Alice in Blunderland

I was really really hoping that this one had turned out well. Instead I got treated to a seriously flawed screen adaptation that was truly a pain to watch. This current edition of Alice in Wonderland is one wherein the emphasis seems to be on the digital presentation of a magical world. All the characters without exception from the haughty Red Queen to the humble Dormouse are poorly developed – some like the Chesire Cat are excruciatingly poorly developed. Coming to the digital presentation – no redemption herein - garish special effects ensure that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson will gladly have given this rabbit hole a pass. The biggest failure of this movie is the turning of a (part-political) satire, and at the very least a funny story, into a good-vs-evil combat arena with generous pickings from the likes of LOTR (compare the faceoff with the Jabberwocky and the Nazgul faceoff in the first installment of LOTR), Narnia (good and evil – the battle across the plain), and the Golden Compass (riding the Bandersnatch vs Riding the Polar Bear). Is that all? Not quite. There is a perceptible lack of humour through the film. Also, this is a movie which will get a straight zero for costume design with it being hard to tell which is the more horrifying - Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, or Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. The only redeeming feature – half a minute of recap of Alice’s last visit that shows a tiny vignette of what this Tim Burton (believe it or not) movie could have been

7/20

Mother of Interviews

In an amazing character portrait, director Ron Howard (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Apollo 13) pits the dilettante-ish English talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) with all his charm and naivete and susceptibility to “mind games”, against the redoubtable Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) whose pugnacious redoubtable personality was bruised but not beaten by the experience that was Watergate, in Frost Nixon. The clash of unequals is not concluded by any unexpected victory in favour of Frost – it is perhaps more of a case of the former president clearing a heavy conscience, going through a televised catharsis for all to see. Yes, as the movie mentions, television simplifies, and a single shot becomes the summary statement on a complex and difficult presidential tenure. Witness today’s reality shows the need to capture that defining moment that woos audiences and “sums it all up”, while completely missing the undertones, the buildup and the complexities therein. And it takes a brilliant performance by Frank Langella to show us just how acute those nuances can be.

17.5/20