Alice In Wonderland

Not even being called "Allison Wonderland" for the entirety of my elementary school experience stopped me from loving it.

Reminds me of the _Alice_ parody Monty Python had in one of their books -- among other choice bits:

"The Walrus and the Carpenter

Were walking hand in hand

If only, said the Carpenter

The law would understand."

So I kept running across the back of the stage carrying a plate of tarts, stuffing them in my mouth during the entire croquet scene. The entire crowd laughed hysterically whenever I did this. They were good tarts, too, they were home made.

Oh, the book. Yes, classic. Except for Disney abomination which annoys me more than any other in the world...

One time I was in the looney bin, my parents came to visit me separately, bringing books and things for me to read. My mum brought me, like Vogue and some Jane Austen novels. My dad brought me Omni Magazine and Alice In Wonderland. I really thought he was trying to make me STAY in the hospital.

1. It is about ideas - intellectual issues - philosophy turned into brain-teasers. So it has had a long afterlife in the intellectual / academic world, as model / something to quote to lighten the tone. I imagine that the Wittgensteinians and logical positivists, et al, made some hay with it; but so have post-structuralists. It has a pliable sort of quality in this respect, perhaps - it can illustrate whatever paradoxical concept you want it to.

2. It also has an indeterminacy, a mystery about it that has never quite been cleared up - an excess of imagination (over the required, I suppose I mean), a lot of odd juxtapositions and abrupt shifts. It has obviously fed into a general C20 interest (artistic and otherwise) in dreams: Surrealism, Joyce (refs in FW), the 60s / hallucinatory / mind-expansion (hence Jefferson Airplane), etc.

3. Can't underestimate sexuality here - though this is a difficult issue because it skirts the edges of paedophilia, with support from the author's biography. But I think that the appeal of Alice as a figure is mildly analogous to that of later icon Lara Croft. I know nowt about LC's video game, but it seems clear to me that (whatever the game's qualities) a lot of identification / fantasizing is going on to boost its appeal. Would Alice be so popular (or popular in the same way) if (s)he was a boy, or if there were no cute blonde drawings pictures of her in her wee dress and stockings?

4. Then again, this kind of thing also feeds into the cultural imaginary broadly identifiable as 'twee' - ie, roughly, a (neo- Romantic?) cult of childhood, a playing at innocence (nb. possible vital importance of Alice as icon for indie-pop girl look? Never mentioned by Reynolds et al). This needn't have an 'indie' inflection - it can just be a matter of people who are comforted by the thought of buttered scones, Oxford colleges, summers by the river, talking rabbits...

TtLG > AAiW, obv

I have played this! Only briefly, because I was given it just a few months before my PC went BOOM and I ended up with a Mac instead. The heroine looked more like me than she did like Alice though. It was entertaining the few times I played it but I never got very far.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/06/stoned_in_wonde.php

everyone already bagged on this elsewhere but I still think it might be cool.

Concerns about the movie aside, that's an absolutely horrible article.

1. It is about ideas - intellectual issues - philosophy turned into brain-teasers. So it has had a long afterlife in the intellectual / academic world, as model / something to quote to lighten the tone. I imagine that the Wittgensteinians and logical positivists, et al, made some hay with it; but so have post-structuralists. It has a pliable sort of quality in this respect, perhaps - it can illustrate whatever paradoxical concept you want it to.

This is a really great post. I especially like that very last phrase -- it can and has been used to illustrate many, many philosophical problems, scientific phenomenon, etc etc. Foe example, this rather key concept of evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen

It's difficult to say that Carroll was engaged even in the science and philosophy of his day, but he had a brain that was so built for puzzles, and such an understanding of how puzzles relate to everyday existence, that he crossed all lines. Carroll was one of the rarest geniuses. His little riddles and trifles manage to say it all.

That his most enduring character is the Hatter may say more about humans than I wish to completely acknowledge.

You know, "Disney and their antiseptic family demo" is actually a pretty trippy and beautiful movie. Id much rather have some kind of mind expanding experience to that than Jan Svankmejer's "Alice".

bigger pix:

http://cityofskies.com/2009/06/22/tim-burtons-alice-in-wonderland/

Disney's Alice is practically on LSD already, thanks to Mary Blair who I will stan for forever.

http://cartoonmodern.blogsome.com/images/blair_alice.jpg

http://blog.nadinetakvorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/montreal-april-12-mary-blair.jpg

two more

http://www.filmofilia.com/2009/06/22/more-alice-in-wonderland-images/

http://www.designlessbetter.com/blogless/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/223307152_bbf672b08c.jpg

Now that I see those I kinda wish there were more animated renditions than crappy made-for-TV/BBC plays over the years.

Man, that Tim Burton version looks awful. Totally obnoxious.

I'm VERY skeptical about this Burton version but will probably see it anyway. I love both books and have read them numerous times. I used to collect different editions of the books and some other related items too. I'll still see the movie but . . . eek.

jam tomorrow
jam yesterday
but never jam today

I proudly own the url http://neverjamtoday.com. I even have near-future plans for it. It's too good to just sit there.

Laurel: it's a BEAUTIFUL-looking movie, and Wonderland is open to as many visual interpretations as possible. I used to think I had a favorite, but I don't anymore.

And then Alice starts singing. Alice doesn't sing, you cretins! She questions, she worries, she bounces ideas and wryly observes, but she does not SING.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYJ8bMOxytM

not anymore :(

Fuxor.

damn, that was fast!

While we wait for a new link/reappearance, Richard Burton as the White Knight from 1983:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH14glXzfSE

So, what: Tim Burton's movie been 'injuncted' ?

No, just the trailer -- I assume they're trying to hold off until it's shown at Comic-Con or something.

Okay, Nikki Finke still has it up:

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/trailer-tims-johnnys-alice-in-wonderland/

ok the thing about this...
i know burton has a hard on for depp but like, why are we rebranding ALICE in wonderland to be LOOK AT ME I AM A MAD HATTER

OK, I need to know about this: My daughter Alice loves Tim Burton's movies (Ed Sciz, BeetleJ, Nightmare Xmas)

.. Disney Copyright claim? WTF!

(xpost oh OK, thx Ned)

Mad Hatter as boss villain with Oddjob's hat from Goldfinger?

that trailer kinda sucks :(

Oh yeah and BOMBASTIC MUSIC doubtless from Elfman.

someone really needs to put a stop to Tim Burton. Once he was great, now I have come to totally loathe his "brand" being slathered on various properties. Whatever Burton does these days, it certainly doesn't qualify as filmmaking.

Oh, it's a Disney film, fair enough..

March 5th 2010? Hmm, 2 days after Alice's 10th birthday? OK, that's one prezzie sorted (or, will be. Or is that USA only as per chiz usual?)

Yep, right up her street. Would have been better if she'd had brown hair, but hey.

Ha, seems I'm the only happy one here.

Hey, it's a scary kids movie. You'll get yours in time.

girlish in the worst sense of that term ?

Well, I have two girls so neh.

Pan's Labyrinth 2: The Dark Side

Has anyone read the Sylvie and Bruno books? (More importantly, did children actually read and comprehend them in the 1800s?) Fascinatingly dense and bizarre books.

i need to go to the library.

girlish in the worst sense of that term ?

joking reference to this deeply mysognistic and poorly written movie review

I suppose "whorish plotting" would have also worked

ok thx

Why do people let Tim Burton ruin every story ever made. Charley and Chocolate SUCKED, I hate his “mise en scene” if you will. His Noir approach to everything is so EMO. No Talent Hack. Flame away!!!

I sort of agree but I don't expect anybody to put a glock to my head and march me to the cinema and make me watch this shit.

whatever otm

altho he doesn't really do noir, that's kinda a weird reference to make

my first worry about a Burton version of this was that it would include 30 minutes of psychological backstory filling in things like the childhood trauma that made the hatter go mad

As opposed to huffing mercury fumes.

haha seriously, now that I think about this, I can't think of a single Burton/Depp movie that doesn't, at some point, contain a flashback explaining the central trauma or misfortune that has turned Depp into whatever kind of weirdo he happens to play in that particular movie

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would probably have passed as mediocre if he hadn't included that horrendous backstory.

possibly Ed Wood is the one exception

xpost - the Sleepy Hollow backstory was painful, too, and I say that even after charitably acknowledging that he was working from a short, simple story and obviously needed to add some stuff

"suffice to say that if Sweeney Todd's backstory had not already existed, Tim Burton would have invented it"

Alice as a book is all surface and no backstory, that's the main reason it feels so wrong when film-makers try to psychologize it.

possibly Ed Wood is the one exception

Hmm, it is now that you mention it. There's only a couple of really short but plot-specific explanations Wood's character gives about his past -- one to the B-movie producer near the start of the film about why he's the best candidate for Glen or Glenda, the other to his future wife Kathy on an early date about his growing up. Basic character detail that doesn't need to go any further than it does because Wood as written and performed just carries the rest forward.

has anyone ever seen the 1933 version with, like, cary grant and gary cooper and w.c. fields? it sounds amazing.

I've watched this clip a few times, it's quite head-fucking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D92LvLu8aCY

All sorts of clips and links to that here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=alice+wonderland+1933&search_type=&aq=f

Fields kinda sounds like he's phoning it in.

I really like Burton's film. They're eye-candy, and his interests (morbid Sondheim plays, Alice in Wonderland, etc) align with mine enough that even tho his films are rarely perfect, I enjoy them. That said, I imagine that if his tastes differed from mine more, I'd consider him a far more mediocre director than he actually is, and I suspect that's the case for a lot of people. He's like your friend who likes all the same things as you, but isn't terribly subtle or smart. You enjoy chilling with him because you get the same references, but it's truly a guilty pleasure.

at this point I'm just tired of his references, his films are the visual equivalent of Oasis endlessly quoting the Beatles (what was that critical line about Gallagher's inability to outgrow his Beatles fixation making his songwriting more autistic than artistic?)

It's hard to imagine him making another Ed Wood at this point.

I liked his movies more when they felt more homemade and less now that he's using so much CG and Christopher Doyle-esque (for lack of a better comparison) cinematography.

yeah I think my differing with Mordy is that I feel some kind of change -- i.e., I used to find him great and creative, and feel like these days like he's in danger of just going around doing bad film impressions of any source material that struck someone as being "Burtonish." I'd probably be happier if his visual sensibilities (which can still be pleasant, if less interesting than they used to be) were maybe aimed toward things that could use them (e.g., I think this was why Burton-does-Batman was a good idea), rather than things that don't require anyone else's visual stamp (Charlie, Alice) or things where it's perfectly obvious how it'd intersect with Burton's aesthetic (Sleepy Hollow). I also sort of think he was much better at rubbing fantastical visuals against his Burtonish aestheticized Real World -- as in Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks, etc. -- than he is at being purely fantastical. Also that he should work with better writers.

I'd probably be a lot more critical of him if I hadn't really enjoyed Sweeney Todd.

I guess maybe the time for his quaint / kitschy / 1950s / B-52s type vision of the Real World has sort of passed, but becoming some sort of period-piece director doesn't seem like a solution!

Yeah, I really really really loved Sweeny Todd too, tho I'm wondering how much that is because of Burton nd how much it is because I love the play.

big fish is the film of the century eff u_u h8rs

He's supposed to be doing a film version of Dark Shadows with Depp next, which seems like such a cliché.

Sweeney Todd is the only recent Burton film that I have enjoyed, but I am a sucker for Sondheim and would have enjoyed even a Uwe Bolle version of it.

He's supposed to be doing a film version of Dark Shadows with Depp next, which seems like such a cliché.

Oh good lord, I had heard about that. Deeper into the pit.

I did love Big Fish, but that's such an aberration from his normal aesthetic (in a sense repudiating it / playing with it, like asking whether reality happened the way the story was told, etc).

have y'all seen the article in the Times abt Volterra prison in Italy, nat'l award winnng theater program that has run 21 years, actually used to tour until "During one tour in 1995, several inmate-actors were charged with robbing banks in between shows. They were quickly ostracized by fellow inmates and sentenced to more prison time." and no more tours

the current show is “Alice in Wonderland, a Theatrical Essay on the End of a Civilization” which according to the article "is loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s masterwork, but the text weaves in soliloquies from other authors, in this case Shakespeare (predominantly Hamlet) but also Genet, Pinter, Chekhov and Heiner Müller."

link to article and slideshow below
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/arts/23iht-povo.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07/22/theater/20090722_POVO_SLIDESHOW_index.html

Tell me about this when I was a kid and I would have been OMG ecstatic. But yeah, basically just looks like a hi-budget remake of Alice except all the floors are purposely curved and stuff. Am definitely skipping this.

I was drunk enough to enjoy Planet of the Apes and Big Fish was boring but too boring to be offensive to my senses. I think the end of Burton for me was when Charlie was going along nice and silly and Burtonesque and then the Oompas came in and instead of doing some spooky retro 60s song they launched into a grotesque broadway-type showtune with synchronized swimming and shit. Thank god they didn't have cheap CGI when he made Beetlejuice that movie would have been unbearable.

Bear in mind, those songs were written by RDahl, as opposed to the ones in the original.

Elfman came up with the music tho

yeah lyrics weren't the problem (Dahl's songs are very funny on paper) - it was the accompaniment, presentation and execution.

Yeah it was just really overblown, swooping camera shots, etc. The synchronized swimming in particular was the nail in the coffin, but the lid of that coffin was this lame underlying feeling that I can't really explain. It was like as soon as they start to go into that tunnel you know here comes a CGI sequence where all movements of the camera serve to hide the fact that it's a CGi experience rather than continue with some emotional/aesthetic visual motifs that are running throughout. It's basically a podrace but because this movie has Tim Burton's name its going to be in a tunnel with purple and black stripes and people wearing pseudo-Victorian clothing.

It was one of those movies where as you watch for the first time the most memorable parts are the ones from the trailer not because they are so awesome but because you are already aware of them. I dont think I cared for any of the characters, least of all 'archetypal outsider' Wonka/Depp.

Okay...:

In assembling a story that borrows from all of Carroll's "Alice" material -- he said the script captured "a lot of the vibe" from the famous nonsensical poem "Jabberwocky," which contains wholly fabricated words and a loosely constructed narrative at best -- he wanted the movie to be more than simply a document of a girl wandering through a surreal landscape; all of the characters needed to have an internal life and to be more richly drawn than in earlier big-screen efforts. Alice, for example, evolves from an astonished naif to empowered action heroine, sporting her very own suit of armor, over the course of the film.

"Every other version I've ever seen, I've never really connected to because it's always just a series of weird events," Burton said. "She's passively wandering through, meeting this weird character, that weird character. It's fine in the books, but the movies always felt like there wasn't anything underneath them. That's what we tried to do. Instead of the Hatter just being weird, [we wanted to] get some kind of character underneath him. That's the goal, is to give the 'Alice' material a little more weight to it."

I feel better already.

my first worry about a Burton version of this was that it would include 30 minutes of psychological backstory filling in things like the childhood trauma that made the hatter go mad

― nabisco, Wednesday, July 22, 2009 3:16 PM (1 week ago)

Sounds like, again, nabs OTM

Oh ffs Burton JUST STOP MAKING MOVIES

Maybe it'll be a young Mad Hatter sitting around his dad's chapeau shop while a lot of oversized hats are placed on his head and everyone laughs cruelly.

There's a really good Flann O'Brien skit, writing as Myles na gCopaleen, where he's talking about a stage version of Dorian Gray and saying that if Wilde had wanted it to be a play he'd have written it as a play. Maybe Burton should look that shit up.

New thread:

Famous characters from kid lit with overexplained backgrounds in movie versions

Cautious optimism rising for this tbh. I don't mind the fact that this Tim Burton movie looks like a Tim Burton movie, in fact I like it, I think it's fitting. If, say, Michael Mann can constantly fork over the same patch of soil and get a free pass every time for doing so, despite diminishing returns, I think Burton should be cut some slack. At least Depp looks more at home and more alive here than he did as that bloodless cardboard cut-out character in Public Enemies.

i've nothing against burton especially but saying you want to "give a little more weight" to one of the greatest works of literature ever is like the epitome of over-the-top hollywood philistinism, right up there with walt disney saying he was gonna finally make beethoven's career with 'fantasia.'

all of the characters needed to have an internal life

I know I've always sat around wondering, "I wonder if Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee like pizza or sandwiches? Which Cure album does the Red Queen rate the highest?"

haha

New trailer:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/12/alice-in-wonderland-trailer-takes-you-away.html

looks terrible

atrocious

clearly an homage to

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312528/

needs more product placement

Twinings Tea, Kangol, Bicycle Cards, etc.

Man normally Tim's stuff isn't hard to look at but why did he choose to make Tweedledee & Tweedledum look like macrocephalic medical textbook squick shots (and somehow make them look dull & bland)? This is the worst character design I've seen since "Igor."

quite honestly I will go see this solely for the incredibly distorted, freaked-out HBC

who needs design when you've got CGI

okay so I know this is ILX and people throw out stupid, indefensible comments all the time but that is a pretty precious one

tbh it appears to be the thinking behind "Igor"

Man normally Tim's stuff isn't hard to look at

post-Mars Attacks his stuff has gotten progressively uglier and less elegant and more cluttered

what the fuck is this horrible trailer

btw Hot Topic already has tons of merch for this movie.

why are they ruining something so dear to me :(

I don't have a problem with taking liberties with the source material - I can think offhand of at least three adaptations that are really great that take all kinds of liberties - but seriously wtf is he thinking w/battle scenes and a sword-fighting Mad Hatter and all that shit

I don't quite get why this is an "Alice returns to Wonderland" story but visually speaking this looks like the type of ugly I will unabashedly enjoy.

(^^^inner goth rising to the challenge)

I am really hoping that it turns out that the White Queen is evil btw

I think the whole goth thing that Tim Burton is trying to do is desecrating the cartoon disney version which I watched countless times while stoned. I think goth could have been good if it was more like a horror film in the style of American McGee's Alice.

i realize it's not a new phenomenon, this whole decision to take an established literary classic and turn it into a action-packed film, but along with this new sherlock holmes and that shitty looking zemeckis version of 'a christmas carol' it seems more exhausting now.

I would appreciate a treatment of Richardson's Pamela done in this manner.

anyone watch that sci-fi channel adaptation last week? I dvr-ed it, looks like shit

this whole decision to take an established literary classic and turn it into a action-packed film

yeah this is a real problem.

eventually there will be only ONE film and we will watch it every summer

Oh right, this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZaTFmEL-l0

^^^inclusion of IB kinda glaring incogruity there

I think the whole goth thing that Tim Burton is trying to do is desecrating the cartoon disney version which I watched countless times while stoned.

And people in 1951 probably felt Disney was desecrating the Tenniel illustrations You pays your money and you takes your choice. Me, I think this looks shitty, but Disney's animated "Alice" is available on DVD whenever you want to burn one and feel nostalgic.

Christmas money, yay! That's the only thing I thought of when I saw this trailer.

I will probably see this. It has a Jabberwock in it.

A tad bothered by the Hatter saying that the Red Queen has taken over Wonderland, when he clearly means the Queen of Hearts.

didn't notice. otoh those are two different characters

btw Hot Topic already has tons of merch for this movie.

Well, it was filmed in a Hot Topic, wasn't it?

This looks 0.00% appealing.

It looks a lot more appealing to me than Avatar, but that's not saying a hell of a lot.

who needs design when you've got CGI

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, 16 December 2009 22:02 (Yesterday) Permalink

okay so I know this is ILX and people throw out stupid, indefensible comments all the time but that is a pretty precious one

― Restless Genital Syndrome (HI DERE), Wednesday, 16 December 2009 22:03 (Yesterday)

hey, that is some pretty bad CGI

I'm not the biggest burton fan in the world but he usually gets vivid, visually stunning results

based on the trailer it looks like he phoned this one in

New rule: unless you're Pixar, stop with the CG. It looks like crap on a cracker, and it's faddish. Remember "morphing"?

The last movie that successfully mixed real action with animated characters was Roger Rabbit. The last time a movie that made CG characters look real was... never. The tech isn't there yet. Sorry, guyz.

it's like he told some junior animator on staff, "hey gimme a cheshire cat, I dunno, it looks a big tabby cat with, uh, green eyes"

tweedledee and tweedledum have zero personality

dormouse appears to have wandered in from the tale of despereaux

so there's not a lot of good design going on, there is a lot of CGI to be had though

The last time a movie that made CG characters look real was... never.

The sad thing is they came pretty durn close with Gollum. But that was the better part of a decade ago, and the magic makers honestly haven't been able to improve on that in the impending years, or at least sustain it? Really?

lolling at how burton now casts johnny depp and helena bonham carter in every movie

Love how Burton made an Alice film that, from the trailer, doesn't appear to be about Alice at all.

The last time a movie that made CG characters look real was... never. The tech isn't there yet. Sorry, guyz.

some fookin seth efrikens wanted a word with you

so ILX rates Sweeney Todd higher than Sleepy Hollow? wow.

I certainly do.

I think Sweeney Todd is a bit dull/flawed and would have preferred if he'd cast better singers but given that the source material is about a bazillion times more awesome than Sleepy Hollow it doesn't really matter what Burton does to it.

anyway, seems likely ilx will rate just about everything he's done above this new monstrosity.

except maybe planet of the apes, which was next level shitty

Any time a studio expects computer animation to be done quickly and cheaply, you end up with mediocre effects. As is the case here.

Sleepy Hollow and Planet Of The Apes was the twofer that turned me right off of Burton. Had no real issues with him up until then, and downright loved some of his stuff. I've only seen Charlie & The Chocolate Factory since then, which was surprisingly not bad.

Really? I think it's even worse than Planet of the Apes. I hate Burton's insistence on giving everyone a backstory. Willy Wonka having a sad, sugar-deprived childhood doesn't add anything to the character, it actually makes him less interesting.

I think I blanked those bits out as I watched it, tbh. Burton's pretty good if you filter him.

I like "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" a lot.

wonka, hollow, apes, all terrible, and I used to really like him. I don't think this will be any good either. sweeney todd was good though.

I've seen the following Burton movies:

1985 Pee-wee's Big Adventure
1988 Beetlejuice
1989 Batman
1990 Edward Scissorhands
1992 Batman Returns
1996 Mars Attacks!
1999 Sleepy Hollow
2001 Planet of the Apes
2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
2007 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The worst of these is easily "Planet of the Apes" which I still enjoyed but don't want to see again. I'd watch any of the others in a heartbeat.

Wait you saw all those and NOT Ed Wood? Remedy that immediately.

sleepy hollow is rad

Ed Wood is easily his best movie

As much as I like Ed Wood, Pee Wee's Big Adventure is better.

Thanks to Max, I now have the courage to say Sleepy Hollow is my favourite Burton movie, it's far less patchy than anything he's done in years, is hilarious and looks fantastic.

It's also chockablock with Depp's patented Twitchy Face.

Which I kinda dug on Ichabod Crane, though.

I am not going to be angry with a movie that has a bazillion comedy beheadings and Johnny Depp playing The Doctor.

SUGGEST BAN

Oooooh

I don't mind Sleepy Hollow, but don't mess around with Doctor Who.

Dan knows I'm joking, I only suggest ban people for criticizing cartoons.

okay there are many posters around here who could be accused of messing around with Doctor Who and you know I am not one of them

He would kind of fit in perfectly with the nu emo-Who..

*cringes*

I just didn't think Ichabod Crane was Doctor material, is all.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=20986616

Sleepy Hollow is allright but again, too much backstory.

so basically waht you are saying is that you prefer your movies to not have stories and/or motivation

or to be 12 minutes long, given the amount of backstory that came with SH

Sleepy Hollow is 105 minutes and at least a third of it is devoted to fairly silly backstories for the Van Tassels and the Headless Horseman (who really, REALLY doesn't need a backstory)

even though I'm generally sympathetic to Puritan conspiracies about suppressing women/witchcraft Burton made it unnecessarily convoluted

I do however approve of trees full of severed heads, that was pretty awesome

sleepy hollow was ok but tim burton kind of sucks

saw sleepy hollow in the theatres, can't remember a single thing about it except that I didn't like it

got opinions 4 U

Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) - awesome, classic
Beetle Juice (1988) - eh, but do remember the high school hormone "hey who is that" moment @ winona ryder
Batman (1989) - a waste of batman, jack nicholson, and my time... when ppl called this "dark and brooding" it made me want to stab them in the eyes so they could enjoy some actual dark brooding
Edward Scissorhands (1990) - haven't seen it! want to, though
Batman Returns (1992) - I stayed away
Ed Wood (1994) - had written off burton obv, but this redeemed him, landau rules as legosi
Mars Attacks! (1996) - haven't seen it
Sleepy Hollow (1999) - catnip for absinthe sippers, didn't like it
Planet of the Apes (2001) - refused to watch this on moral grounds at the time, but I might be over it now
Big Fish (2003) - really liked it, movie has heart, his most underrated
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) - not bad for a michael jackson biopic
Corpse Bride (2005) - didn't see it
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) - didn't see it but <3 the old broadway production w/ angela lansbury

did we ever do a burton poll?

"Batman Returns" is way way way better than "Batman" and likely my fave or second-fave of all of the Batman movies (competition is "The Dark Knight")

^^^yes

hmmm, interesting

its so weird, all the things Burton got wrong in the first one are excorcised from the second. the tone is much more consistent, the villains are better, the cartoonishness works better, Keaton is better, the plot is more coherent

(there's a lot of talk on the Batman threads about this)

It's like, the campy tone of "Batman" is still there but every single lead (DeVito, Keaton, Pfieffer, Walken) completely KILLS their part and the underlying story is much, much stronger.

xp: ha basically what Shakey said

i agree with max

That trailer's such a mess I thought that Terry Gilliam must have taken over at some point.

Got to defend the backstory in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as it allows him to use Christopher Lee and it has the best (only) joke in the whole film.

Yeah, Batman isn't terribly good, but I think most of that can be chalked up to the screenplay. Otherwise, Burton's pre-Sleepy Hollow work is all aces. And Pee Wee is one of my favorite movies evah.

It's in my top five.

Such a perfect movie for sight gags. My favorite might be when he gets the platform shoes from the dude at the bar without the camera actually showing them and said dude's height goes down about two feet.

did anyone watch the syfy alice?

does anyone watch syfy anything?

1. "Alice (Underground)" performed by Avril Lavigne
2. "The Poison" performed by The All-American Rejects
3. "The Technicolor Phase" performed by Owl City
4. "Her Name Is Alice" performed by Shinedown
5. "Painting Flowers" performed by All Time Low
6. "Where's My Angel" performed by Metro Station
7. "Strange" performed by Tokio Hotel and Kerli
8. "Follow Me Down" performed by 3OH!3 featuring Neon Hitch
9. "Very Good Advice" performed by Robert Smith
10. "In Transit" performed by Mark Hoppus with Pete Wentz
11. "Welcome to Mystery" performed by Plain White T's
12. "Tea Party" performed by Kerli
13. "The Lobster Quadrille" performed by Franz Ferdinand
14. "Running Out of Time" performed by Motion City Soundtrack
15. "Fell Down a Hole" performed by Wolfmother
16. "White Rabbit" performed by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

o lordy.

13. "The Lobster Quadrille" performed by Franz Ferdinand

hahahahahahahaaaaaa

sleepy hollow was ok but tim burton kind of sucks

― max, Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:53 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

otmfm

I was willing to give this a shot before, but I can't anymore. Fuck this movie.

IN 3D

Tim Burton 90s >>>> Tim Burton 00s

but i'm still kinda interested in this. despite that soundtrack.

annoying goth shit is annoying, basically + tb's personal style is v. offputting.

saw 'mars attacks' on a ferry in the irish sea and thought it was ok, but there isn't much to do on a ferry voyage.

"Follow Me Down" performed by 3OH!3 featuring Neon Hitch

This alone has soured me for the entire movie and I have no idea who either of these people/bands are.

9. "Very Good Advice" performed by Robert Smith

This I want to hear. Everything else...

"The Technicolor Phase" performed by Owl City

I'm trying to imagine the desperate texts and phone calls that went on last month to get this guy on the soundtrack.

Ten million pr guys

Danny Elfman alert:

GB: What was the very last thing you finished on Sunday?

DE: It was this crazy dance that the Mad Hatter does. It's called the Fudderwacken. That was something we had tried many different approaches before we reached the one that is in the movie.

this is shaping up to be so so terrible that it's surely got to do an Avatar and inexplicably turn out brilliant [note: I haven't seen Avatar], right?

haha

I'm being hopeful. Though I don't know why, really. (except I like AiW and Burton circa Beetlejuice->Nightmare b4 Xmas)

Hmm:

GB: How did you come to the project?

LW: I had that idea, the concept of her being older and going back, and I had mulled it over for quite a while. Then (producers) Suzanne and Jennifer Todd and Joe Roth asked if I had any ideas. And I told them I did, and I pitched it to them. Then Joe took the idea of it to Disney. After I wrote the first draft, Tim Burton read it and signed on. I've seen all of his films, and I've been so in awe of him, like everybody else, a fan, just like everybody else. You see his signature everywhere in his work. So when I got a chance to work with him, I was nervous, honestly. I've been lucky in my career to work with amazing and talented people, but Tim pretty much tops the list. I didn't know what it would be like working with him, but I found it to be the best experience I've ever had in the business. He asks you the question and makes you go figure out the answer as opposed to telling you the answer. What that does for you, as a writer, is that the work comes from you as opposed to coming from the outside. He did a great job too giving the characters more color, particularly the Mad Hatter. He worked with me a lot on the Hatter to make him a richer, deeper character so you empathize with him more.

...

GB: Tell us about some of the major departures from the Carroll world as we know it. Have you created major characters from whole cloth?

LW: Two things are major departures, I'd say. There's the concept of the Irraticulum, which is a never-ending calendar that is sort of an oracle. Every day in Wonderland is never the same as the day before. The days don't repeat, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. They just go on. Every day has a new name. Like Frabjous Day. The idea of the Irraticulum, which tells everyone what is going to happen on that particular day, that isn't anywhere in the original works. That was created out of whole cloth and it gives us a ticking clock on the story. The other thing is, I created a dog character and his family that helps Alice throughout the story. He's a hound dog and he kind of betrays the Hatter originally, and then he feels really badly about it, and then he assists Alice in the rest of the story. His family is being held hostage, and then in the end ... well, let's not spoil it.

WOW THAT SOUNDS REALLY GREAT THANKS

Both her and Tim Burton should be kicked in the shins.

The other thing is, I created a dog character and his family that helps Alice throughout the story.

We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy. You've heard the expression "let's
get busy"? Well, this is a dog who gets biz-zay; consistently and thoroughly.

He's the kung-fu hippie from gangsta city. He's a rappin' surfer, you the fool he pity.

Seriously, I used to be down with this:

I'm being hopeful. Though I don't know why, really. (except I like AiW and Burton circa Beetlejuice->Nightmare b4 Xmas)

― DavidM, Thursday, February 4, 2010 6:38 PM (4 days ago)

Now, after seeing the previews and reading about the hound family being held hostage, it's this:

I was willing to give this a shot before, but I can't anymore. Fuck this movie.

― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:08 PM (3 weeks ago)

Still, everybody loved Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, so...

I still have some hope for this... The dog thing sounds awful, but on the other hand AiW is pretty much the story Burton was born to direct, and I thought Sweeney Todd was a nice comeback for him after years of making mediocre movies.

The bloodhound is played by Timothy Spall, so maybe it won't be a total loss.

I hope the next wave of commercials have less Johnny Depp mugging and more CRISPIN GLOVER.

There was an interview with Helena B-C in this weekend's Guardian, and the only thing that it left me with was that this cost $250m to make, which seems like an absurd amount for something that isn't even particularly striking visually.

You've seen it already?

Nah, just the trailer(s) Tuomas, which I was underwhelmed by. Saw a 3D one before Avatar and even that was pretty meh.

burton's work has been nothing but shit since sleepy hollow, i hated sweeney todd with a vengeance tbh.

Because of the source material or the treatment or both? To me it's a v. journeymanesque rendering of a brilliant musical.

i didn't know the source material, but had nothing against it going in and nothing against musicals in either medium so i'd guess it was all burton that i hated.

Should've cast singers imo

xp

Perversely, he's a director whose artistic vision seems to be actively hampered by getting a big budget - give him $13m and you'll get Beetlejuice, but $100m buys you dreck like Mars Attacks!.

Also, what Ned said upthread: the dog and "never-ending calendar" sound like total garbage, *clearly* these are what was missing from the original story and their invention by some hack screenwriter was u&k.

I think it's more a case of he's got maybe 2 ideas and we're bored of them now. Plus the basic axiom that you don't fuck with Alice in Wonderland.

yeah i'd agree with that- he has visual excellence and unnecessary backstory, and that's about it.

sleepy hollow, although i probably forgot to vote for it, was one of the movies of the decade for me, and i don't think you're going to hear anyone say that he doesn't have massive talent, but maybe the success and freedom he won with that (it made huge box office i think?) has lessened the hold that studios might have in enforcing basic editing on him.

and xxxp gord elp us but johnny depp singing is an awful thing to have to listen to

The "Never ending calendar" sounds like a minor detail

Timothy Spall as "the dog" sounds like it's turning into the Magic Roundabout!

I thought Sweeney Todd was ok, but mostly because it's the first Burton i'd seen at the cinema and his aesthetic works well on a big screen.

Apart from that Post nightmare before christmas (maybe Sleepy Hollow) his films have been pretty dire. Big fish is one of the worst movies i've ever seen.

It's maybe not just boredom with his shtick: he started out making mostly original movies and now he does mostly pointless cover versions. It's sad that he'll prolly never make another Ed Wood tho.

"whole cloth"? who the hell says this?

I flipped through the companion illustrated book this weekend, and it looks like it bears only the slightest resemblance to the original books. Like, most of the characters are in there and that's about it. Alice's "real world" family are featured extensively, and it seemed as if a lot of the movie was centered around a war in Wonderland. So, y'know, why they couldn't have just called the fucking movie something less dishonest, I have no clue.

Although, if they're doing a Wonderland war, I hope the movie just winds up being an adaptation of this:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/thumb/4/44/Oz-Wonderland_War_1.jpg/250px-Oz-Wonderland_War_1.jpg

tbh i'd rather they just didn't make it at all as opposed to annoyance at what they title it.

But we all need to find out if the dog is able to rescue his family! This is urgent and key.

the calendar sounds okay and vaguely Carrollian and probably not very important anyway. The dog, on the other hand. And it can never be emphasised enough how little of a good idea

he worked with me a lot on the Hatter to make him a richer, deeper character so you empathize with him more.

that is.

We'll find out the Hatter's father never loved him, and this made the Hatter mad.

tbh i'd rather they just didn't make it at all as opposed to annoyance at what they title it.

Well, yes, if I had my druthers. It looks abysmal. The overall style of the Mad Hatter alone almost actively pisses me off.

Despite still loving the totally plastic, unreal look of this movie, that little tidbit about the dog really sounds like the worst fucking thing ever. Alice doesn't need a Poochie, particularly when the White Rabbit is still there.

It's maybe not just boredom with his shtick: he started out making mostly original movies and now he does mostly pointless cover versions. It's sad that he'll prolly never make another Ed Wood tho.

Srsly. Some friends and I recently sat around drinking and watching Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and I couldn't help but think, "What happened to this guy?" I mean, a major studio paid Tim Burton to make that movie! And it made over $40 million! I don't think I've enjoyed a Burton movie since Mars Attacks. Heck, I've barely seen any of them, except Big Fish, which sucked on toast.

I usually defend CGI as a tool in movies, but everything I've seen of this Alice looks like video-game cutscene bullshit.

hatter hatter hatter- this can't be stressed enough. hatter hatterhands hates his pater.

I was just thinking about what would have happened if Burton had directed The Dark Knight. The Joker would have this whole backstory about growing up as a child in a family of circus clowns, but one night the circus burns down and the Joker is orphaned.

I mean, that Helena Bonham Carter with the giant head Red Queen effect looks about as innovative as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvi4iA3PnKE

xp For all that I love Batman Returns, remember the story that Burton gave The Penguin.

except for HBC and Tweedlee/Tweedledum, I'm worried.

I do love Batman Returns, but then I'm cool with ridiculous comic book characters having ridiculous comic book back-stories.

oh yeah for all burton's crimes of recent years you can't argue with Batman Returns as a stone classic.

And now I realise that's what I hate about things like this Alice, that whole world-view that tries to tie Realist emotional content to the 2-dimensional, or melodramatic, or fantastic. You almost always end up with an uneasy adult/child ugliness, yearning for depth in stuff that's beautiful because it isn't adult consciously deep.

(Having said that and wanting to eat my cake too, Tenniel's illustrations are also darker/scarier than any of this "edgy" shit - full of Victorian child mortality/brutality as they are.)

At this point, it would probably be easier to list the Burton movies that don't feature characters motivated by absentee or emotionally distant fathers, huh.

xp well it's partly that, partly burton's backstory/exposition always being lame, one note, repetitive shite too.

Batman Returns has Pfeiffer and nothing else of value; almost as bad as Big Fish.

xpost

I'm trying to map out exactly why it makes my skin crawl but I better get back to work. I know it's something to do with the similarities to fanfic.

aw morbs chris walken just kills in Batman Returns

Nah, all the leads in "Batman Returns" are excellent (admittedly Pfeiffer is the best)

burton filling his own stories with daddy issues is a pisser, but when he insists on inserting it clumsily into other people's works to 'flesh out the character' then it gets actively maddening.

Ha, I read that as "all the pies in "Batman Returns" are excellent"

Can't think why. (xpost)

he didn't do this in Sweeney Todd (the loss-of-wife-and-child backstory was already there)

xp

Batman Returns has Pfeiffer and nothing else of value

She is so great in this that I really didn't care that the rest of the movie wasn't very good.

he didn't do this in Sweeney Todd

i'm not familiar with the source, but if it was already there then it just saved him doing it i guess.

arguably the daddy issues are part of what drew him to the story (inference based on pretty much every other film dude has done that I've seen)

they're not daddy issues, unless alan rickman is subbing for his daddy in it.

perfume was better anyway, and not just on the lack of singing.

Makes me wonder why he did Ed Wood if that's all he cares about; then again I suppose Lugosi functions as a surrogate father that he actually loses during the course of the story.

it's not all he cares about, but the more he does and the more control he gets the more prevalent and carbon-copy it seems to be getting?

disappointment in/absent fathers are a pretty major theme in the last 5000 years of art.

Yeah, "Mrs Doubtfire" ...

they're not daddy issues, unless alan rickman is subbing for his daddy in it.

Sweeny Todd is the absentee father.

i gotta be honest i was looking for a little more variation than that from burton.

he didn't do this in Sweeney Todd

You're not saying the girl in it doesn't have daddy issues with Alan Rickman?!

I'm saying it's a relatively close adaptation; judging by the TV version I've seen of the Hal Prince-Angela Lansbury staging, he didn't butter more Oedipal stuff onto it.

(but I don't remember a lot of the Johanna scenes at this point)

i'm saying that in every other burton daddy issues episode it's the main character, male, flashbacking to a cruel and hard father that made him the way he is. i'm not sure how that's confusing to anyone tbh, and i don't think there's any comparison with sweeney todd.

he started out making mostly original movies and now he does mostly pointless cover versions.

^^^THIS

How dare you say that about Peter Jack...wait.

i'm saying that in every other burton daddy issues episode it's the main character, male, flashbacking to a cruel and hard father that made him the way he is. i'm not sure how that's confusing to anyone tbh, and i don't think there's any comparison with sweeney todd.

That isn't confusing to anyone. What is apparently confusing to you is the response, which is that most of Burton's films riff on the bad father theme in ways beyond the manner you describe and I offered the hypothesis that the daddy issues in the "Sweeny Todd" story were a draw to him, given that he seems pathologically driven to tell stories where major events/motivations are driven by reactions to a distant/absent father figure.

see also Spielberg and the Andersons, btw

I guess my three favorite films of his BY FAR are 'cover versions': Ed Wood, Mars Attacks! and Sweeney Todd.

you don't like Pee Wee's big Adventure

As a big fan of Pee-wee's Playhouse, I was disappointed in it at the time! Haven't seen the whole thing since.

also I think characterizing Mars Attacks! and Ed Wood as cover versions in the same spirit as Planet of the Apes/Alice in Wonderland/Charlie & the Chocolate Factory/Sleepy Hollow/Sweeney Todd is kinda disingenuous ... while they both have source material, Ed Wood's main conceit is that Depp acts like he's in an Ed Wood movie while everyone else acts like real people - that juxtaposition is the key to the whole thing, and where all of its humor comes from. but its not really LIKE any particular Ed Wood movie. As for Mars Attacks... I dunno, those were trading cards, and he expanded considerably on their central conceit (hyperviolent 50s sci-fi satire), its not like there had ever been a film or stage adaptation of that material before.

Mars Attacks riffs on '50s sci-fi movies in general, I want even thinking about the cards.

waSnt

I was just thinking about what would have happened if Burton had directed The Dark Knight. The Joker would have this whole backstory about growing up as a child in a family of circus clowns, but one night the circus burns down and the Joker is orphaned.

― ô_o (Nicole), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:30 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i keep trying to get my head around this post and can't. Burton directed a Batman movie with the Joker where he didn't have a bunch of childhood backstory, but if he did the other, more recent Batman movie with the Joker he would have then?

The first Burton movie did lean pretty heavily on Batman's abandonment but there's kind of no way to tell a Batman origin story without doing that; I think the point is that without having Batman to fall back on, Burton gravitates towards other characters to provide the "WAAAAH DADDY LEFT ME" impetus (see: The Penguin in "Batman Returns").

yeah i get the basic sentiment behind that post, just the example was so WTF

i love mars attacks

and i think ed wood would prob make it into my top25 or so/all time

Burton directed a Batman movie with the Joker where he didn't have a bunch of childhood backstory, but if he did the other, more recent Batman movie with the Joker he would have then?

My point was similar to Dan's but also I think Burton has gotten much worse wrt to Daddy issues over time.

I offered the hypothesis that the daddy issues in the "Sweeny Todd" story were a draw to him,

not disputing this! we all agree that tim burton maybe has daddy issues, and is working too much.

Burton may as well do this CGI big-budget Hollywood BS cos these days he's light years away from doing Jan Svankmajer any justice.

Here are the new MPAA ratings from BULLETIN NO: 2107.

Alice In Wonderland
Rated PG For fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar.
Release Date: March 5, 2010

xpost: "he's light years away from doing Jan Svankmajer any justice." I've got nothing but respect for both Burton and Svankmajer, but they were always light years apart, and I'm certain Burton would be the first to acknowledge that. I'm still interested to see his take on Alice, though.

Or maybe they already figure it sucks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKOPh1obHmk&feature=player_embedded

Disturbing in many many ways.

hmmm, I wonder why they chose Tim Burton to direct Alice in Wonderland. I wonder if its going to be weird??? ? ? ?

9. "Very Good Advice" performed by Robert Smith

This I want to hear.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 17:51 (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's pretty much like you'd expect.

Someone started a little fan page for the movie on knitting site Ravelry, and I wish the description for it was the movie's tagline:

The new movie coming out. Everyone is happy about. You see his picture everywhere.

"Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and Anne Hathaway. Everyone has been talking about. You’ve seen the movie trailers. Now a group for the 2010 movie. Yes Alice in Wonderland."

there was something interesting on the BBC news website (or the Guardian, or somewhere else) about how a 1900s or 1910s silent film version of Alice is now up on YouTube. Which I can't see.

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA

So I am reading this again and loving it. I'd actually forgotten just how hilariously surreal and quasi-non-linear (or at least non-traditionally plotted) it is. Pinefox's earlier long post is intriguing but this seems curious:

3. Can't underestimate sexuality here - though this is a difficult issue because it skirts the edges of paedophilia, with support from the author's biography. But I think that the appeal of Alice as a figure is mildly analogous to that of later icon Lara Croft. I know nowt about LC's video game, but it seems clear to me that (whatever the game's qualities) a lot of identification / fantasizing is going on to boost its appeal. Would Alice be so popular (or popular in the same way) if (s)he was a boy, or if there were no cute blonde drawings pictures of her in her wee dress and stockings?

I don't get this at all from the book and don't think it's borne out by the illustrations. Alice is clearly a kid and treated as one. I'm actually interested in whether Pinefox (or anyone) could clarify. The Lara Croft analogy seems especially wrong. As my gf notes: "Lara Croft was so intensely designed based on the sort of teen boy gamer fantasy thing as to be a parody".

author's bio and lurid assertions regarding such clouding his interpretation there. I don't think there's anything remotely sexual in the books

What?

She falls down a hole. Her body changing shape is a major theme. There are all sorts of sexual symbolism in the books.

oh yeah, that bit where she eats cake and grows like an erect penis is overtly sexual

And now Lily Cole is the next one to play Alice. Blame Marilyn Manson, apparently.

xp Maybe, but sexual symbolism != Alice is explicitly a sex symbol.

^^^^ding ding

there's sexual symbolism in everything fwiw

"when you point your finger like that, all I see is a penis" etc

that's some finger

Or a pretty lousy penis.

(FYI that is a line/joke from Portlandia)

Would Alice be so popular (or popular in the same way) if (s)he was a boy, or if there were no cute blonde drawings pictures of her in her wee dress and stockings?

Call me crazy, but the success of Alice series is probably due to the generations of children that enjoy a psychedelic whimsical journey. This guy just thinks everyone who enjoys classic literature is as perverted as him.

Finally watched Burton's take on dvd last night and he has now pissed away the very last of his goodwill chips with me. A complete travesty.

I was thinking that this may be the one book where I don't mind (and maybe even like) the "it was all a dream" ending. It's partly because the book is old enough to predate most other uses of the trope but it's mainly because the story is so genuinely dreamlike in its random juxtapositions and absence of a goal-oriented narrative that the twist actually makes sense. It's not a case where one gets invested in a narrative and then feels cheated.

just rewatched the disney 'alice' for the first time in like 15 years. i know ppl like to whine about the 'disneyfication' of the classics and all that crap but it really is striking how uncompromisingly faithful it is to the essence of carroll's story. apart from throwing in some standard '40s-era disney slapstick here and there (the caterpillar's legs falling off his perch, the march hare hitting things with a mallet), most of it comes straight from the books. they don't add a love interest or a cuddly sidekick or give any of the characters backstories. they also don't try to make any of the characters lovable or even friendly at all to alice -- they're pretty much all constantly cruel, aggressive, and vicious to her, to the point where when alice breaks down and cries toward the end it's actually pretty believable and upsetting. it's even more striking that they don't try to impose any real plot -- if anything it seems even more episodic and random than the books (which have a kind of subtle internal narrative that would be hard to pull off in a film). i can't imagine anyone at disney letting this happen now -- hell, it's kind of amazing that it happened at all.

it's great, peak period Disney imho

Great

http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/johnny-depp-finalizing-alice-in-wonderland-2/

Yes! I didn't see the first one, but I'll occasionally go to youtube and watch the Fudderwacken and marvel at the glory of cinema.

have we discussed the devolution of depp on ilx?

I would like that to happen please

i'm reading this w/ my daughters and we read one of my favorite parts tonight: the duchess. she's so pernicious; she beats the poor child when he sneezes which is bad enough but then when he pleases she rewards him w/ pepper which inevitably leads to him sneezing more. what a jerk.

The fact that her baby is a piglet helps to defuse part of the tension around the beatings, but adds another kind of anxiety in its place. A good thing it is all make believe!

Lewis Carroll was a terrible person so afaict this book doesn't actually exist?

i gave him clicks :(

Charles Dodgson's pedophilia seems to have been entirely latent, as far as anyone can discover at this late date.

his photography work is troubling imo

Dodgebullet morelike

the photography (and dodgson in general) needs to be seen in the context of its era imo

You're wanted in the Tao Lin thread!

https://4columns.org/sinker-mark/alice-curiouser-and-curiouser

covers looking glass also (which as a child i preferred, perhaps bcz i am a massive NERD)

I’m going to that exhibition on Saturday and looking forward to it a lot.

Enjoying your review - though not quite sure I understand your criticism about the one great omission of language as a theme. That sounds like something that - say - the British Library exhibition might explore,rather than the V&A which focuses on art and design? Perhaps I’ll change my mind after visiting though.

Brilliant review Mark!

Our Alice is looking forward to getting to see this, but it's proving difficult...

Thought the section of the exhibition on the influence of Alice on fashion wasn't so good:

https://i.imgur.com/G9BE5lu.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/J5ZCECK.jpg

Mark sent out the 4Columns link in group email, so I responded:
Mark's piece makes me feel like I'm at/in the exhibit, sorting through all this in realtimes., down the well-trod rabbithole, but still things I didn't know and/or hadn't thought about. (Mention of Alce and Lolita Cult, which I hadn't heard of, reminds me that Kubrick's Lolita [the only one I know]seems like the sanest person in the film--maybe her husband will be sane too, but we don't know-just know that her rational self-interest is, so far, by the ending, taking her far beyond imploded rabbit hole of the pervs, though we also don't know what kind of a wife and mom she will be)
I saw Dreamchild back in the 80s too, didn't remember the Dennis Potter connection, but a great and Potteresque idea-- deserved and I think got very good reviews, though I haven't seen a mention in a long time---maybe some of it's on the 'Tube
Likewise, I hope these two UK TVersions, which I saw via early DVDs from the library, are online somewhere:
1) Jonathan Miller's filmed play was BBC '66, but not more trippy than thee material had to be:
Miller's production is unique among live-action Alice films in that he consciously avoided the standard Tenniel-inspired costume design and "florid" production values. Most of the Wonderland characters are played by actors in standard Victorian dress, with a real cat used to represent the Cheshire Cat. Miller justified his approach as an attempt to return to what he perceived as the essence of the story: "Once you take the animal heads off, you begin to see what it's all about. A small child, surrounded by hurrying, worried people, thinking 'Is that what being grown up is like?'"[1]. Alice an amateur actress, one and done, apparently, but w Gielgud, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore etc etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_(1966_TV_play)
2)The 1972 version is slicker (by '72 TV standards), with Tenniel-style art direction, and, music by John Barry--wonder if he had anything to do with this Alice, Fiona Fullerton, becoming a Bond girl? Speaking of what Mark points out about Space Age--to-21rst Century Alice (and the performers who learned from her) her age now as uneasily mutable as her size once was in Wonderland. Fullerton doesn't flirt with the camera, and the production doesn't pimp her out, but keyword is indeed "mutable" (she was 16, sometimes seeming younger as she played the straight-man to all the weirdos, but never wispy or wimpy or for that matter so much like Tenniel's Alice(I I felt less 'uneasy" than startled at some of her down to earth wtf reactions and brownette stare,teengirl trying to get a bead on this geezer shit) Moore and Sellars are in it again, this time w Spike Milligan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland_(1972_film)

And he rssponded with a link to his ace Sight & Sound take:
I wrote a piece about Alice on film a few years back for Sight and Sound (which discusses Dreamchild and the Jonathan Miller version, as well as Disney and Svankmajer: both were shown — via looped clips — at the V&A): http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49605

My original paragraph on psychedelia in this piece was much longer, the intention being to offset Yayoi Ksumama (as a damaged child of the 60s with Alice thoughts) against Grace Slick (as an undergrounder trailblazer) — but I could tell even as I was writing it that I hadn't space without underselling it, so I didn’t complete the thoughts. A video — which is to say a recording of a TV performance — of “White Rabbit” was playing: I think I could write 5000 words about it on its own. (On Yayoi too… )

I did enjoy the exhibition overall. I think these V&A blockbuster pack a lot in, but it's a slightly uneasy pot pourri. The manuscripts and illustrations are great, and displayed much better than in the British Library museum exhibition (2013 I think) where everyone was ridiculously forced to crowd around a couple of display cabinets in a huge cavernous space. I could have done with a bit more of Lewis Carroll's photography, and some more on Alice Liddell. I found all of the other sections of the exhibition a bit disappointing and a bit threadbare (pun not intended for the fashion section) and superficial.

Mark's review is good - though docking a point or two for harping on about Lewis Carroll being an "oddball".

(Also:

... but nevertheless, the capacious wardrobes at the V&A are today hung deep with Alice-related items, as we now see, from the hands of Vivienne Westwood, Viktor & Rolf, the street fashions of the Japanese Lolita cult.

It's not clear (to me at least) that the Vivienne Westwood crown above is even related to Alice...and there were better Westwood items to chose from...She even did the cover for a 150th year anniversary edition!