Last Alice movie for now, lol, I promise – normal service will resume soon. Oh and I did watch this yesterday – well, early this morning – I just, y’know, had to sleep eventually Most of this was written while watching anyway.

I was worried at first here because I have an horrendously dubbed version of this perhaps the creepiest of all Alice adaptations. Luckily, it’s really more about the images and sound effects than anything, the dialogue being mostly either sparse or redundant (I’d say at least 50% of it consists of “said the rabbit” lol which in the end becomes very annoying) – which makes the very first line, “this is a film for children. But remember to shut your eyes, or else you won’t see anything!” deliciously ironic in addition to being a fine warning for those of a sensitive disposition (I’ll just say it was probably unwise of me to add this to the schedule at the last minute as the last thing I watch before bedtime at 4 in the morning, lol – I’m writing this while watching because I’m sure in the morning I’ll either plainly think I dreamt it or will have merged it inseparably with whatever nightmares I might have after a full afternoon and evening of Alice …)

In short, it’s “Alice: The WTF Edition” – the images are so arresting and nightmarish that you genuinely can’t take your eyes off them; the sound and pace so visceral that you genuinely fear for the actress in the lead, for example when the mouse (actually it’s more like a rat here) in the pool of tears sets up camp on her head thinking it’s an island, hammering sticks into her scalp, her only protest “That’s too far!” coming as he tries to set fire to her hair. Perhaps surprisingly given the wacky means by which it’s done, the movie actually stays pretty close to the story – which makes it even more amazing that it feels so unpredictable compared to other adaptations. Each time, for example, that Alice breaks into one of the tiny desks that litter her journey, I found myself seriously not knowing what might come out of it or where she might be taken next or what might happen to her. It somehow lulls you into a state of anxiety, something that’s perfectly understandable when it comes to Alice but that none of the other adaptations really do so well as this one.

At 90 minutes the jerky motion and incessant sound effects certainly start to grate towards the end – I’ve a feeling this might be something that’s not so bad in the original Czech language version with the truly horrible dubbing girl’s voice taken away … in any case, it’s still another great interpretation of the story that’s worth watching if you like seeing things you’ve never seen before.

“It’s just life.”
“It’s just stupid.”

Hmm … I have to say, I was really looking forward to seeing this again having, I think, only seen it once before. But I can’t help but feel a little let down by it a second time around. Everything I said below still applies – even that it is a kind of favourite of mine that I will watch many times more – but it felt dreadfully bleak and uneventful this time around, like there should’ve been more. The ending feels rushed, and though Rob Brydon (as good shedding his usual image here as James Nesbitt was in Millions) and Stephanie Leonidas sell it perfectly … I don’t know, it just feels a little bare. It could just be me going overkill on the Alice theme, I guess. Like I said, I really love it, it’s visually stunning and everything – I love the “Close to You” scene – it’s just a little, I don’t know, creaky? Though for some, perhaps even me on the right day, perhaps that adds to its charm.

December 18th, 2005:

Fast reviews from now till the end of the year, apologies :-p

I said earlier in the year how I wanted to get to reading Neil Gaiman’s books having stumbled across his blog via regular RSS searches for Roger Avary and Poppy Z. Brite. This movie turns out to be a fantastic introduction to his work. Visually electrifying, with beautiful music and inspired casting, with a central performance by Stephanie Leonidas (aged 21 playing 15, lol) that will go down (for me at least) with Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth and even Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, both movies this brings to mind (as well as Paperhouse and the work of Hiyao Miyazaki), this is my new favourite movie of the year.

In the hopes of enhancing my enjoyment of the remaining films in my little Shirley Temple “season” lol … okay, the planned programme was delayed for technical reasons … I decided to finally watch this that’s been gathering dust in my room for quite some time. I was immediately more interested when I saw director Nadia Tass’ name in the credits but couldn’t quite remember why – looking up on the IMDb I was reminded, she did two of the American Girl movies including the best one, Samantha, and the even better (non-American-Girl) Amy.

Being TV bound, this production is closer in quality to the American Girl movies than anything, but that’s not bad company to be in. The script feels like it’s really just been culled from snippets of memories and anecdotes (a book by Shirley is credited as the source) and really just breezes through the more notable movies with occasional dips into her homelife which is almost clichéd, daddy spending her money, mommy being stage mommy, brothers being brothers.

I can’t imagine any actress could’ve done a better job than Ashley Rose Orr as Shirley. There’s something kind of tacky and cheap I find about movies like this from the outset (especially when they’re made for TV) and there’s something inherently “wrong” in seeing a young actress in the 21st century in those costumes in full colour*, not to mention how ridiculous it would be easy for the then 10-year-old Orr to feel prancing around in them, but she does it all, from the dancing to the “Good Ship Lollipop” (doing all her own singing), at times (particularly with the singing) almost startlingly well. The faithful reproduction of the movie sets etc, especially considering it’s a TV production, deserves mention too. At times if you caught in in your peripheral vision you’d almost be forgiven for thinking a colourized version of the real thing was on. For what it is, I really can’t fault it, and I personally enjoyed it more than a couple of the actual movies.

* Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with it – but at a time when just about every day now I read about someone somewhere going crazy about pre-teens being oversexualised, I feel like the only way to beat them is to join them.

Finally Shirley gets a story. I felt like I could trust this from the off and in terms of pure production quality this is leagues above the other Shirley movies I’ve seen. The sets look right out of a storybook. I’m still left unimpressed by Shirley’s talent – there are a million 6-8 year olds who could deliver this stuff if you only threw discipline into the mix; to me the best child stars are the ones who can do it almost mystically of their own accord (I know, there are a million of those too, but they’re still more special) – but she’s mostly tolerable in the title role.

But though it’s better than some of the Shirley movies (Stand Up and Bright Eyes notwithstanding – I seem to remember enjoying The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer way back when I saw it too), I still imagine any number of the other Heidi adaptations are more enjoyable (I’ll find out later in the year, I’ve at least 3 in the queue). Which I guess is my point when it comes to the Shirley Temple movies. The defense everyone always uses for them is that she cheered everyone up through the Depression etc. which is fine and dandy but it paints the movies themselves as of the “pure entertainment” variety (which I’m rarely too hot on unless they have something else to them) and on that front they just don’t deliver as much anymore. I won’t deny their historical value, and Shirley herself is “cute enough” ... but there are still hundreds of movies that are more worth anybody’s time.

Now, how do I say this …? Despite really enjoying Daddy Day Care, I still came to this expecting the absolute worst after the reviews and, well, just look at the re-casting they did. It’s almost as bad as Splash, Too, lol. The presence of Cuba Gooding Jr. not only makes it worse but adds the whole dimension of depressing to the picture. I mean, really: what happened to him?!

But you know what? It grew on me. I laughed. Loudly in places. I mentioned about the toilet humour in the first movie that I liked how it threatened to go too far yet never quite did. I’ve gotta say, here, the gross stuff does go a little far – you could almost make a direct comparison between the “I missed!” scene in the first movie where evidently a little boy with potty problems gives Eddie Murphy’s bathroom a new coat of brown paint, yet all this is played from Murphy’s expression, and a scene here where a kid vomits all over the inside of Cuba Gooding’s tent – I guess Gooding’s expressions aren’t as convincing, because he has to have some of the vomit drop on his forehead. Later, we get the full-on Problem Child/Little Britain style projectile stuff. Not necessary. But I did laugh.

In the end it has just as solid a family message as the first, and I was honestly slightly stirred especially by the son taking matters into his own hands to win the contest, also the climbing wall smashing down on all the trophies Scattered throughout are a number of scenes with a very cute girl called Telise Galanis who hopefully has a future. I truly had no problems with it. Yes, the first is better, duh, it was first. But this one really deserves some kudos for overcoming such mindbogglingly bad casting issues.

“Will you say multi-dextrose for me again? It’s too cute.”

I really expected this to be an intolerable nightmare saved only by Elle Fanning, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing through it a lot more than is probably acceptable, even a couple of l’il tears in my eyes in places. Angelica Huston is practically perfect if a little familiar (she even gets a similar ending here to her character in Ever After) as the evil headmistress of a first class pre-school trying to thwart the relatively restrained Eddie Murphy’s attempts to start a more homely form of daycare, and Lacey Chabert is fun as her sidekick. The kids are adorable almost without exception – they all have their “moments”, particularly at the end when announcing to parents being shown around Huston’s school how they’ve benefited from the daddy day care. Steve Zahn is perfect as a Trekkie who’s able to handle the kids better than anybody since he accidentally read Dr. Spock’s Baby and Childcare.

The movie’s mood veers effortlessly from toilet humour that threatens to go too far at times yet never does and is actually surprisingly effective (“I missed!”) through to pure schmaltz and heartstring tuggery. For family entertainment, I found it almost literally bang in between the astonishing R.V. and the abysmal Yours, Mine and Ours that it most resembles … I don’t know what that means to anyone else, but to me it means I really have no objections, I loved it.

I’ve gotta stop starting reviews with “I’ve gotta admit …” lol … but I’ve gotta admit I didn’t know much about this comic book (I know even less about the forthcoming Iron Man, that should be fun …) and I was pleasantly surprised by where the story went here, regarding Elektra thinking Daredevil killed her father, etc. That said, the whole thing is smoothed over (well … resolved, cut short, however you wanna put it the conflict doesn’t last is what I’m saying lol) a little too quick for my liking – the idea of the alter-ego’s love interest being the superhero’s enemy is fascinating – of course it’s done even better in Batman Returns with Catwoman, but even then I think there’s room for expansion (btw, like I said I’m really not big on comicbooks – if I’ve just detailed an archetype that’s found in hundreds of the things then forgive me lol).

Anyway … it’s dumb but it’s slick, the cast (outside of Garner and Affleck, at least) is impressive (you’ve gotta love the Kevin Smith cameo), and best of all it’s short. The visual effects are particularly stunning, I think there are some digital actors in here that are way more convincing than those in the same year’s Matrix sequels, and I love the rain/seeing thing. It’s just about enough to forgive the corny repetition of “Stay with me …” and the even cornier use of Evanescence on the soundtrack, lol. The ending really took me by pleasant surprise too.

Finally I get original and remake lined up the right way round, lol. I had the Tobe Hooper remake of this hanging around for ages, was saving it for this year’s Halloween but I noticed this week that both versions were showing on TV by what looks like pure coincidence on different channels so I couldn’t resist watching them in succession.

It’s embarrassing to say, but I really got lost by this one in the end, mainly because I just wasn’t ready for a lot more than the kind of average mindless slasher it’s easy to have on in the background yet still somehow absorb completely. It opens appallingly, bad acting and all, and I feared the worst; but then the nailgun sequence kind of turned my head and it gets a lot better thereafter in all departments: except, as I say, for a subplot with a kidnapped girl that I really think I missed the details of.

I’d certainly watch it again on a Halloween sometime paying closer attention. For now, for the nailgun scene alone it’s worth checking out – it reminded me of Last House on the Left a little, it’s ghastly, horrible, wrong, but somehow beautiful and impossible to avoid looking at, that song playing over it very like David Hess’ stuff on the Wes Craven movie. Which reminds me, the score deserves mention too – I always find it amazing that these days even a lot of large budgeted movies resort to Sampletank and the like for their music, when back in the 60s and 70s so many of the lowest budgets seemed able to afford some kind of orchestra, lol.