Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
This is not a review.
I had, for a few moments, considered making this a review, but it’s more fitting/valuable as something else. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on Facebook, I’ve given myself a personal challenge to learn to enjoy reading as I did when I was a young kid. School was actually a large factor in why I’ve come to dislike books (coinciding with my interest in what I saw as a superior art-form for storytelling: movies), and since I’m intending to one day teach kids, myself, I don’t want to pass along that personal bias. Plus, if I loved it once, I can love it again, right? The idea of being able to “curl up with a good book”, as I so often hear people say, sounds like such a pleasant idea, so I’d like to reach a point where that actually appeals to me in a literal way.
As part of my major requirement, I’m currently in a Children’s Literature class at Saddleback. We were assigned to read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the classic more commonly know as just ‘Alice in Wonderland’), and that’s what I did today. It’s not TOO long, so I read it in an afternoon, but it was definitely a bit of a grueling experience. If I had chosen to make this a review, it wouldn’t bear very high marks… but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I grew up absolutely loving Disney’s animated version.
And that’s what I’m writing about tonight.
I didn’t buy the version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that was recommended for our class, which includes critical essays in the back of it. but rather saved my hard-earned cash by renting a copy from the library. The essays aren’t necessary for anything more than our own assistance, so I’m not being a slacker 
. Because of this, before I started reading today, I looked up a few commentaries on the book online for after I was done. After I finished reading this story of madness, though, I went on a search for another topic: the fact that Alice is nothing more than just a kid’s story.
By the time I reached high school, the idea of reading for fun was a far-off thought in my head. That is, as I mentioned before, due in large part to school, itself. In my junior year English class, we spent an exhausting amount of time discussing the poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow”. It’s an extreme example, choosing the most simplistic of works I was forced to over-analyze in school, but it’s exactly what helped spurn my angry dislike of books. The fact that they bored me was because I thought movies were better. The fact that I walked through bookstores and libraries with an urge to burn them to the ground, simply to spare anyone from being forced to read, was due to school. It took me years to get over that, and even still my relationship with books is always on a bit of thin ice. Back to my current college class, we’ve been assigned a group project (which, I am convinced, nobody in the world actually likes), and while my group isn’t doing THIS particular book, the assignment is to present our analysis of the book we’ve been assigned through the lens of a number of topics like feminism, and a number of other annoying things that have no natural place in any kind of proximity to a little story about a girl falling asleep and dreaming of silly things.
That is, of course, my opinion.
I came across a truncated version of this article in my online search for others who might proclaim Alice as nothing more than children’s entertainment, and I thought it was an absolutely wonderful sentiment. Please, if this subject is of any interest to ya, or even if you’re just very bored, take a few moments to go and read it.. I think it’s very worthwhile 
. As the article talks about, some will love the crap out of this children’s book I just read – whereas, for me, MY “Wonderland” will always be the insane animated version I grew up with. Both can be okay, of course… we like what we like, but the problem I had in school, and anytime opinion is stated as some type of fact, was that I wasn’t allowed the freedom of NOT exploring every possibility of what every detail in something meant.
I never had a teacher impress upon me the idea that it would actually be okay for me to not want to suck the fun out of something as simple as Alice by analyzing things I don’t think are there, and that my disinterest in wanting to do so didn’t mean that I had to then fight, with disgust, the notion that anyone else might WANT to look at it through various critical concepts. My greatest goal, in teaching kids, will be to help teach them to love education… to love learning, and not just what I (or school) thinks is valuable, but what THEY think is interesting and valuable. My “Wonderland” was Mr. Rogers, and Steve Urkel, and the Hardy Boys, and Star Wars, and Mario, and a whole breadth of things, both deep and simple, and I was drawn to them not because I was told they were meaningful, or because I inherited the same opinions as my parents (a reference to the article above that I hope you read)… but because they interested me. And teaching a kid to pursue the things that interest them, both in action and education, is the kind of love of learning that’ll last a lifetime.
Oh, and as far as my goal to learn to enjoy reading? I’d actually tried reading Alice months ago (while contemplating how best to author a kids’ book), and I barely made it a chapter. Today, I knocked the whole thing out in just an afternoon… and it wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world. I took some breaks, but near the beginning I was about to start internally complaining about how disinterested I was, when I told myself, “This isn’t that bad.” So, hey, we’re on our way .
The Grey
The Grey
Time/place: 8pm showing at Metro Pointe with Vinay, Lalit, and others.
Though I haven’t yet seen it, of course, The Dark Knight Rises has some surprisingly strong competition for my favorite movie of the year after tonight.
Yeah… I liked this that much.
The Grey really exceeded my expectations, and my trepidation with saying something like that is that I have now built it up for YOU, but I can’t avoid it in this review o’mine… I loved this movie. If you’ve ever seen a movie with me that I really love, you’ll know it because I walk out with a dopey grin on my face, a far-off look in my eyes, and I haven’t much to say. I walked out of the theater this way, tonight.
First, I have to say, this was a very odd movie-watching experience for me. I saw it with a friend, his dad, a friend of my friend, and the friend of my friend’s teenage niece and boyfriend. At two points during the movie, the sound cut out… the first actually happening at the first big standoff between the humans and wolves – the audience had fun with it, though, howling and barking to keep up the scary atmosphere. To wrap it all up, midway through the movie, some guy in the theater yelled at someone else to turn of their bleeping cell phone – and, again, the audience had fun with that, too. None of that has to do with the movie, itself, but for all of these oddities and distractions, I was still completely invested… so maybe it DOES have something to say about the movie .
I’m still dealing with a broken extended entry, so as much as I probably could include a spoiler section of the review, I won’t. I feel like it deserves it, the detail and depth with which I could talk about things is certainly prominent in my mind, but I also feel as if I almost, personally, wouldn’t want to. I’m prone to giving short reviews to my favorite movies, and that’s because I like to keep the value and appreciation inside.
What I do have to say about The Grey, though, is that I think it hit every note perfectly. It’s a survival movie, sure, but that’s nothing if you don’t get wrapped up and involved with the characters. The moments and interactions all felt very real – not really very dramatic or time-consuming. These characters were dealing with survival, so most of the time they respond accordingly. Of course, they don’t always get the chance, as there are certainly a number of moments that jump right outta nowhere. Trust me, I’ve spoiled nothing by saying that, because that’s established pretty early on, and it really screws with the audience’s expectations. At any point, you’re not sure if a long, drawn-out shot/moment is going to be suddenly interrupted, and I really thought that worked great, here.
For as realistic as things are, there’s a pretty high body count, and plenty of other violence throughout the movie. I’m pretty sensitive to graphic things, but it wasn’t overwhelming. I glanced away from the screen a number of times, but I felt like I was able to almost predict when I’d have to, and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything by doing so.
Also, for as realistic as things are, it’s also not. The wolves in this movie are animals, sure, but it’s also sort of a symbolic-esque monster movie. There are conversations between the surviving men about faith and personal value, and the dramatic threads that run throughout the movie felt anything but tagged on. They are, more than anything, what the movie is actually about. That’s what I wasn’t expecting. Liam Neeson’s become this tough-guy star since Taken, and I loved that movie, too… but it wasn’t necessarily deep and personal. It was very good, and very cool, but it was a man on a mission. The Grey is men on a mission, too, but the story and its character-developments reach far beyond that. Not that it’s some slow-paced, sappy story, by any means… the wolves and the environment make sure of that .
Speaking of environment, the fact that they were actually out in the wilderness shooting this, added so much (saw an interview with Neeson, in which he explains that all of the weather is real… it was so intense that they could only generally manage 4-hour shooting days). One of my favorite elements in this movie, though, was the sound.
We’ve all seen the now-common aspect in movie trailers of cutting from loud, chaos to sudden quiet… then, after a “chilling” pause, abrupt chaos. Now, imagine an entire movie that employs such a technique throughout its entirety… and uses it well. The crash that results in our main characters becoming stranded is one of the most fascinating I’ve ever seen in a movie, and that is due, in large part, to the sound design. Likewise, the wolves (in true, horror monster fashion), are heard more than they’re seen… and it’s often a horrifying, surrounding symphony of howls and guttural growls. Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the sounds of the wolves seemed almost unnatural at times – but in an unsettling and fantastic way.
The Grey had me from its opening moments, and it really took me places I wasn’t expecting at all. It was tense, hilarious, cool, scary, interesting, and absolutely wonderful. A truth reveals itself, very simply, near the end, that solidified the smile on my face that only grew as the conclusion came to a head before the final credits rolled. The movie’s a little gruesome and rough, and these guys swear like sailors, but it was a beautiful ride… and I wouldn’t have changed a thing .
Grade: A+
Kelly Stables – 34
We’re a little late… but why focus on the negative . Kelly’s an actress that you may, or may not, have seen in things before. What matters is that she’s cute and it’s her birthday, so here she is. Also, what REALLY matters, is that she’s about 5′ tall. Five. Feet. Tall.
Sexy midgets are my cup o’tea.
