ALICE IN WONDERLAND

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Twas Alice at the midnight Lowes
Did friends and film class students vade
to see Tim Burton’s modern show,
the Alice cavalcade.
Undaunted sat we glaring up
at marvels never seen,
But it was young Miss Wasikowska
who lit up every screen
Anne and Johnny play their roles
as children with new stacking blocks
gallumphing through the mystic woods
and quoting Carroll’s Jabberwock
I believe Jane Austen would approve
this glam-fest period piece 3-D,
she’d thrill and push for women’s rights
discussing creatures over tea.

YOUNG VICTORIA

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Blunt is fabulous. Strong and fabulous. She gave Queen Victoria youth and life, poise and dignity, strength and wit, romance and passion. Helen Mirren, of course, opened the window into Buckingham palace, so now Emily Blunt has made public Victoria’s diaries. “Even a palace can be a prison.”
Rupert Friend, her Albert, unfortunately more recognized currently for his relationship with Keira Knightley than his excellent presence on screen.He is Wickham no more. I may be a bit in love with him for his devotion and strength opposite the stubborn thin shell covering the Queen’s insecurities. They were a lovely match – well cast.
Some would complain that period pieces become sleepy, but this does keep moving. The tension remains long enough to enjoy the resolve. I found it transporting and truthful, and, as Matthew would say, “lovely” (pronounced: lahv -f -lay”).

My lovely, late Grandma Sota was enamoured by the British monarchy. She spoke about them with awe, and I believe that this is why my mother wears large hats out in public. My Grandmother, like Victoria was genteel and proper.
I’m standing taller today. Posture = elegance. Quite right.

CLASH OF THE TITANS

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Today, the epic clash ensued between titans! Greek Gods, demigods, and men battled for the power over and worship of mankind. Liam Neeson (the one I deemed my 2nd Dad after Taken) plays an ever-powerful Zeus, and Ralph Fiennes (an excellent Voldemort and beautifully fascinating creature indeed) is again the antagonist as Hades. Both typecast? Not likely…but commonly cast certainly. Aslan most definately released the kraken today.
Much like the sense of familiarity when smells evoke memory, so somehow my childhood was laced with these adventures and 80’s wonders. Perseus must defeat Medusa, ride the pegasus, and destroy the kraken. I’ve always known this somehow.
It seemed somehow appropriate that this film would come out right before Easter – the day of the resurrection of THE hero – the salvation of the world. The one sent by His Father to save us all. It was interesting that Zeus said in the film, “I will not sacrifice my son for the sake of humanity.” When that is exactly what God did. The legendary superman lives on in echo through characters like Perseus, but we must never equate these to Jesus. The Greek gods were selfish, angry, too like humans.
Yet the Greeks of old constructed temples and made sacrifices to appease these gods. We see the fanatic followers on the screen and laugh because we have forgotten that so much of creation is re-creation – this was religion for so many not so long ago.
I like an epic action flick, so I again donned the 3D’s today to spend a few hours vicariously saving the world. There was no nudity or language, and only black blood. Don’t take little kids, cause they’ll pee the $14 seats. It’s fun, though. Dangerous and fun. Hmm. Two words I associate with God. Call me unique, but I do. Happy Easter, all! Blessings.

HE is risen indeed!

DATE NIGHT

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Tina & Steve take the city and work it believably as middle-marrieds in this fam-com. Classic Steve. I was only disappointed when they used the same jokes multiple times and had to add the visit to the cesspool for a pole dancing scene. Didn’t I see most of this premise on an episode of King of Queens? …just checking. I suppose it’s worth a viewing. Or you could always revisit the most classic of date nights =

JANE EYRE (2011)

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Charlotte Bronte created the beloved, young heroine in 1847, simply but affectionately calling her Jane Eyre.

ABUSE or Training?
Poor, mistreated, forgotten, unloved, Jane Eyre. Battered by her only family as a child, then more so as a girl at the Lowood School, her only friend dies by her side, leaving Jane alone again. In truth, I can’t seem to read past the scenes in which Helen dies. I’ve tried. I am broken by her death, by the death of an only friend. Once loved, but again forgotten, Jane Eyre grows unbecomingly, leaving the school as a young woman to become a governess in the home of a Mr. Rochester. Jane seems to move from abuse to abuse, from ignorance to neglect, then back to abuse. She longs for independence and love, but finds none.

Story. Plot. Characters. CHECK. Dark. Brooding. Desperate. CHECK.

ABANDON or Consent?
Only one takes notice. Rochester sees through her, it seems. She shutters at his gaze. But I’m not certain that his notice is at all good for her. I’m saying it now: I’m not a Rochester fan. Yes, I’ll admit that I loved watching William Hurt vulnerably admit love to a much younger Charlotte Gainsbourg under the artful direction of Franco Zeffirelli (1996). But today, as Michael Fassbender eerily enveloped Mia Wasikowska, I felt like I was taking an “Issues of Abuse” class. Mia certainly proves a lovely Jane. She is likable and otherworldly, just as a Jane should be. Rochester plays his part beautifully, but I’m left wishing I could send Jane a ticket to London to get her out of the moors and into a place with more fish in the sea. Oh, Jane. Tragic.

JUSTICE or Cruel Fate?
Together, at last, as equals. She: now rich, handsome, fulfilled, but lonely still seeks him out. He: now lowly, lost, poor, maimed, blinded, but freed from his prior responsibilities may marry. They are finally equals. Right? Then why the knots in my stomach?

I’m not saying that a happy ending is a must. But hope is. If I’m left with the only hope that a young, thoughtful, accomplished girl can finally be in love with a staunch, deceitful, abusive man, I remain hopeless, feckless, daunted.

Oh, Jane. Poor, poor Jane Eyre. And poor me. And poor Annie. And poor Claire for having slipped away for distraction only to be dragged by the perfunctory Victorian bonnets across the lonely moors of Britain. At least, as it was so aptly put afterward, it was “like, a gothic piece, with, like no Edwards or, like, Jacobs to worry about.” Yes, at least that.

ECLIPSE

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Team…uh…Edward? Bella? Jacob…Team, uh, Howard?

So, I did it. Pulled the old bait and switch. TS3 was exiting the theater, and my curiosity pervaded my decision-making centers and pulled me into the next theater in time to see Bryce Dallas Howard in a bare-toothed battle against Robert Pattinson. My sister’s boyfriend calls my action petty larceny. Semantics. I feel that I was the one wronged. I had a skin-glimmer of hope that Oprah was right this time and that this extreme, blood-soaked trilogy was worth its weight. But wait, what’s going on? I stifled the laugh from the back row of the sniffling audience as Taylor welled up all of the sweat that he could muster from his well-read abs. Sadly his best acting occurred beneath CGI fur. And Pattinson showed all fifteen magnum facial expressions as Bella professed that her agitated life force found its belonging in his ways and and in his kind. You know that feeling when you’ve cried so hard you start to laugh? Or throw up. Or that feeling of feeling nothing because you don’t understand the popularity of these three awkward enemies finally finding friendship and love. Wow.

Yes, I’ve opened the book…research. I perused a few chapters. It seems enticing, certainly. I want to understand the fanaticism, and the rare eqinanimous love affair with book and film alike. Perhaps the effect of a ubiquitous media education…and what my mother calls demonic influence.
Dakota Fanning says she really enjoyed the challenge of wearing the red contacts. I’m glad that she and Kristen are friends. Everyone needs friends. The big puzzle for me is Bryce. Bryce, daughter of filmmaker Ron Howard & M. Night’s fav it girl, is an actual actress. She, however, may also have let curiosity damage her hypothalamus.

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

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A Banksy Film.
Throw legos down on the floor of a nursery and two types of children will emerge: thinkers and doers. The thinkers pose with purpose – piecing mental masterpieces and creating the vision with precision. Thinkers care about how others perceive their work, since internally the work is the outpouring of the worker, a hint of self, desiring to be known. It plays upon the eternal to leave such a mark – a grasp on immortality, some might say.
For the doer, however, the project is one of accomplishment. Block towers are built to be torn down. The rubble is equal joy to the construct itself. It is in the doing and the done.In this documentary film entitled Exit Through the Gift Shop, artist Banksy shares much of the life of accidental artist Thierry Guetta. Banksy is a self-proclaimed, self-promoted, yet ironically self-effacing graffiti artist. He shouts art for art’s sake. I have always appreciated, in some rebellious way, well-placed graffiti.

And, though unfamiliar with his name until tonight, I recognized Banksy’s work immediately. Maybe that’s his true point: promoting ideals, not effort, propaganda through paint. His bitterness felt acutely, Banksy used mostly old footage from Guetta’s possessed “filmmaker” days before Guetta himself used what he learned, became a copycat street artist, and took the nom de plume: Mister Brainwash. Unbeknownst to world-renowned street artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey, they were training Guetta as master teachers would an apprentice.

As far as documentary films go, this entertains as though a Christopher Guest creation. The artist reveals his own absurdity without analytical reinterpretation. Where Banksy delights in educating the world through careful placement and purpose, so Guetta proves only to paint the tower just in time to see it crumble to the ground. And afterward, I felt a possessive impulse to go and tag a building myself, but it was getting a little late.

DESPICABLE ME

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I’m learning the hard way that if it’s not Pixar, I can expect some of what the rating board calls “crude humor.” Did I laugh with the junior high boys in the room? Okay. But would I want to take my little kids to it? I guess not. Now, I know that I watched The Love Boat as a kid and loved it. I missed ALL of the crude humor then. But somehow I feel that xeroxing butts and laughing, responding “Poop” in frustration, and calling the known Villain “hero” and “good dad” brings daddy issues to a whole new level.

EAT, PRAY, LOVE

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This could have been called Walk, Sit, Smile. As our hero rushed out of her ordinary world, she became a traveler, a thinker, a mimic, a devout even thoughtful character. I cried through this whole movie. I kept wondering why as I walked away from the theater and down toward the waterfront to catch the last bits of sunset. What had I learned from this film? Certainly, my lessons are not the same, but I feel for her as she experiences pain . I ache for the lost, the compassless, the grieving. This film opened a stranger’s medicine cabinet, and allowed viewers ample opportunities to recognize that the perscriptions have our names inscribed on them. We feel for Julia. In many ways, as any good story should, we feel we are not simply like the hero, but that we are the hero. My story may not take me around the world, but the obstacles, the triumphs, the discoveries, the journey itself : these are the same. My compass, however, is the Jesus and His word. Without it, I too would likely find myself on a similarly blunderous journey listening to all voices longing for the one that sounds most like a father.
(Originally published at http://splattersfilmblog.blogspot.com/)

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

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Smart. You know what I mean when I say smart. Witty, fast dialogue. Not the comical Gilmore-style, but honest, genius material. The writing matched the Zuckerberg character in true autobiographical fashion. Known, but a mystery. Our protagonist’s character is in question until the very end when Rashida Jones demystifies and encourages the hero. His foil, the likable front man, beside and against him the whole time, was perhaps my favorite character. Two scenes made the film for me: the entire opening sequence from argument through the tension-framing scored opening credits, and the race on the Thames – voiceless yet as elegant as a ballet and as telling as a novel.

The journey of Facebook, only just begun, is happening as we speak. It’s the equivalent of a modern day Neverending Story. Now Bastion’s story is online and we can click a quick change of status and then friend him. Just like that.