Movies opening March 5, 2010

Alice in Wonderland (Several theaters)
Director: Tim Burton
With: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas

It’s a good thing I don’t have to write to a deadline.  As I left the theater, I was high on this movie (no pun intended), but its flaws became more evident as time passed.
I have been anticipating this movie for a long while.  As a fan of Burton’s work generally, from Pee Wee Herman to Ed Wood to Sweeney Todd, I was curiouser and curiouser about what he would do with this classic of world literature.  Alas, he turned it into a so-so film not enhanced by 3D.  (I read a rumor that the film was not originally conceived of as 3D, and that it was processed post-filming.  Don’t know if it is true.)
Alice has been filmed many times before, including the gorgeous Disney cartoon.  Has anyone ever done a study on how that movie affected the children who went on to live through and enact the 1960s?  Go ask Grace Slick, I suppose.
This is not a rendering of Carroll’s books.  It is a new story based on the characters, and the glorious flights on imagination are more Carroll’s than Burton’s.
Alice (Wasikowska) is 19, and about to be betrothed to a twit of a nobleman.  She escapes the engagement party and falls down the old rabbit hole once more.
We learn that she has been having dreams about Wonderland since she was a child.  And, when she arrives in Wonderland, or “Underland” as the denizens prefer, everyone wonders whether she is the “real Alice.”
The Red Queen (Bonham Carter), with a bulbous head and a bad attitude, holds Underland in a tyrannical grip.  Her enforcer is the Knave of Hearts (Glover), a one-eyed brute.  There is a palace conspiracy against the queen, and the conspirators have been waiting for Alice to return and lead them as their champion  The Mad Hatter (Depp, natch) guides and guards Alice on the way to her destiny.  Girl power!
The climax, alas, is just another battle between computer-generated images, one of them being the Jabberwocky, the Red Queen’s ultimate weapon.  Guess who wins?  Oops.  Hope I didn’t spoil anything.
Maybe Burton has just been to this well too many times.  We get too little of his characteristic dark humor, too much predictable storytelling, and nothing much new.  Even Depp seems to be unenthused with the whole thing.
There are nice touches.  It is very pretty to look at, and the voiced characters are all very good, especially Stephen Fry playing the Cheshire Cat as wry and a bit jaded.  But, the White Queen (Hathaway) is given such a strange persona, waving her hands dementedly, that we despair for Underland even under her benign but pixilated rule.  Kids will probably like it.
B-

One Peace At A Time (Doc 2009, Hollywood Theater)
Director: Turk Pipkin

This is one of the rare documentaries that not only points out problems, it prescribes the means to combat them.  This is admirable, and I would have felt much more in tune with it if Pipkin hadn’t taken such a self-satisfied tone.
Okay, what he does is good and worthy of emulation, and I admit to doing less than I can about some things.  But, being smug about his good works just makes me want to blow him off.
The doc is structured by posing several good things that we should be doing for the less fortunate of the world, and seeking the advice of Nobel laureates and activists, sometimes the same people, including Willie Nelson (!).  It is workmanlike film making, but much of the footage is visually stunning.
Pipkin tours the world with his camera and his homilies and shows us that all we need to do is get off our fat asses and help, with time or money or etc.  Okay.  Save the children and save the planet and all.  And much of this is truly eye-opening.  The most appealing, to me, of these solutions is to fund microloans, small amounts of money that help start very small businesses with very large rewards for the communities.  The rate of repayment is 99%.  We will look into this.  I guess the point is that it doesn’t take much to help.
But everything he says that children in Kenya or Nepal or Costa Rica deserve (education, nutrition, health care, shelter, opportunity, etc.) is in short supply for many right here in the USA.  I’m willing to bet that not far from his Austin home he can find children with the same problems.
So, go see this if you think it will inspire you, but be prepared to have your guilt buttons pushed.
B