"I carved your name across my eyelids / You pray for love, I pray for blindness."

This post is long overdue. Mainly because nothing particularly interesting has happened. Oh, the boredom of boarding school. O, Muses, sing! Sing, of the countless hours spent sinfully watching House, of the friends torn away by the dreadful entity called "the SMUS Musical"! Sing, of the games of Tetris beaten, of the non-existent prose due for writing class! Sing of the inability to delve into Don DeLillo's "White Noise", of the countless attempts to peruse the novel's pages, of the fact that this young girl is thus incapable of reading past Chapter 1 (all of two pages, I might add)!

Anyway, time for a movie review or two.


The Wolfman (2010)

I confess that I've been wanting to see this one for a while. And by "a while" I actually mean "for almost a year". When they mentioned the possibility of screening this for the Grad Skip Day movie thing, I all but jumped for joy. But then, it was an 18 movie so they didn't show it after all. Oh boo hoo. No matter, I dragged Caroline along / snuck Caroline in to see it last last Saturday. Needless to say, it was really my first 18-movie in an actual cinema (Yes, I know that I am pathetic). I even got carded. Exciting stuff. 

Anyway, back to the movie. Based on the 1940's film classic of the same name, the story revolves around Lawrence ("Lawrence" with a"u"? With a"w"?) Talbot, an actor who is called back to his birthplace in Blackmoor, England (or something like that) due to his brother's disappearance. And what do you know... he discovers that his brother has been brutally murdered; evidently by some wild animal. So Lawrence vows his revenge and seeks to find the thing that killed his brother. In the process, he gets bitten by some strange animal and finds himself becoming the very thing he sought to destroy: The Wolfman. I don't want to give any spoilers, but it involves Scotland Yard doing some hunting and Lawrence confronting his estranged father who isn't quite what he seems.

 Despite the fact that I clung to Caroline's shoulder half the time, I actually quite enjoyed this movie. Sure, this movie comes on the tails of Twilight-mania, but instead of your crappy, super-guilty/vegetarian-vampire/werewolf-who-wants-to-preserve-their-humanity premise, the movie's focus is much darker and is much more visceral. Think heads being ripped off and people disemboweled - powerful stuff, visually. Although the plot was terrible and was probably dreamt up by some gore-loving, macabre 10-year old with no grasp of storyline, the movie's special effects made up for it immensely (a la a certain record-breaking movie with blue, almost-naked, humanoid-things). The transformation scenes and the makeup was pretty rad, and it certainly made up for the lacklustre story (or lack thereof. I mean, there was supposed to be romance between lead actor Benicio del Toro and Emily Blunt but if I didn't read the Wikipedia article before I saw the movie, I'd never have been able to tell that there was tension between the two or whatever).

 Despite the strong lineup of actors (Benicio del Toro from "Che", Hugo Weaving from "The Matrix", Anthony Hopkins from "Silence of the Lambs", Emily Blunt from wherever) the acting was actually mediocre at best. Granted, it's hard to give an Oscar-worthy performance in a big-budget Hollywood remake, but still,  was quite disappointed. At any rate, I'd say that it's worth a watch, especially for all those classic horror fans out there (Did I mention that it wasn't really scary and just that I can't watch horror without closing my eyes / peeing in my pants? Because all things considered, it wasn't actually very scary). A 6.5 out of 10. Yes, I know I am being very generous. But hey, it's about werewolves so :D


Alice in Wonderland (2010)

I wasn't as excited as I should have been for this movie. Mainly because I really did not enjoy reading the book (Alice struck me as pathetically whiny) and the Disney animation really creeped me out. But since musical weekend snatched all my friends away and since it was a boarding activity, I went to watch it anyway.

On a side note, we saw the movie in 3D. Have I mentioned that I hate 3D? Something of the combination of having to hold up the glasses (since they keep slipping down and don't fit over my own glasses) and the fact that the movie, well, doesn't look very "3-D" put me off somewhat. I don't get what all this hype about 3-D movies is about. The argument about  3-D "pulling the audience into the movie" is utter bull; if a movie was good and engaging, shouldn't that be enough to pull the audience into the story? What's the need for the extra-layer of "reality"? Is this not just another money-making gimmick?

But anyways... You all probably know the plot so I'll keep it short. The movie strays quite a bit from the book (it's a pseudo-amalgamation of the original book and the sequel "Through the Looking Glass") and revolves around Alice (surprise, surprise), a young girl who follows a white rabbit in a waistcoat down a rabbit-hole as she escapes a rather terrible *ahem* marriage proposal. She comes out the other end in a world beyond her wildest dreams, where animals talk, caterpillars shishah and the world is ruled by a bobble-head-esque Red Queen. Despite denying that she is "the Alice", she finds herself on a quest to retrieve a magic sword (I think) and defeat the Jabberwockey - restoring the White Queen and bringing peace to a land devastated by war in the process.

It actually surpassed my expectations (granted, I had little expectations). I mean, the caterpillar did not breathe out smoke-rings or exhale smoke-letters (which was quite sad) and the events leading up to the infamous fall-down-the-rabbit-hole are a bit draggy, but otherwise the plot was quite solid. I mean, it's your typical happy-ending-movie so what do you expect? The conclusion was a little lame but the movie was filled with little moments that made it reasonably memorable: the game of flamingo croquet, the Cheshire Cat, and the tea party scene. The effects were quite impressive and Alice's shrinking and growing spells were very well done; though the Jabberwockey seem very, well, fake.

Character development was also pretty good. Alice was, well, Alice and the White Queen was adequately wishy-washy and "joy-to-the-world, lets-be-best-friends" nice (in a good way).  However, the show stealer was probably the Red Queen with her larger-than-life head and screechy, demanding demeanor. Helena Bonham Carter deserves a real pat on the back for her portrayal and her wonderful "OFF WITH HER HEAD"'s. Not to be forgotten is Johnny Depp. I don't agree with how much emphasis they put on the Mad Hatter (he wasn't, after all, really an important character in the book) but hey, that's Hollywood. And he was adequately batty. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee were very moderately amusing, and the other characters, well, were slightly forgettable. Especially the March Hare.

But overall, a solid 7.8 out of 10.

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