fuck did she sleep with him? Because he thinks its sexy that she's blue and Hank just rejected her, so her standards are lowered? I mean, not that Erik isn't good looking or anything, but there's something weird going on in the character motivations there and it seems to cheapen the character.

So what have we got here?

• A token.
• Fan service.
• A woman in a man's job, ultimately proven inferior and susceptible to emotions.
• A teenaged girl who isn't making rational decisions because the boy she liked called her ugly.

Bechdel test passing or not, this isn't actually looking all that good. We've basically got a bunch of stereotypes, and they're not really doing anyone any favors except maybe the fanboys. But at the same time, most stories don't work if you just switch the genders, because then they become all about the gender. Like, a story about a prince who goes on a quest during which he learns all kinds of things about himself and at the end rescues a princess can be about all the things he learns along the way. But if you switch it and make it about a princess who rescues a prince, all anyone is going to focus on is that it's now about a girl.

But moving on to Green Lantern.

I am not going to call this a great movie, but it's a fun movie and it was raining today.

Green Lantern has, like, two female characters. Maybe three because they made one of the masters of the universe a woman. I'm going to zero in on the love interest because, let's face it - here is a compelling character setup... who is of absolutely no relevance to the plot past the midpoint.

The character Carroll is a test pilot. The first time we see her, she's chewing out Hal for being late, and she's already suited up and ready to go. Awesome. She puts in some good moves out in the planes, but she doesn't win the day. But that's because this is character setup - Carroll plays by the rules, Hal showboats. Fair enough. And then she's a business genius - awesome! Good for her!

And then she nearly gets crushed by a bandstand, kidnapped by the villain, and is just totally absent from the final conflict. Wow. Did the writers just forget she existed? At least Mary Jane got to dangle over the Hudson. So, basically, this is a character who just kind of became useless and went away. And she had a promising setup, too.

There's kind of this line between "extraneous love interest" and "female character who happens to love," and Caroll hits the "extraneous" side hard. She serves no purpose to the plot. Her role at the beginning could just as well have been played by another male fighter pilot and it wouldn't have made a difference.

At the same time, though, it's stupid to take two characters who for the duration of the film have had little to no chemistry and throw them together for some misdirected moment of character development. Erik and Mystique? I mean I understood why she would go to him, but their conversation felt rushed and didn't come to any kind of character-appropriate conclusion. First he tells her she's too young, then he tells her he prefers her blue, and then he has sex with her. MAGNETO, TAKING ADVANTAGE OF EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED YOUNG WOMEN SINCE 1962. Congratulations, you're a lech. The logical end to this scene would actually be him talking her out of his bed, instead of her talking him into it, but apparently when a girl sneaks into your bedroom and she's naked and she's blue and she wants someone to tell her she's pretty, the appropriate response is to have sex with her. Yes. Of course. And even though she's had interactions with Erik prior to this and they do have some sexual tension, he's never really built up as a viable romantic rival to Hank and asdfghjk this just really bugs me.

Superheroes and race will have to wait for another day because I wound up having a three-hour discussion about it with Lydia while I was typing up this post and it really does not fit here, but we basically figured out why making Peter Parker in to Peter Park doesn't work but rebuilding Spider-Man from scratch does.

What to work on next?

I had two options for this month: Revise Dog in Space or do another draft of my screenplay from last semester.

Tonight I feel like working on the latter.

Also, saw X-Men First Class tonight and enjoyed it a lot! However, the Rise of the Planet of the Apes trailer?

...I'm glad they used entirely CGI animals, because it's the ethical choice and adult great apes are basically impossible to use in entertainment - they wind up using juveniles who are "retired" to research facilities when they become too much for their trainers to handle. But the CGI looks really uncanny valley. Not bad, just horrifying.

Also, those Orangutans were the wrong color. I went back and looked at the screencaps. Orangutans are orange, not black. Anyone who has ever seen any Orangutan could tell you - they're redheads. And anyone who has ever seen a chimpanzee can tell you that the alleged chimpanzees in the trailer... look nothing like chimpanzees, or even bonobos. They're just creepy.

I feel like I need to see it just to pick it apart.

A post about anime

I got really excited when I saw this trailer:

Whenever conversation turns to who inspires me as a filmmaker, the first person who comes to mind is Makoto Shinkai. He's an up-and-coming anime director who has been called, in various circles, "The Next Miyazaki." I think this title is well deserved, because he's brilliant, but also faintly bullshit, because Miyazaki-sensei is still alive and released a movie as recently as two years ago and is still heading up Ghibli so it would be kind of premature to start labeling people as "the next _____." Like what, do you want him to hurry up and die? He's only 70, and the life expectancy in Japan is up to like 89 or some ridiculous number, so I'd hazard to say he'll probably be with us a while yet.

Granted, they do have some things in common. Both are very conscious of animation as a medium for storytelling, rather than as a genre of filmmaking. Both create very human characters with very human mannerisms. Both are fascinated with flight. (Miyazaki is noted for his obsession with aircraft. Shinkai is more interested in space travel, but The Place Promised in our Early Days had an awesome plane.)

Shinkai tends to veer more science fiction, where Miyazaki's interests are more fantasy. That said, there's a lot in Hoshi o Kodomo (I have no idea where he's getting his word salad english title "Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below - Hoshi o Kodomo is roughly "Children who Chase Stars") that looks very Ghibli-esque, there's a scene that I'm pretty sure is invoking Castle in the Sky, and checking the website reveals a supporting character who is clearly designed after Teto from Nausicaa. So way to undermine my argument, Shinkai-sensei. But if one of the main critiques of your work is that all three of your movies are really similar, then I guess this is a branching out for you.

What I like about Shinkai's films is that he presents a world that is somehow removed from our own, but not so far removed that it's hard to grasp, and then within these gorgeous science fiction settings, he boils his story down to tight human dramas about isolation and struggling to connect. Voices of a Distant Star is beautiful, and I've embedded a segment of Five Centimeters Per Second, which is a collection of three short films using all kinds of travel metaphors for growing up, not knowing where you're going but going anyways, even if it seems like you're getting there incredibly slowly. (This section uses rockets, and it's beautiful.)

*There's some bad science in this dub. When he says "center of the solar system," he means "center of the galaxy."

Rewarding myself with movies...

So yesterday, after biting two pages out of my anthropology midterm paper (finished it today, thank you very much), and reconstructing most of my screenplay after the file corrupted itself (for really expensive software, Final Draft suicides surprisingly often), I decided I deserved a break. Now, when I'm writing I tend to be on Wikipedia and TVTropes researching facts and pop-culture, because I'm the kind of person who aspires to show her research and do it in a brilliant way. I'm not quite there, but who's counting?

Anyways, there are a bunch of tropes relating to cavemen/neanderthals and while skimming the pages, I became aware of a movie called The Man from Earth. It looked really interesting, so I looked it up on Netflix, and lo and behold, it was there and it was interesting! So I made a note to go back to it later and kept working on my paper.

Later came, I watched the movie, it was relevant to ALL of my interests.

Some things:

• In terms of film-style storytelling, this isn't really a film sort of film? To me it felt like a novel or a play that had been shot in order to reach the widest possible audience.
• ACTUALLY I think this would be an amazing play and I wonder if the screenwriter is aware of the fact?
• The trailer spoils one of the big twists, but it's such a part of the premise that it doesn't even matter. Like, I don't think the twist is so much that he's a caveman so much as what he's been doing for 14,000 years.
• IT GETS WEIRD.

I don't think that subtlety is really this movie's strong point, but that's not the point - it's good because it's a thought experiment and an exploration of a high-concept piece of Sci-Fi without any special effects, taking place entirely in more or less one location. And that's what's so interesting to me - it's a huge, epic science fiction story boiled down to like eight people in a room, reacting. And the story is as much about their reactions as it is to the story being told, so I don't even mind that you could say this is a major breach of "Show, don't tell." In fact, if there were flashbacks in John's story, I daresay they would have ruined the movie.

(Huge, epic science fiction stories boiled down to tight human dramas are one of my favorite things. It's part of what appeals to me so much about Makoto Shinkai's work.)

Anyways, have a trailer, and check this movie out, because it's really, really interesting.

Oh, and I made a tumblr.

I have terrible taste in movies.

So, the universe seems to agree that the 2010 Jude Law/Forest Whitaker vehicle Repo Men is terrible. I disagree. I think that it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys, had this hilarious/amazing dark humor to it, and doesn't try to take itself too seriously. It is a bit over-long, but it's so much fun that I don't care.

The scene with the nine-year-old in the frilly dress performing invasive surgery, and the bizarre/beautiful violence-as-sex scene at the film's climax make the whole thing worth it. I know that the trope is interplay of sex and violence, but this was basically the most amazing idea ever. Kind of difficult to watch, but an amazing metaphor, basically about sex as a deconstruction/exploration of the self by the partner. I mean I guess it's not really sex, but it's things going into things and there was blood and guts and it was filmed really suggestively and at one point I turned to my friend and was like, "I can't tell if they're actually having sex or not right now, in addition to all that other stuff," but we decided they probably weren't because that... wouldn't really make sense. I guess other people don't think that much about this kind of stuff? It takes a dramatic writing major.

ANYWAY I'm kind of glad this movie got NO press coverage because it made watching it all that much better. SO I WILL NOT SPOIL YOU. :)

I THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY GOOD, I DON'T CARE THAT IT'S GOT LIKE A 14% OR WHATEVER ON ROTTEN TOMATOES. SOME MOVIES ARE JUST FUN, AND THIS IS A FUN MOVIE.

Also, Repo the Genetic Opera is one of my least favorite movies ever and I don't understand everyone's obsession with it, it is quite honestly overhyped and bad. Like, not even Rocky Horror So Bad It's Good. Just bad.

Also Jude Law might be one of the most gorgeous men on the planet. Even if his hairline is receding. That accent! I melt.

The Oscars, Anti-feminism, and singing in the key of Awkward

Disclaimers first, I'm not a very good feminist. I'm part of this weird nineties generation of girls that has been brought up to think we can be whatever we can be without having to fight for it. Because when I was a little girl, Barbie could be a doctor, a teacher, an airline stewardess, and an astronaut. (Never mind that she was subliminally telling me that math was hard.) Because I was born post-Tereshkova, post-Sally Ride, post-Thatcher, pre-Palin. Because Lisa Simpson told me that the glass ceiling wasn't just invisible, it was imaginary. Because I was promised a post-gender world as a child, one where women wore shoulder pads to make themselves masculine and imposing, where they ran business meetings and answered clunky cell phones phones and wore leg warmers when they exercised and had feathered hair. (This is what I remember of my formative years in the 90s. I might have them mixed up with the 80s.) So I'm not a very good feminist. But I still know it when I see it.

So let's talk about the Oscars. First of all, I feel betrayed by Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SMARTER THAN THIS. You went to Harvard! You understand math that just looks like squiggles and lines to me! You are "one of the brightest stars of the generation" and I don't know who I'm quoting on that but I'm sure I'm quoting someone. Indie darling, blockbuster queen, gracefully transitioning from child phenom into leading lady. So you've just won an Oscar! How does it feel?

Great? Good. What are you going to do next?

Make a speech? Well, sure, everyone does. A really long, rambly speech? Again, everyone does. You're going to thank everyone who has helped you, ever, in advancing your career to this point? Great, good for you, I love a gracious winner!

You're going to thank your boyfriend for giving you "the most important role" of your life?

WHAT.

WHAT.

WHAT.

You are going to thank the dude for knocking you up, on national television, and belittle EVERYTHING you have done in your entire life in the process?

WHAT.

WHAT.

WHAT.

This is not me "hating on breeders." I have no problem with people who have kids. In fact, I think kids are great. I want kids someday! However I don't think that anyone should be defined, or allow themselves to be defined, or define themselves, by their ability to spawn. "Oh, yeah, I cured cancer, developed an interplanetary rocket that runs on cow pies, and published a novel. But I guess that's all peanuts now that I'm pregnant." Or this:

I don't think I would have cared if she'd said "my next great role" or something of the ilk. It was the phrase "most important role" that bothered me. We tend to criminalize women who put their careers ahead of their kids and put women who put their kids ahead of their careers up on pedestals. There doesn't seem to be any sort of happy medium between the two, at least not in society's general view of things, but I know from my own personal experience that there must be, because my mother managed to raise three intelligent, responsible members of society from birth to adulthood while still becoming a successful and influential member of her field. And while I'm sure she's proud of my siblings and I, and proud of herself for raising us, I don't think that the fact of us totally belittles every single thing that she's ever done professionally.

But moving on, because this isn't actually meant to be a blog post entirely about Natalie Portman and whether she did or did not totally invalidate every professional move she has ever made in one little Oscar speech. Let's talk about hosting! So this year's Oscar hosts were Anne Hathaway and James Franco... except, it was pretty clear that James Franco was blazed out of his mind and Anne Hathaway was carrying the show. In fact, it was almost less co-hosts and more Anne Hathaway, Oscar Host, and James Franco, her chaperone, requisite male body.

Just from the opening skit, it was really clear that this was Anne's show and everyone else just sort of lived there. She sings! She dances! She bitches at Hugh Jackman! She puts on a series of successively shinier dresses! Her enthusiasm introducing people is adorable! And James Franco just kind of squints at the lights like he's not sure what he's doing here because he's stoned out of his fucking mind. The only thing I got out of it was that the academy didn't trust a woman alone on stage to be able to keep the show moving, so they needed a guy to stand there and look manly.

My non-American friend who had never seen an Oscar telecast before pointed out, "But didn't Ellen [DeGeneres] host?"

The answer to this being that Ellen DeGeneres hosted the Oscars wearing a tux and sensible shoes, not a sparkly gown and heels. She's funny and manic and kind of butch. It's unthinkable to put Ellen DeGeneres in a sparkly dress and make her co-host with a man in a tux, but at the same time, if Anne Hathaway had put on a tux and sensible shoes and tried to host the Oscars by herself, it would have just been strange. She has to be in a sparkly dress, but I'm not sure that James Franco needs to stand beside her looking (very, very) confused and (very, very) pretty for the exercise to work. You'd think that a smart and self-assured woman could do the same job at a black tie event, regardless of whether she's wearing sequins or pants.

But what I get out of it is a statement that you cannot be both conventionally feminine and somehow emcee to a room of Hollywood's best and brightest, by yourself. The woman in the dress, with her coiffed hair and pretty necklaces, is weak. And this sort of goes back to the suit jackets with the shoulder pads from earlier - if you want power, you have to masculinize yourself.

Last point of the rant, Kathryn Bigelow. Kathryn Bigelow, you are a classy lady. Last year, all my friends and I cheered for you when you won Best Director. You were an inspiration. You had one of the prettiest dresses of the night. Everything I said earlier, about having to butch yourself up to gain influence? You defied it. You are a classy lady. So what was that fashion disaster you were wearing tonight ?

I know that my (and the rest of the country's, apparently) favorite pastime of snarking red carpet fashion is, on some level, fundamentally wrong, but you're so high profile, and it's because you're smart, and talented, and not because you're a pretty face who can look convincingly miserable. But if you're presenting an award to a bunch of middle-aged frat boys, in a category you took an upset win in last year, you'd better look amazing. And you didn't. And I was disappointed.

Okay, rant over.

Blue Valentine

SPOILERS AHOY.

I loved this movie. Even though the ending is in the pitch ("It's about a couple breaking up,") I was still clinging to the possibility that they might stay together. That's how in love with it I was - usually if I know the plot I just watch the movie to say I've watched it, but this one I was actually emotionally invested in.

As a piece of storytelling, it's an interesting experiment in flashbacks. If it's been in vogue the last few years to tell a love story by juxtaposing the beginning and end of the relationship, then Blue Valentine is the most triumphant example of it that I've seen. We've seen this gimmick before - it was in 500 Days of Summer, which I honestly hated - but here it feels more honest. It's a difference in tone. 500 Days was too metatheatrical, too willing to utilize film cliches and irony. Blue Valentine doesn't use title cards or fancy effects. There's something about the soft focus and color saturation that feels old-fashioned. The awkward angles feel intimate, not avant-garde.

It's like watching someone's home movies. How it began, how it ended, piecing it together. The main action of the film is set over the course of the fourth of July weekend, and there's something just so quintessentially American about the story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy and girl get married, have a kid, buy a house, get a dog - the American dream. And then it falls apart. The dog gets hit by a car. You try to have a romantic getaway but you're both just too pre-occupied. The American dream crumbles around you, and then your wife demands a divorce on Independence day.

They could be anyone's parents. And I think that's why I got so emotionally invested - because it feels true. Most of Blue Valentine's press comes from its original NC-17 rating (successfully overturned), and I think I agree with the interviews that the MPAA wasn't offended by the oral sex so much as they were by the honesty. Like I mentioned in my American Idiot rant, Americans like their sex and violence covered in a sheen of unreality. When you wipe that sheen off, we recoil.

There's a lot that isn't said in this movie. For every inch we learn about Cindy and Dean's backstories, there's a lot more we don't learn. Little clues to their personalities that might explain why these people are the way they are, that aren't explained - not that the movie needs to. We get enough. We don't need to know it all. Our minds fill it in. Whether it makes them more or less sympathetic is left up to the viewer.

Anyway I loved it. It's such a charming and honest little movie and the characters are likeable without feeling cutesy. If you get a chance, you should definitely check it out. I hate to use words like "adorable" for movies with sex and violence, but it really is. It's adorable, but it's also raw and emotional and painful.

:)

Sanitized Anarchy, and what I've been doing this week.

So I went to go see American Idiot, which to be honest was sort of disappointing. For all the avant-garde anger of the concept album, the musical was alarmingly mainstream. While from a technical and performance aspect it was pretty phenomenal, I couldn't help but feel let down. First of all, any play that you have to read the wikipedia summary just to understand... is not actually a good play. Second of all, everyone got off scott-free at the end. It would be really, really nice if, for once when writing a musical about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, not everyone got a happy ending. Like, why did I just watch Jesus of Suburbia run away to the big city to do hard drugs if at the end he goes back to Bumfuck, New Jersy to hang out at the 7-11 with absolutely no consequences? Everyone got a happy ending, more or less, except for the ambiguously-skinhead ambiguously-gay ambiguously-real drug dealing St. Jimmy.

Seriously I would have watched a whole play about the drug-dealing leader of an Anarchist Cult of Personality, but I digress. The point is, American Idiot is no Spring Awakening, despite its shared leading man (Oh John Gallagher Jr, I sure do love you). In fact, it's not even Rent or even Hair, if we want to go really far back. It's Anarchy Lite, so you can pretend you're being edgy but it's still fun for the whole family. Your ten year old already knows the word "fuck" and has probably puzzled out how sex works, so what's the harm, right? Sure there's some drugs, some beer, some masturbation, but really... there's nothing in here that won't offend your grandmother.

(Well, maybe... Is your grandmother as liberal as mine, who loved Avenue Q? Because Avenue Q might just be edgier than this.)

Anyway, so what's Leez been up to this week? (I promise, this discussion's going to loop back around to my complaints about American Idiot in a moment.) Leez has been hanging out at the Young Playwrights Inc. conference where she's making new friends, doing a lot of revising, and attending master classes. Well, she was, because it's over now and the whirlwind has stopped and she's taking some time to sit down and write a proper blog post about it. (Actually, gonna cut the whole third person thing.)

Anyways, so one of the great master classes was with a playwright named Thomas Bradshaw, whose work tends to be a bit... controversial. One of the things we talked about was how Americans tend to be very puritanical towards sex, drugs, etc in our theater, as opposed to Europeans who are a bit more loosey-goosey free love. The flip side of this is, of course, that Americans are morbidly fascinated by the stuff that repulses them. So we want to see violence, but not too much violence. We want to see sex, but we want people to get under the covers or turn off the lights first.

Which is exactly what American Idiot does. The sex is covered up, the drug use is stylized, guns shoot flags that say bang. For a play that is ostensibly about the Bush years, it doesn't really say anything about the Bush years at all. There's grandiose language, but it doesn't deliver. St. Jimmy preaches anarchy, but there's no anarchy to be seen. Everyone goes back to Bumfuck and gets off scott free. They all grow up.

Everybody lives.

Everybody lives, and I didn't give a fuck, because not one of these characters was worth giving a fuck about. I was intrigued by St. Jimmy, but I have to compare him to Graverobber from Repo: The Genetic Opera, because I think they're part of an emerging class of character... the Squandered Badass. He's that dude who despite not doing a whole lot of anything is just sort of the most memorable part of the show. A character who, due to being more interesting or better played than anyone else, just seems wasted because of their small role. I don't really care about Jesus of Suburbia. He's a whiny angsty white boy. But St. Jimmy - who is he? What's his story? I know one interpretation is that he's just a figment of JoS's imagination, or else an alter ego he invents, but I kind of like the Anarchist Cult story better. (Although if he is JoS then it explains why he's so ineffectual.)

Basically, I watched this musical and just started thinking of ways that, given the album, I could have done it better. Maybe I'm just getting too jaded and cerebral for Broadway musicals. Or maybe I missed the point. I didn't hate the show - from a tech and performance standpoint it was excellent - I was just underwhelmed by the story. It didn't live up to its themes and my expectations.

Maybe when you write a musical about the Bush years, it's helpful to actually mention any significant events from the Bush years, yeah?

I'll write more about YPI at a later date, hope you enjoyed my rant.

So today was interesting.

Today, I:

1) Went to an AUSA (Anthropology Undergraduate Student Association) movie night and watched a documentary about the Amish.

2) Made new friends.

3) Played old school Super Smash Brothers

4) Went to a fucking awesome poetry smash.

5) Finally saw my amazing friend Chris perform (he's a hip-hop/rap artist and poetry slammer)

6) Was told by a random person in an elevator that they loved me.

7) Came home and finally watched the movie Moon.

8) Which is a fucking amazing movie. HERE'S A TRAILER, ADD IT TO YOUR NETFLIX QUEUE, IT IS AWESOME. Seriously, I think it's the only movie I've seen that actually manages to match the mood and style of 2001: A Space Odyssey and do a good job of it. I'm easily fascinated by speculative/realistic Sci Fi, but this was seriously amazing. Also I really like the theme music and I need it for my writing playlist.

The fact that....

Roger Ebert 'ships Jacob/Edward totally just made my night. Also just kind of furthers all previous arguments that Twilight is the most unintentionally hilarious series ever when it comes to sexual tension. Like, there's these, and then there's Twilight, which isn't the result of any actual purposeful subtext, just the fact that the author is absolutely clueless. (Also Mormon. Can we talk about how Twilight is pretty much just an excuse for SMeyer to push a mormon agenda? Actually, let's not.)

Anyway, that's all I've got for tonight.

Also I spent my four-day weekend working my way through this and I have to say it is one awesome piece of work. Crazy random gems like this make me happy I watch anime.

All there is to know about the crying game.

I have to wonder how much the experience of watching Psycho differs when you don't know the twist. Of course in our modern vernacular we all know that Norman Bates is his mother is the killer, but imagine when the movie first came out! No one knew the twist! Wouldn't it be so much scarier then, to see it in theaters and really think there was a murderous old lady?

And also to think that Norman Bates is just a much more sympathetic character; he really does initially come off as a likable, if slightly awkward and macabre, person.

Anyway this is Psycho, and this is your brain on way too much caffeine, sitting in the first class of New American Gothic Cinema.

They have space ships but no sonograms?

Ten things about the Star Wars New Trilogy that just bug me:

1. The horrible acting.

2. The horrible script.

3. How Padme seems to have gotten to eight and a half months with twins with absolutely NO pre-natal care. Lady, I know you're doing this whole "secret pregnancy" thing, but you live in a high tech society. See post title. You and everyone you know is referring to your fetuses in the singular right until the actual moment you give birth, and it is absolutely ridiculous.

4. Why no one ever listens to Yoda's advice.

5. How we are expected to have never seen the original trilogy and be so damn surprised when Palpatine is the emperor or Padme gives birth to twins, when the surprise element of the original trilogy relies on having never seen the new trilogy.

• Darth Vader is Luke's father.
• Leia is Luke's twin sister.
• This isn't spoilers, you should just know this already.

6. No Harrison Ford.

7. No Mark Hamill.

8. No Carrie Fisher.

9. No one in these movies is even trying to act besides Ewan McGregor. Also possibly Liam Neeson. Natalie Portman, I thought you were nominated for an Oscar once upon a time! Like really, Obi-Wan Kenobi is the only character in this movie who emotes in a believable way.

10. Jar Jar Binks. Full stop.

(I love Star Wars. But I'm watching a marathon of the new trilogy and just kind of picking it apart.)

You're like a fun vampire.

Some people just suck the fun out of everything. We all know these people, people who aren't content to just enjoy things, or let sufficiently advanced technology be indistinguishable from magic, or who will go out of their way to just be contrary for the sake of being contrary. These people are fun vampires. They suck the fun out of everything.

While there is nothing wrong with being inquisitive, and I find learning the secrets behind special effects to be pretty awesome, when it is time to sit back and watch the magic happen, I would really like to be allowed to sit back and watch the magic happen without some cynic elbowing me in the ribs and telling me it is all smoke and mirrors.

While there is a time for thoughtful analysis of a movie, right after you have walked out of a movie theater and are still processing the "wow" factor is not the time. I know that it's all a metaphor for fascism - it was kind of obvious, but you know what, can't I just enjoy the movie and its story and the emotions it played on without having an intellectual discussion about all the deeper meanings you are reading into it that are honestly not there? Everyone is not, in fact, Jesus in Purgatory. While there may very well be something slightly insidious and nihilistic about the plot of the movie, I do not need you to point it out for me - I'm a clever girl, I can figure it out on my own.

Why can't the magic just be magic? Why can't a good story just be a good story, without someone trying to shove their interpretation down my throat? Yes, Toy Story 3 was a brilliant movie. I loved it. I laughed. I whimpered. I shed girlish, girlish tears. But when you want to analyze it and break it down to its basic themes right after the credits roll, it ruins something for me.

Some people care about the pieces, other people care about the big picture. Some people care about the elements of the story, and other people care about the characters and the story itself. Some people care about what goes wrong in the DNA and how, and some people care about what that error actually does to the resulting person. Some people are cynical.

Just because I chose to feel for characters and story, and to believe in the magic of movies, does not make me any less intelligent or analytical. I am thinking about the events on screen. I am feeling for the characters. I am moved. But I do not want to break it down to elements of fabrication, not just yet. I would rather the magic linger.

Speaking of which:

I remember this book series from when I was in middle school, but I don't think I actually ever read them. As is my usual reaction when I see books being turned into movies ("Why?!" - I would rather someone exercise some creative impulse in coming up with a franchise), I was initially a bit dismissive. But then I kept watching the trailer. And I wasn't thinking about it being CGI until my mother nudged me-

"Look at the animation on this - all those feathers! It's amazing!"

I had, sort of, accepted that it was an animated movie, but I had let my own cynicism get away with me and missed the magic. I don't know if I'll see this movie, but it sure is pretty...

Still looking for the magic,

Leez.

Haven't-seen-the-first-one-itis

Noun. A condition in which a viewer, having not seen the previous movie in the series, walks into any successive movie and as a result confuses new plot points and previously introduced plot points, has issues grasping the story (if it picks up exactly where the last one left off,) or is unfamiliar with recurring supporting characters. If the movie is a reboot of a continuity where no prior knowledge is necessary but some is required to understand the in jokes, expect the viewer to not get 80% of them. Can be averted if the story contains enough exposition to fill the viewer in, the first one was incredibly popular, the movies are roughly independent of each other in terms of plot, or the basic premise/origin story is well known.

You will be totally lost: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean

Notable aversions: The Dark Knight, Star Trek (2009 reboot), Spider-Man, IRON MAN 2.

(Guess what I saw today?)

Robert Downey Jr, you are gorgeous.

Also this guy: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20365442,00.html

What. Were you always that pretty, Jake Gyllenhaal?

Also my mother bought me this shirt that I mentioned a while back: http://www.threadless.com/product/798/One_of_These_Days_We_ll_Fly_Away

My life is complete. :)

Back in Jacksonville for the summer. Yay?! My show's up first week at Blank, should be fun. I'll post details in a different post.

"I am a lover of largeness."

My long-awaited Alice In Wonderland review! Let me preface this by saying I went with my older cousin and we had a good time, but I'm not necessarily sure this movie was all it's cracked up to be. Granted, it is "a sumptuous feast for the eyes and imagination," but I think it had some major pacing issues - this movie could stand to learn something from Lady Gaga, namely when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em.

Despite a garden party scene that drags on far too long, a rabbit hole fall that seemed to go on forever, and the initial getting through the door with the eat me-drink me things, this movie plays all of its cards within the first ten minutes - to break into Dramatic Writing terms, the tease is too short because the movie assumes we are already invested in it: the viewers are assumed to already know the story of Alice in Wonderland and be fans of Tim Burton, so the movie doesn't feel like it has to intrigue us in any way, so it jumps the gun and tosses us into an overly long first act.

I really loved the effects in this movie. They weren't overdone and they had a delightful whimsicality about them, but the characters didn't have the same thing going. They were largely one-note, although it was clear everyone was having fun with their parts and the CG characters were great (I LOVED the Doormouse's cavalier attitude and the White Rabbit's tendency to hyperventilate - the March Hare annoyed me). I do have to give the girl who played Alice some credit, because her character had a lot of depth and was portrayed really sensitively, but I'm mixed over my feelings for Johnny Depp's Hatter-

While it was really nice to see the Hatter actually DOING things (Disclaimer: My memories of the original Alice in Wonderland animated film are VERY hazy), Depp seemed a bit all over the place. He's made a niche for himself playing very zany characters, but it would be nice to see something from him that didn't seem like a rehash of Willy Wonka.

Also, what is up with Alice/Hatter 'shipping? Like, in this movie it was kind of cute, because it's a) no longer statutory, and b) kind of reminded me of Dorothy/Scarecrow subtext from Wizard of Oz. But, I mean, the longer you think about it the more horrible it becomes. Like, has he always had a thing for her, because, you know, she was eight or nine last time she was there. It gives a whole new meaning to "Alice, why is it every time I see you you're either too large or too small?" But, I guess, all in all I did enjoy it, I just found it a bit odd that the closest thing the movie has to a romantic subplot is flirtation between Alice and Hatter, and poor Hatter gets his heart broken in the end. :( I felt bad for him!

The ending, though, was just a bit too "Click your heels three times and say there's no place like home" for me. Its only saving grace was that the wonderland actors weren't doubling for party guests, because that would be too much for me to buy. "And you were there, and you were there, and you, and you!"

Final conclusion, I did like this movie and have a good time, but I don't think it lives up to its hype. It has a rushed tease, an overly long first act, and its second act and conclusion were rushed and a bit out of tone. There were a couple of moments that really bugged me - namely the use of a "What about my wife and kids?" joke twice within two minutes, which shouldn't have happened - it was funny the first time, but the second time it fell flat because it had JUST been used - And unfortunately, the second time is the time it's important, because it introduces a plot point! Ugh, just sloppy proofing, I think - like I said, this movie plays all of its cards (pun intended) way too fast.

Okay. Let's sum it up.

Three and a half out of five. An imaginative film with lofty ambitions and great production values, but hiccups in the story that drag the rest down.