Twinkle, twinkle little bat...

Yesterday M & I celebrated my UnBirthday (as we failed to celebrate my actual birthday some six weeks earlier) with sushi & sapporo & Alice in Wonderland. I am emotionally twelve years old & it is not a (post-post) birthday celebration unless it involves eating with chopsticks & seeing a movie that involves both monsters & madness. I like the Jabberwocky. This movie needed more Jabberwocky.

So, as a general rule I totally dig me some Tim Burton-ness. I skipped the whole 3D thing, because I think it disrupts the narrative with too many bells & whistles & it makes M nauseous.

The lowdown:

Overall, it's a yes. Go see it if you like that kind of thing. Visually very pretty to look at although the script (at times) was a little thin.

I loved the reinvention of the older Alice, especially when she's wearing chain mail & looks for all the world like Joan of Arc. Sweet.

I would like to befriend a hookah-smoking Caterpillar that sounds just like Alan Rickman.

Anne Hathaway kept using these bizarre hand mannerisms that were both annoying and distracting. I imagine they were supposed to seem feminine & queenly, but I thought it was a stupid affectation.

My favorite character when I was a little girl was the Cheshire Cat. I kept wanting this Cheshire Cat to be pink because Walt Disney has fried my brain.

I would very much like to host a mad tea party, but I am the only genuinely mad person I know. If Johnny Depp came to my mad tea party, he'd have to ditch those freaky contact lenses & the bozo fright wig. Mr. Depp is all kinds of dirty, dirty hotness when he hasn't been Burtonized.

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Speaking of Alice in Wonderland & awkward segues, last night I dreamt I had to climb over a particularly wicked looking piece of machinery that had many buzzing, rolling serrated saw blades extending from its mechanized body like tentacles. I slipped & fell & was nearly split in two by one of it vicious limbs, but I survived.

Notable Symbols:

Machine: lack of meaning, automation; alternatively, a representation of your inner self.

Saw: Something drastic is happening, taking something rough & making it precise; willpower

Dismemberment: (which I only narrowly escaped) the feeling of "falling apart"; alienation, estrangement.

I seem to be quite obsessed with my own disintegration these days. I remember there were people who were angry with me for climbing over the machine. Some of them were poets, but in my dream, they were mathematicians. I think I am feeling anxious about Cyborgia, and perhaps fearful of harsh criticism from other writers? Deep down, we are all insecure about our work, even when we love it & feel like it came together beautifully.