Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures/The Zanuck Company
Producer: Tim Burton, Richard D. Zanuck, Joe Roth, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd
Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Linda Woolverton from the novel by Lewis Carroll
Director of Photography: Dariusz Wolski
Editor: Chris Lebenzon
Production Design: Robert Stromberg
Art Direction: Stefan Dechant
Special Effects Supervisor: Michael Lantieri
Visual Effects Supervisors: Ken Ralston, Sean Phillips, Carey Villegas
Special Effects Makeup: Kevin McTurk
Wig and Makeup Designer: Paul Gooch
Locations: Cornwall, Devon, UK
Release Date: 5 March 2010
Cast: Mia Wasikowska (Alice Kingsley), Johnny Depp (The Mad Hatter), Anne Hathaway (The White Queen), Michael Sheen (The White Rabbit), Helena Bonham Carter (The Red Queen), Alan Rickman (The Caterpillar), Christopher Lee (The Jabberwock), Stephen Fry (The Cheshire Cat), Crispin Glover (The Knave of Hearts), Timothy Spall (The Bloodhound), Marton Csokas (Charles Kingsley), Noah Taylor (The March Hare), Matt Lucas (Tweedledee/Tweedledum), Eleanor Tomlinson (Fiona Chataway), Lindsay Duncan (Helen Kingsley), Frances de la Tour (Aunt Imogene), Tim Pigott-Smith (Lord Ascot), Barbara Windsor (The Dormouse), Geraldine James (Lady Ascot)
Comment: Some things just seem right the moment you hear them, and the words Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland being used in the same sentence qualifies. The movie, written by Linda Woolverton (The Lion King), will mix actors and CGI (in 3-D, naturally), and is not due for release until next March, but Disney have released a few images to whet our appetites. The cast seem perfect for their roles (Matt Lucas as Tweedledee/Tweedledum, and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat are particularly inspired), and we're glad to see a relative unknown, Australian Mia Wasikowska (from Greg Mclean’s Rogue [2007], which starred Sam Worthington), cast as Alice, instead of the early-rumoured Lindsay Lohan. [Click images for a larger view]
Pig Hunt (2008)
Country: USA
Length: 100 minutes
Production Company: Up Cal Entertainment/Epic Pictures
Executive Producers: Robert Mailer Anderson, Nicola Miner, Chris James, Doug Stewart, Diana Stewart, Daniel Lurie, Rebecca Prowda
Producers: Robert Mailer Anderson, James Isaac
Production Manager: Sharlene Duale
Director: James Isaac
Second Unit Director: Justin Sundquist
Assistant Director: Greg Simmons
Screenplay: Robert Mailer Anderson, Zack Anderson
Editors: Graham Willcox, Sean Barton
Director of Photography: Adam Kane
Music: Les Claypool, David E Russo
Production Designer: Geoffrey Kirkland
Art Director: Garrett Lowe
Sets: Kris Boxell
Special Effects: Thomas F Sindicich
Creature Effects: Kerner Optical, Erik Jensen, Mark Anderson
Visual Effects: Mr X
Makeup: Aurora Bergere
Sound Editor: Fred Runner, Todd Beckett
Sound Design: Andy Newell
Costume Design: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
Stunts: Justin Sundquist, Spiro Razatos
Location: Boonville, CA; San Francisco, CA
Budget: $6,000,000
Cast: Travis Aaron Wade (John Hickman), Tina Huang (Brooks), Howard Johnson Jr. (Ben), Trevor Bullock (Quincy), Rajiv Shah (Wayne), Jason Foster (Jake), Nick Tagas (Ricky), Bryonn Bain (Hippie Stranger), Christina McKay (Crystal), Charlie Musselwhite (Charlie), Les Claypool (Preacher), Marissa Ingrasci (Sage), Lanie Grainger (Poppy), Luis Saguar (TJ), Robert Mailer Anderson (Big Train), Lane Foard (Lex Wockenfuss), Chris Paxton (Billy Stankbud), Phillip K. Torretto (Beer Belly Redneck), Michelle Redwine (Willow), India Isaac (India), Cimi Ahluwalia (Cimi), Vince Ballew (Gas Mask), Max Barnett (ZZ Driver), Leanne Borghesi (Darlene), Ty Brenneman (Sexy Cult Girl), Karen Viola (Cult Girl), Cara Cameron (Cult Girl), Joe Lucas (Homeless Vet), Henrietta Musselwhite (woman shelving cans of creamed corn)
Website: www.pighuntmovie.com
Tina Huang as Brooks
Synopsis: John, his girlfriend, Brooks, and friends Ben, Wayne and Quincy (plus Quincy’s dog) head into the hills of Northern California for a few days hunting. Stopping at a gas station they’re told of a 3,000lb “Hogzilla” that roams the woods, and the fact that John’s uncle may have died hunting it down, they also encounter a hippy and his dope smoking girlfriends in a disagreement over the killing of a snake. Driving up to John’s uncle’s cabin, they pass a mountain family, who view them with distrust, and arriving at the cabin, they find it full of irrational scawling, and animal skulls. The next morning they are joined by Jake and Ricky, members of the mountain family, who turn out to be John’s cousins. Heading out into the mountains to hunt for “Pigfoot”, things quickly go wrong and lead to a spiraling torrent of death, weed, animal cruelty and naked hippy chicks.
Les Claypool plays Preacher and wrote the music.
Review: Sometimes you come across a movie that you want to like so much, you actually convince yourself you do, even though your feeling on viewing the film is one of slight disappointment. Such is the case with Pig Hunt, which after taking a laudable amount of time to set up back stories and develop characters, injects a dizzying succession of influences in its last hour, including Mad Max II/The Road Warrior (1981), Southern Comfort (1981), Razorback (1984) and even a dash of Ishirô Honda’s Half Human/Jû Jin Yuki Otoko (1955). All of which makes for a delirious thrill-ride, but leaves the distinct impression that you’ve experienced a dazzling, 100 minute trailer, with outstanding action sequences, but a lack of narrative coherence.
That said, the action, particularly the “pissed off redneck” chase is outstanding, and shows (as does the whole production) astute hiring choices, guaranteed to ensure the budget’s maximum on-screen impact: Stunt Co-ordinators Justin Sundquist and Spiro Razatos (Maniac Cop, Death Race), and their team, particularly 2nd Unit DP, Igor Meglic (Talladega Nights, The Bourne Ultimatum), and dirt bike rider Rex Reddick (Terminator 3, GI Joe), all do an outstanding job, and it’s during these scenes that Pig Hunt bursts into audience-pleasing life. This in contrast to the direction of James Isaac (Jason X, Skinwalkers), who undoubtedly does his best work here, but must be very thankful for his second unit.
Production Design from Geoffrey Kirkland (Midnight Express, Children of Men)—which utilizes producer Robert Mailer Anderson’s childhood home for one setting—and Aggie Rodgers’ (Return of the Jedi, Rock Star) costumes help seal the deal in these later scenes, along with the (thankfully non-CGI) big pig effects from Kerner Optical (part of ILM until 2006), and Primus frontman Les Claypool’s outstanding music (expect Boonville Stomp—available on his solo album Of Fungi and Foe—to soundtrack the trailers for every Southern Gothic movie made in the next five years).
The main deficits come with the addition of poorly executed Gulf War elements (John is a vet, and Ben seems about to head out), which fail to resonate strongly enough for the hero’s final line to have the required impact (despite the nod to Apocalypse Now that preceeds it), and editing from first-timer, Graham Wilcox with Sean Barton (The Empire Strikes Back, The Mutant Chronicles) that often causes confusion, and adds to the missed opportunities of the final few moments.
Acting is uniformly strong, though TIna Huang’s Brooks perhaps deserved the final kill, over Travis Aaron Wade’s slightly dull John, and shows excellent taste, in casting blues harp legend Charlie Musselwhite, prison activist/hip-hop artist/poet Bryonn Bain, and Claypool in key roles.
It’s tempting to draw comparisons between the production team and the story they’ve created (wealthy San Francisco hipsters head into the NorCal woods, where things go horribly wrong), but there’s too much to enjoy here, and it seems churlish to say that the film is less than the sum of its parts, when some of its parts are the best of their kind in far too long.
The Dead Outside (2008)
Country: UK
Length: 86 minutes
Production Company: Mothcatcher Films
Producer: Kris R Bird
Director: Kerry Anne Mullaney
Assistant Director: Matthew J. Wilkin
Screenplay: Kerry Anne Mullaney, Kris R Bird
Editor: Kerry Anne Mullaney
Director of Photography: Kris R Bird
Music: Felix Erskine, David Wilsoni
Song: Evacuate by The Boxer Rebellion
Production Design: Tom Morrison
Special Effects: John Parnham
Makeup: Kerry Gunn
Sound Design: Anne Knox
Costume Design: Ailsa Rendell
Location: Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Cast: Sandra Louise Douglas (April) , Alton Milne (Daniel), Sharon Osdin (Kate) , Vivienne Harvey (Eleanor), John Erskine (April's Grandfather) , Phylis Douglas (April's Grandmother) , Robin Morris (Daniel's Son) , Max Adair (April's Brother) .
Website: www.thedeadoutside.co.uk
Reviewed at the US Premiere, Another Hole in the Head film festival, Roxie cinema, San Francisco, June 12th 2009.
Synopsis: Six months after a neurological plague turns the majority of the populace into incoherent, violent psychopaths, Daniel, fleeing from the infected family he didn’t have the heart to kill, runs out of petrol near a farmhouse in the Scottish Highlands. He quickly discovers that the house belongs to April, a teenager who inherited it from her grandparents. Daniel still injects the government-supplied vaccine that April blames for the spread of the infection, but the girl seems unaffected by the virus, despite frequent contact with the infected, and her habit of spending nights outside the farm’s barbed wire-covered walls, in a graveyard containing the many attackers she has killed. When Kate, a former nurse, arrives at the house, discussion turns to the possibility of April being the key to a cure, and a tense situation becomes potentially deadly.
Review: The first feature from music video director Kerry Anne Mullaney exists in world bleaker and farther north than 28 Days Later, and a little deeper inside the art house. The director makes a benefit of the lack of finance, with gritty visuals and an excellent performance from Sandra Louise Douglas (in her first role), as April, a girl soaked in horror, whose anger may have more meaning than mere teenage angst. The two lead characters exist on opposite sides of a moral divide—Daniel, a good man who still sees the infected as human beings, is haunted (it seems literally in a couple of scenes), by what he couldn’t bring himself to do, whereas April shoots on sight and is almost catatonic from the things she has seen, the people she has lost, and those she has killed.
The script refuses to layer on exposition, leaving the characters room to behave like real people, but sometimes frustrating and alienating the viewer (reminiscent—as is their production company name—of the work of fellow Scot Lynne Ramsay). Motives are unclear and intentions admirably guarded, but this causes a couple of scenes to fall flat, and there tends to be an over reliance on sound design to maintain the (admittedly effective) David Lynch-like atmosphere. This is balanced by a clear understanding of how to ratchet up tension—particularly in an early scene where April aims her scope rifle at Daniel, as she considers whether or not to simply kill him, and later in a point-of-view shot from under a vehicle, where the marauding infected are seen as slowly shuffling feet—and an admirable treatment of the infected, who are often confused and emotional before they attack, with their faces cast down, covered by hair, but then seen in lingering close-up after death, reinforcing their lost humanity (one slow pan down the corpse of an elderly lady reveals what appears to be dog shit on her shoe). [UPDATE: Kris R Bird was kind enough to let me know that the substance was actually leaves.]
Shot in two weeks, and self-financed on a micro budget, which is hardly an issue (though the barbed wire perimeter barely looks up to the task of keeping out sheep, let alone hoards of infected crazies), the production team of Mullaney and producer/co-scripter/cameraman Kris R Bird (who together created promos for Drive-By Argument and Cosmic Rough Riders), demand a lot from their audience, which is refreshing in an age where the horror film seems designed to evoke nothing beyond revulsion, and while this may leave their debut struggling to find an audience, it shows immense promise, and adds another strong, intelligent team to the new league of British horror auteurs.
Sandra Louise Douglas as April
The Kingdom of the Fairies (1903)
Alternate Titles: Le Royaume des fées (French title); Fairyland; or, the Kingdom of the Fairies (US title); Wonders of the Deep (UK title).
Country: France
Length: 16’26” / 1,080ft.
Black and White
Production Company: Star Film
Mise en scène: Georges Méliès
Based on: La Biche au bois (The Doe in the Forest—1865), by the Brothers Cogniard (or La Biche au bois, pièce féerie en 1 acte, mêlée de couplets (1826) by Nicolas Brazier, Pierre-Frédéric-Adolphe Carmouche and Jean-Baptiste Dubois).
Cast: Georges Méliès (Prince Bel-Azor), Marguerite Thévenard (Princess Azurine), Bluette Bernon (Aurora).
Synopsis: The announcement of the betrothal of Princess Azurine and Prince Bel-Azor, is interrupted by a witch, who curses the Princess and later, with her minions, carries her away on a chariot of fire. With the aid of the Fairy Godmother Aurora, the prince gives chase, and after a shipwreck, is helped by Neptune to locate the witch’s castle. The Princess is rescued, the castle destroyed and the witch thrown over a cliff in a barrel.
Review: Star Film # 483–489. Méliès’ big production of 1903 thankfully still survives in its hand-colored form. Mme Thulliers and her team of girls were responsible for coloring each frame—each girl was assigned a different color—and they provided this service for the majority of the French film industry. The result is well worth the effort, as this is one of Méliès’ most sumptuously designed productions. The flaming chariot that carries away the princess, and the undersea journey to Neptune’s court, are particularly impressive, and the triumphant return of the prince and princess is a rare example of a scene shot outdoors at the Montreuil studio.
While the film is widely reported as being based on either the stage works, by the Brothers Cogniard (performed at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in 1845), or Nicolas Brazier, Pierre-Frédéric-Adolphe Carmouche and Jean-Baptiste Dubois (performed in the same theater in 1826), sources also mention the story by Marie-Catherine le Jumel d'Aulnoy (1650/1–1705)—who first coined the term ‘fairy tale’—there seems to be very little similarity between the stage works (which are possibly related) and the story. Raymond Knapp, in The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity (Princeton University Press, 2005), mentions that an 1865 revival of the Cogniard piece by Hervé, includes ballet sequences for “sea creatures set in an underwater grotto.” It seems likely therefore that the fairy tale and the play have no link (in the fairy tale, the princess is turned into a doe), and this film is based solely on one or other (or both) of the stage works.
