Saturday, March 13, 2010

Some Questions about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

1. How were director Tim Burton and writer Linda Woolverton unaware that this misconceived and undifferentiated sequel would inspire confusion in those unfamiliar with the original stories, and contempt in those familiar with them?

2. Am I failing to pay proper homage to Burton's Costner-like ambition?

3. Who determined that contemporary audiences needed or deserved irony in place of absurdity, sexual innuendo in place of childlike innocence, and Tolkeinesque battles between good and evil in place of the aimless (if allegorical) political nonsense of the originals?

4. (And even so, wouldn't it have been a better idea to have Peter Jackson direct this _Lord of the Teacups_ interpretation?)

5. While writing the introductory scenes, did Woolverton stop and consider the threshold required to produce an introduction even as close in elegance and brilliance to "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'"

6. Concerning replacing mathematicians with crazy entrepreneurs and moralizing about gender equality by having Alice open up a trade route to China...WTF?

7. Was the farewell scene between Alice and the not-really-very-Mad Hatter more or less emotionally affecting than Gigli?

8. While still stinging from paying a days' wages for this crazy new movie experience, was anyone else profoundly unimpressed by the new 3D? Anyone else have the feeling that the entertainment industry thinks all we need are more shiny things?

9. Who told Anne Hathaway she had a part in a Billy Idol video?

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