Trip with a Stiff Upper Lip

Alice in Wonderland (1966): 70

There is a freaking plethora of different adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s famous works, starting in 1903 (very cool) and ending with Tim Burton’s 2010 effort, which I found to be an incredibly underwhelming reboot, art direction notwithstanding. I’ve always enjoyed the kaleidoscopic effects of the Disney animated feature, not to mention the 1985 made-for-TV all-star affair in which, as as youngster, I found Carol Channing only slightly less frightening than the Jabberwocky.

Anyway, I recently stumbled upon this 1966 BBC-made version at the library and, seeing Peter Sellers and John Gielgud listed in the cast, decided to give it a look to see if I could get over the the Burton disappointment. Of particular note: This version hinges on director Jonathan Miller’s idea that it is a shame to hire brilliant, famous actors then hide them underneath mountains of makeup or (even worse) animal masks. So he completely eschews over-costuming the cast and instead dresses them up in Victorian garb and lets them play the parts as real people instead of masquerading as animals.

And I must say that for the most part it works. As Alice (a very unique but dull Anne-Marie Mallik) sleepwalks her way around the stark B&W, Bergman-esque landscape, there’s a bit of fun in figuring out the characters with fewer visual cues than usual. Familiarity with the general story is necessary. As she walks into a room Sir Michael Redgrave solemnly asks, “Who Are You?” while puffing on a pipe and we know she’s entering her confab with the caterpillar. The focus is more on the poetry and prose than immersive visual fantasy.

In addition to Redgrave, Peter Sellers (King of Hearts) and Sir John Gielgud (the Mock Turtle) are the notable names and deliver the most memorable performances, but the rest of the cast is full of scene stealers that might be more recognizable to British audiences: Alan Bennett, Wilfrid Lawson, Leo McKern and especially comedian Peter Cook as one of the most perfect Mad Hatters ever, a very crusty/annoying/snooty type that would feel right at home in Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit of the Year contest...and yes, completely bonkers. In fact, this entire version feels like Alice is just wandering around a mental institution, and that lends a foreboding tone to the proceedings. It is a bit slow even at 71 minutes, and ultimately it doesn’t really go anywhere. It is very dry and erudite, as Brits are wont to take their humour, but I was enchanted by this little oddity.

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As for another British trip with a particularly dry countenance, I also recently checked out The Trip (appropriately enough) which follows Steve Coogan (of Hamlet 2) and Rob Brydon after their brave, postmodern adaptation of Tristram Shandy (A Cock and Bull Story), which I thought was simply fantastic and inspired me to actually go and read that incredible, idiosyncratic, and downright fucking difficult book. At least I can say I’m not such an ill-bred mortal, so SUCK IT, James Boswell!

Ahem. Excuse me. Anyway, here Steve and Rob again take on guises as "themselves." The setup is that Steve is hired to tour the countryside for a week and do a series of celebrity restaurant reviews. His girlfriend being away in the US on a modeling gig, he surrenders to take Rob with him, and this gives them pretense to ham for the cameras and bounce impersonations and improvisations off each other for 80 minutes. They are fiercely competitive in trying to outdo the other’s Michael Caine, Sean Connery, or Woody Allen line, or are constantly skewering and usurping cinema tropes, one of my favorites being this gem:

Awww, crap, I couldn’t decide...two favorites!

Their bromance is of equal parts heart and waspishness, and when the laughs aren’t rolling they make ado of their contrasting attitudes toward their career paths, their roles as minor celebrities, and their romantic relationships; Coogan takes advantage of the holiday to reflect about his current girlfriend and do a bit of womanizing on the side, while Brydon calls up his wife nightly for clumsy, hilarious “phone sex.”

It smacks a little bit of Sideways, a smart, funny travelogue through the gorgeous countryside with some fantastic gastronomical scenery to boot. Good for some laughs and a quiet diversion. This is actually an edited-down version of a BBC series that went a season in 2010 (6 episodes, fairly typical of Brit series) and has a 2nd season in the offing. Meh, that might be beating a dead horse.

The Trip: 72

Hello again, internet: Pusher 2 & 3, Drive

Ugh, I’ve been really slacking off, I realize it’s been almost a month since my last entry. Appy polly loggy. A lot’s been going on. I’ve still been watching a lot - my viewing tally for the year is now at 104 films (yes, I keep count) - I just haven’t been committing much down on paper. Less drinking equals less Drunk Movie Time, sad to say. I will attempt to rectify that and catch up on a bunch of excellent films (and some less-excellent stuff, too) over the next few weeks. Even if it means you get a lot of short posts, I figure that’s better than the utter void.

First a little following up on my last post. I finished up Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy. For those of you who may have checked out Refn’s American breakout Drive last year, there is a strong aesthetic seam running through his films, and it fits the characters well, straddling the fence between glossy, glowing flash and a suffocating griminess. These are people running wild outside the law, underground but playing out “wealthy mobster” fantasies on various levels, from the able street hustler (Frank in Pusher) to the unsophisticated pawn (Tonny in Pusher 2) to the brash, ambitious dealer-on-the-rise (Mohammed in 2 and 3) to the aging kingpin (Milo).

For me, Milo (Zlatko Buric) is clearly the most compelling character in Pusher and Pusher 2. No matter how badly someone else has fucked something up, everybody is welcome to sample his cooking, everyone is still his “friend.” Thus, he manipulates his underlings with a babbling delivery filled with pretense, injecting stabbing sparks of tension into the narrative.

In Pusher 3, however, Refn’s focuses wholly on Milo and he must deal with his own stressful fight-for-survival. This strips away some of the evil mystery surrounding Milo that I’d built in my head from the first two films, and gives him a much more vulnerable aura. Right from the start he’s sweating out a session in an Addicts Anonymous support group, and throughout the film he’s thrust into situations where he is forced to bide his time and eat shit as a younger hoodlums write him off as “getting too old for a young man’s game.” The results of their insolence are none too pretty and make for the best, most gruesome ending of the three films.

As with Padilha’s pair of Elite Squad films (and their precursor documentary Bus 174 - about which more in an upcoming entry) here we have another instance where examining them as a whole makes for a richer experience than only considering them as individual films. Even though each Pusher film follows a different character, the pattern of the story is similar in all three: main character falls into a deal-gone-bad situation, must claw like a cat in a sack to survive, does even more bad shit. Er, that’s also the basic gist of Drive, come to think of it. That makes them feel a little stuck in neutral at times, but there are some harrowing moments that are worth the slog.

As for Drive, again, it carries thematic and expository similarities, ramping up the style and action a couple notches but filling in the remainder with Ryan Gosling sleepwalking through a character that should be much more interesting, resulting in great swaths of tedium. Albert Brooks is the clear highlight of the cast in a role that plays against expectations, one that echoes Milo's viciousness if not his manners. Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman also catch juicy little parts that have mirrors in the Pusher world. Lately, I've visited quite a few what I guess you could call "modern mobster"-type films and Drive fits in nicely with films like Steven Soderbergh's The Limey and Johnathan Glazer's Sexy Beast. I can't think of one that I'm ready to elevate to "masterpiece" status, but all are most definitely worth a look.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands (2004): 70

Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death (2005): 75

Drive (2011): 75