As expected, though I’m certain I’ve seen this before, when I was way too young to appreciate it (we’re possibly even talking single digits, I think my grandma saw it was about Alice or something and put it on, lol, god bless her), this viewing, with all I know now that I didn’t know then, was far more rewarding. Considering even without that knowledge for most of my life it’s managed to haunt me all these years anyway, and I’ve long intended to watch it again, I think that alone speaks of how stunning a film it really is.

I guess there are three ways you could come to this movie that will profoundly affect the way you take it. Some will know the Alice story but nothing of its author, particularly of his attraction to little girls including Alice Liddell for whom he wrote it. Some will know the whole thing, and of that set of people there will be those who find the relationship between Dodgson/Carroll and Alice unsettling and those who find it as wonderful as wonderland itself.

If you’re in the first set, the movie will almost immediately come as a shock and it’s probably simply best to not recommend it – even if under normal circumstances the idea of a “relationship” developing between a young girl and a man who isn’t family doesn’t strike you as fearfully odd, the juxtaposition of that concept with one of the best-loved children’s stories, not to mention Ian Holm’s admittedly strange performance as Carroll, will probably be enough to tip you over.

If you’re of the second variety, and you long for the movie that “finally” depicts Carroll as the monster he “really was”, then for a while here you might think you’ve discovered the Holy Grail. Like I say, Ian Holm’s performance is very strange. He plays Carroll almost like the android in Alien, or more recently his character in From Hell – he gazes at Alice with seemingly empty eyes and he’s just not the kindly soul you’d ever expect to be so great with the little ones. For a good half hour at the start here I was cringing, thinking perhaps my memory of the movie wasn’t so hot afterall and I was about to witness just about the worst end to my “Alice” day imaginable, lol.

It amazes/saddens me that there’s a message on the movie’s IMDb message board that seems to paint our age in some way superior to the mid-Eighties in which this was produced because, if it were made today, Carroll would be painted as a paedophile monster simple and true. “In 1985,” they write, “you couldn’t do such things without getting into trouble.” Like, wow. Just wow. I’ve dreamt my whole life of the day when we all just saw the worst in things. No – they’ve got it the wrong way around – you couldn’t do this movie today without getting in trouble, that’s the sad thing. (It’s encouraging to note some of the other responses in that thread, though.) (Okay, I’ll admit: there’s Finding Neverland which does kind of address JM Barrie’s thing for little boys without ever going tabloid … but it’s somehow not the same …)

Anyway, consider me one who’s firmly in the latter set. And I’ve got to say, after that first half hour of fearing the worst about Holm’s portrayal of Carroll, etc, I really began to appreciate the obstacles the film makers had clearly thrown in their own way to their objective in the production. Nevermind “warts and all” here, both Carroll in Alice’s memory and Alice herself as an 80-year-old woman in New York are painted almost as nothing but warts at the start. And just as Carroll is seen through Alice’s eyes, writer Dennis Potter brings another character to New York with her, a young orphan called Lucy who seems to be in a wonderland of her own. We see the strangely cold and domineering Alice through her, as well as her interactions with the American entertainment industries.

Alice is first averse to “playing up” her history as “the real Alice” for the American press but this shifts when one reporter reveals she could make money from it. In these scenes we always see Lucy backed away not quite understanding how the Alice who demands the best of manners and etiquette from her and others seems to shift into this almost monstrous way of interacting with the strange world of dollars and cents etc. But like Alice in Wonderland declaring to the royal court, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” Lucy too eventually stands up for herself, telling Alice in the diner to, “Shut up, shut up,” and finally ends up romantically involved with the reporter. It’s an incredibly clever subplot.

Coral Browne is incredible as the elderly Alice. There’s a moment right at the start when the main reporter first invokes the name “Dreamchild” to her and you feel the memories beginning to flood back to her over her face, at once joyous yet painful and unwanted. On occasion she almost looks directly into the audience’s eyes, even at one point saying something about feeling as though someone walked over her grave begging the question, is that us, watching this fictionalized version of her? At another stage she comments to the reporter about, “that strange feeling, like what you’re about to say has already been said before …” The movie just connects in such a way on so many levels that are usually left untouched by even the best of films.

As the younger Alice in flashbacks, Amelia Shankley is equally astonishing. The first thing that struck me is how much she actually resembles the real Alice as photographed by Carroll – but the performance soon displaces that purely aesthetic response to her. I wasn’t impressed by her in the Cannon Movie Tales Red Riding Hood which came later, but this is one of the best young performances I’ve seen – and considering the character, that’s particularly important.

The Jim Henson Creature Shop provided puppets for the segments where Alice (sometimes old, sometimes young) re-encounters her old acquaintances from Wonderland such as the Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse, and crucially the Caterpillar (“You are old, Mrs. Hargreaves …”) They’re most certainly not the wacky, comic versions you’ll find in most other adaptations – think more Meet the Feebles than the Muppets. The Mad Hatter looks like he has a skin disease, the March Hare like his teeth are rotting. It’s another obstacle to us and Alice understanding the love that was behind all this.

It’s a miracle, then, how in the end (for me at least: I would hope though that the same is true for a least some in the first and second sets of viewers described earlier) it all works in favour of stuffy old Alice and creepy old Dodgson. The final scenes, again, have Coral Browne almost looking directly into our eyes, quizzically, as if to say, “What do you think?” as she finds herself experiencing her most important memory – the camera cuts by a 180 angle to show that she’s looking at Dodgson on a day when she and her sisters (and her husband to be, Reginald Hargreaves) humiliated him. We see the young Alice almost immediately regret her laughter and moving over to Dodgson, hugging him and kissing him on the cheek. It’s just love, that’s all, the movie seems to say. And quite ingeniously and beautifully it says it too.

Of course, as the Disney version, this is the best-known, most-loved, most stylised and standardised of all the adaptations. As far as I know, it was likely my only source of the story for a good chunk of my life, and by that I mean, I don’t even remember reading or being read the book (_sniff_ lol): I only realised this past week reading the first of the books that parts of this and the other adaptations, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee for example, were in fact taken from “Through the Looking Glass” which I’ve yet to read. In this version, in fact, they even pull in a couple of elements from Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”, as well as throwing in some genuinely clever characters and lines of their own (“You gave me quite a turn!” “She’s stark raven mad!”) ... all in 70 minutes. I still prefer the Fiona Fullerton version by a smidgen, and who knows what Tim Burton’s going to deliver, but this is one of Disney’s best, it’s eyepoppingly colourful particularly when you consider the year it was made, and the character designs etc certainly stick in one’s memory.

“You seem like such a nice beast. Well I certainly hope you are what you seem to be.”

I don’t know what it is about this movie. It’s undeniable how perfect an example of “bad” 80s moviemaking it is. It’s obviously comparable to “Alice in Wonderland” (you’ll notice a theme in the next few reviews, incidentally … it is a certain someone’s birthday this weekend, afterall …), not only in the “lost girl” theme but also in the rhymes and riddles she encounters along the way. It’s practically identical to “Wonderland” in fact – but for one detail, Sarah’s brother, the baby … the goal. The whole thing is set up like a video game. The wonder of wonderland, of course, was that Alice had no great reason to be there, it’s very much one thing after another (“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”)

I guess the goal element comes from “The Wizard of Oz” – Jareth’s (has there ever been a sillier name for a villain? lol) castle as the Emerald City, you see the book (with a lot of other fairytales – not sure if Alice is there though) in Sarah’s room at the start – but it strikes me more as over-dependence on the Joseph Campbell mythology thing that started to dominate screenwriting around the time thanks to Syd Field and hand in hand with high concept and VHS produced hoards of horrors that still have my kneejerk thought on the Eighties as “the worst decade for cinema” even while movies like this always remind me it really wasn’t so bad.

In the end there’s just something mystical about it that defies explanation – if you know and love the movie, you just know what I’m talking about – it’s there when the opening credits music strikes up, in those shots of Jennifer Connolly running through the rain to “Underground”, at the strange diversion of the masked ball where she dresses older and dances with Bowie, and at the end with the upside-down staircases; ironically, somehow it just wouldn’t be the same without the tacky Eighties synth music and hairdos, lol. It makes you feel like a horrible wish like the one Sarah makes at the start – the kind we all half-heartedly make from time to time – really could be granted and turn our world on its head. It’s bizarre and silly and fun, but in the end it’s somehow a lesson that never gets old, perhaps because it never quite gets learned.

“If it’s not on camera, it’s like it never happened …. right?”

It sounded a little dodgy and I certainly didn’t want to be too hasty about being excited about this latest “official” installment in the Romero Dead series after Land (which I’ve watched most of again recently … in short, it really didn’t warrant a new review, it’s pretty unremarkable) ... but at the same time I kind of couldn’t help myself. Even though this mockumentary horror thing has been done almost to death now since Blair Witch leading through to Cloverfield, bringing the technique to the Dead series sounded pretty fascinating, and any time Romero returns to this series it’s exciting, as they’re always among the most important horror movies, if not always quite the best.

Overall, it works. While it’s not quite the “zombies in a mall” of the masterful Dawn, the social commentary here (though perhaps a little obvious: just about anyone who documents the dreary details of their life in a blog or who has neglected to truly experience a vacation because they were behind a camera the whole time will understand what it’s saying well enough) is certainly more pointed than that in Land.

It gets a little dull towards the end, the whole thing just isn’t as awash with the message as Dawn was, and it frequently becomes “just another teen horror movie”. But the end (“Are we really worth saving? You tell me.”) sends you out with genuine chills running down your spine. It’s in your face and feels like a hammer on the head, but it does the job of “implicating the audience” a million times better than, for example, Funny Games U.S.. There is some humour to counter this depressing stuff, however: I don’t think I’ve laughed more this year than I did over the “Hello, I’m Samuel” sign

“There ain’t no Santa Claus!”
“Don’t say ain’t! Say isn’t.”

Okay, this is more like it. I was surprised as I checked about 10 minutes into this that it, too, like the three Shirley Temple movies I watched at the end of last week, was released in 1934. She looks a year or two older to me as she appears at the start here, marching down the road in flying leathers hitching a ride to the airport, and she looks a lot more comfortable too.

But just 15 minutes later, I discover, yet again there’s something in this Shirley Temple movie that overshadows pretty much all her contribution. It’s Jane Withers, a screen brat who certainly predated but possibly also exceeds the likes of Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed. It’s astonishing given the clear value Temple held for Hollywood at the time that nobody seems ever to have stepped in and put a damper on Withers’ performance – if it can be called that even. Where Temple is as controlled and directed as ever, Withers seems simply to have been placed on the set with her full knowing that if anyone’s going to notice her over her co-star, then dangit she’s gonna have to scream, lol.

Anyway, the story worked for me and even moved me, despite Shirley’s complete inability to stir empathy in me. James Dunn as the godfather Loop is fantastic, particularly when explaining to Shirley about her mother – and the ending is one of the most beautiful ideas I’ve seen in a movie so old … early in the movie, Loop asks Shirley “how much do you love me?” and she gives him the tightest of hugs, and this he repeats in order to make her hold on as they bail out of a storm-wracked plane with one parachute. There’s some funny business with the Uncle in the wheelchair too. Well worth the watch, and I’ll likely bring it out at Christmas some time as that’s where the movie begins.

My first Shirley Temple movie in years (and I’ve only seen a handful at most) and one of my first truly “old” movies in far too long. I was pretty apprehensive on both counts but I probably couldn’t have picked a better movie to re-introduce me to old Hollywood.

There’s little to speak of by way of story – it’s the Depression and the White House appoints a New York theatre man as Secretary of Amusement (great idea, right? I thought so too, lol). There’s a slight love story in the mix. It’s really more an excuse for 70 minutes of lavish song and dance numbers, a lively comedy duo called Mitchell & Durant pre-empting Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson by decades throwing each other around an office, lol; even a talking penguin at the end. What it comes down to is, it’s a lot more than just a Shirley Temple movie, and considering the runtime that’s pretty impressive. I enjoyed every second of it and would certainly watch it again.

This is one of those odd movies for me to review, in that I feel like I really should have a review of it here after all this time, and yet I also feel like I’m kind of spent in my enthusiasm for it with the distance. I hated it when I first saw it on the big screen in 1997; but then, I hated a lot of things that year. I do know that every viewing since that, at least until this one, it got better everytime. This time I really started to wonder if it was really all about the beautiful orange-haired Milla Jovovich.

Every time I watch my favourite Luc Besson movie, Leon, I cringe even more at the boyish nature of the violence especially at the opening – like it really might as well be a bunch of 10 year olds running around going, “pitchoo!” at each other – and that stuff’s even more abundant in this movie. At the same time, however, it’s a lot more palatable due to the genre, especially once you start taking it as tongue-in-cheek comic-bookery. Oddly, the things that I despised most walking out of the multiplex in 1997 – Chris Tucker, Lee Evans etc – are the things I got the biggest kick out of (second of course to Milla) this less-than-ecstatic viewing. I’d forgotten about the Lee Evans appearance entirely, in fact.

So, is it really anything more than the half-naked orange-haired beauty of Milla? I guess first I want to say, even just considering Milla: she’s a lot more than that in this movie. I find her performance even more marvelous each time I see it and it’s a reason in itself to watch the movie even over the brief nudity and general heartstopping beauty of the girl. It nearly bears comparison to Jodie Foster’s Nell for me. The scene where she learns about war makes the movie for me, combining the best of her performance with just exactly the thing about the movie that does raise it above mere eye-candy. What it comes down to in the end, that conflict in Leeloo, “What’s the use of saving lives … when you see what you do with them?” – it’s simple but beautiful and it gets me everytime, even if it’s a long and clunky time coming. At least there’s Milla to get you through the dodgy parts.

Still catching up, apologies for less than good review etc etc …

It doesn’t surprise me much now that I’ve seen this movie why it seems to be having so much trouble getting seen despite a cast led by AnnaSophia Robb and featuring small appearances from the likes of Val Kilmer (brilliant if fleeting) and Heather Graham (who quite honestly I didn’t even spot, lol). It’s a shame that it’s such a difficult movie to know “who to sell it to” – it’s certainly a children movie and children should be allowed to see it, though I’m not sure the powers that be will want them to – because it’s as beautiful if not more so than I imagined it’d be when I heard about it early last year or even late 2006.

The tagline is “You’re never too young to have a plan,” and boy, are these two kids with a plan. I mentioned when I wrote about Bad News Bears how I was sure they’d really missed a trick not casting AnnaSophia Robb in the Tatum O’Neal part when they remade it. Here, again, I’m struck by her surprising earthiness that you never really get from still or red carpet photographs of her. We meet her as her parents’ car crashes in a sleepy Texas town where a young boy lives like a ghost to his own parents. He immediately senses she’s smarter than him, though he gets the feeling she maybe screws with peoples’ heads sometimes. “I will never screw with your head,” she tells him, “ever.” And then she informs him, “I think it’s time for us to leave,” and they go, right under the nose of the boy’s father too pre-occupied with his boat in the yard.

They get married and sex is mentioned – it is in the line, “Don’t worry, I’m not ready to have sex yet,” but I just know that a lot of people won’t care about the context and will simply have a heart attack over a 13-year-old just saying the word and suggesting it’s an option, lol. There’s a great moment when they find shelter in a barn that turns out to belong to Val Kilmer (described beautifully by the boy, “He’s the nicest grown-up I’ve ever met. But I think he hates himself …”). Robb asks him what they owe him for room and board, to which the answer comes, “I think fallin’ asleep to the smell of pig shit should do it.” There’s a lot of stuff like this in the movie that makes me wonder just exactly how the movie will end up rated. Young teens definitely deserve to see it, but there are things I imagine would be cut to allow them to do so, things that need to be left in. Its morality towards the end is really difficult, like it almost turns into Heavenly Creatures and even I think some young people will need talking through it. Most adults won’t be interested in it. It’s a really unique movie, and I hate to say it ‘cos it sounds so patronising or whatever but, especially coming from America.

Of course my primary interest in the movie was AnnaSophia Robb, and she delivers a performance every bit as haunting as she did in Bridge to Terabithia. Her character takes a turn midway that gives me butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it – it’s described by the boy, “I didn’t realise it at the time, but she was starting to slip away inside herself,” and it’s so crushing. It reminded me of the scene in Stealing Home when Jodie Foster says, “I wish I could do that …” at the end of the pier. This is definitely a movie I’ll watch again and again, and if you get the chance to see it, don’t hesitate for a second.