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Alice’s adventures in wonderland. If by “wonderland” you mean “my nightmares.”

In 1988 Czech animator Jan Svankmajer unleashed Neco z Alenky (Alice) on the world. The world was not ready.

The world is still not ready.

This movie is available on the Netflix instant viewing service so I guess there’s a chance some of you might venture to see it. If so, you might consider this post to be fraught with spoilers, but honestly, if you don’t know the plot to Alice in Wonderland by now this isn’t really the movie for you, anyway. Or if you’re afraid of burrowing socks, then this is not the movie for you.

There are a lot of taxidermied animals in this movie that have been animated using stop-motion animation, but the white rabbit is the spookiest. The rabbit has a gaping gut wound that he repairs with a large safety pin. Nevertheless, every time he pulls out his watch, he leaks copious amounts of sawdust. At one point, he eats large spoonfuls of sawdust from a bowl to replenish his guts.

Really.

The first 30 minutes were pretty slow, but we’ve managed to hang in there. I’m glad we did because Alice just went into the rabbit’s house and grew large and suddenly the film has become a work of mad genius.

A carriage full of fancifully taxidermied chimera with skulls with doll eyes for heads shows up. The cart is accompanied by foley hoofbeats and horses whinnying, but it is actually drawn by a pair of chickens with skull heads. That’s when things get….

I’m sorry, I was trying to come up with a colorful way to say “bizarre” but I was so hypnotized by the tea party scene, which involves wooden marionettes, a pocketwatch full of butter, and extreme closeups of teeth that I forgot what I was trying to say so instead I’ll embed video of Alice meeting the caterpillar.

First Run Features distributes Alice on DVD in the U.S..

rebecca | 11:34 pm

tags: Alice in Wonderland, movies

filed under: movies | 1 Comment »

Are we sure Rahm didn’t actually write this? Brilliant.

rebecca | 6:20 pm

tags: humor, politics, Rahm Emanuel, snl

filed under: humor, politics | No Comments »

She’s a pretty girl with a taste for squirrels, what’s not to love?

She’s a pretty girl with a taste for squirrels, what’s not to love?, originally uploaded by meanlouise.

rebecca | 4:20 pm

filed under: true life 2010 | No Comments »

Patti Smith as Alice in Wonderland

Patti Smith never played Alice, but I’m watching POV broadcast of Patti Smith: Dream of Life so I thought I’d see if you’re still paying attention.

Sometime in the recent past I watched a 1983 Masterpiece Theatre production of Alice in Wonderland that I found surprisingly dull. Shame, too, since it featured Nathan Lane, Donald O’Conner, Richard Burton and Kate Burton (as Alice) so I thought that it wouldn’t be completely awful. It wasn’t. It was just plain awful. Too moribund for the screen, too complicated for the stage. This seemed to be the fatal flaw of a number of Masterpiece Theatre productions from the early 80s. I don’t know why, although I feel like I knew what the leading theories were but have now forgotten. I could look into it, but Patti is more interesting than PBS history to me today.

Not that PBS history isn’t interesting. I recommend David Stewart’s PBS Companion : A History of Public Television to get your started.

rebecca | 5:51 pm

tags: Alice in Wonderland, patti smith, pbs

filed under: movies, music, television | No Comments »

Little girls should not chase after grown men in bunny suits

If you want to vicariously enjoy our quest to watch every live-action version of Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, I’m tagging every post with an Alice in Wonderland tag.

Wednesday, we started watching the epic 3 1/2 hour 1985 made-for-tv adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. I have vague memories of this movie, but mostly I think I repressed it. This version starred Roddy McDowall, Scott Baio, Sherman Hemsley, Telly Savalas, Ringo Starr, Imogene Coca, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Sally Struthers, John Stamos, Ernest Borgnine, Beau and Lloyd Bridges, Carol Channing, Merv Griffin, and Sammy Davis, Jr, among others.

I’m pretty sure that watching this movie is what going crazy feels like.

We should have drunk more coffee before we started watching it. We weren’t even through the Love Boat-esque opening credits before Husband was yelling, “This isn’t good. This isn’t good.” Plus, Every time Alice said, “Eat me,” we started snickering like Beavis and Butthead.

We watched the first 20 minutes. During Sammy Davis, Jr’s Father William dance number I checked amazon and discovered that I could own this gem for only $6.99. I think it’s going to take a while to get through the whole movie so I ordered my own copy and returned the Netflix copy.

That means we won’t have it to enjoy during Snowpocalypse 2010 but that may be for the best. I have 9 other versions stacked up here to keep us busy, although none of those feature visual effects were by John Dykstra, of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Sewer Shark fame.

I can also use the time to blog about a few other versions we’ve watched recently. Of Alice, not Sewer Shark. There can be only one Sewer Shark.

But back to Alice…If you only own one made-for-tv adaptation of Alice in Wonderland starring every cheese-tastic tv star from the 70s and early 80s, this is the version for you. You might also want to invest in some pharmaceuticals or a good bottle of gin. You’re going to need it.

rebecca | 10:38 am

tags: Alice in Wonderland, movies, television

filed under: movies, television | 2 Comments »

In Heaven the polar bears are everywhere

They kinda nailed it, didn’t they?

rebecca | 6:59 pm

tags: lost, newsweek, television

filed under: pop culture, television | 1 Comment »

National Eat Your Tater Tots Day

John Kessler has such an excellent post about the natural history of the tater tot that I’m not sure what’s left for me to say.

rebecca | 8:18 pm

tags: florida, john kessler, tater tots

filed under: food and drink | 3 Comments »

Julie & Julia

You know what’s more boring than blogging about blogging? Movies about blogging. We watched Julie & Julia. We liked the parts about Julia Child very much. The parts about the blogging? Not so much. That said, I’m still walking around singing, “Lobster killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est? fa fa fa fa fa” to myself, so it wasn’t completely tedious.

This wasn’t what I expected, having dipped in and out of the blog over the years and found it amusing, as well as believing that no one could do justice to a portrayal of Julia Child because she was just so…so…Julia Child. I still intend to read the book, I just don’t think it worked out so great as a movie, despite the extreme adorableness of Amy Adams and, of course, the lobsters.

This post wasn’t supposed to be about this movie. It was supposed to be about something related to blogging. I constructed the whole post in my head yesterday while doing something else, but when I sat down to type it up today I’ll be damned if I could remember what it was I wanted to say. I know I was going to make reference to this movie, to make my point that there was indeed something more boring than blogging about blogging, but that’s all I can remember. The mind is a terrible thing to lose.

rebecca | 6:23 pm

tags: julia child, julie and julia, julie powell

filed under: cyberculture, movies | 1 Comment »

Lamest pool party evah

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

rebecca | 12:18 pm

tags: easily amused, lolcats

filed under: humor | No Comments »

Sleevage

Thanks to DeathCupcake* I recently discovered sleevage. It’s an interesting site for a variety of reasons, but mostly I’m still giggling over the Top 10 Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Album Covers post.

*who I need to have dinner with SOON because I miss her!!!!!!

rebecca | 8:51 pm

tags: art, music, rawk, sleevage

filed under: music, true life 2010 | 1 Comment »