Here's a book that I remember in broad strokes, despite having read it a few times in a few versions. Which... I mean when you think about it that's probably exactly why I remember it in broad strokes instead of big detail. So a big thing for me during this movie is going to be not remarking on "yeah, that was in the book!" even though well you all know me, that's sort of just a thing I do.
Apparently more crap weather is headed our way. The weather people say February averages 45 cm a year of snow and in the first 10 days we managed 60. This is a bad thing. They're literally bringing dump trucks along to deal with the white stuff. Bright side is, lots more reasons for people to be indoors staying warm and watching movies. Like me!
I'm actually pretty stoked for this one, the original is really off-the-wall and it sort of screams "animate me!" so I'm glad they did the obvious thing and went for it. Like Pinocchio, of course, this one is a children's book that isn't fairy tale based. Unlike Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland could never pass for a fairy tale, what with its morality being based around decapitations, pig babies, enlarge person and reduce person and tea with insane people. I'm expecting some great things, folks.
RKO.
Walt Disney Presets I see a protagonsit
And we have another one of these terrible songs they keep putting on titles.
The images look positively absird though. Reminds me of old old old school DD&D droawnings
This looks like it could be splendid. Bit worried about oho that's a Queen of Hearts if ever I shh we're startting
again, backgrounds keep being their strong suit
older sister looks a bit like Cinderella
hello Alice
fuck your wreath, no time for thaty shit
maybe that's her mom
Dinah, hello. Figaro's successor
what it wouldn't be it would, eh? You're unhelpful
shes got fantastic hair
annnnd we're singing
someone tell that choir to sod off
"how-dy do birds" nice rhyme
this would be fun if it were jazzed up
she said wonderland check it out
WHITE RABBIT
OH MY FLIPPITY FLAPJACKS
does that even count as a song
she's obviously from a family of adventurers. Cave? Go right in, no issue with annnd we're falling
parachute dress, eh? looks like she's got the undergarmenture for it
eerie
lamp
this is one melty looking not-hallway
it's wallpapered chair wouldn't do that if I were you just fell out of a chair
the sound is eerie
huh the whole place is just melty geometries
go fuck yourself, there's a door whether you like it or not
EXCUSE YOU? That's the man's nose
man don't laugh at your own jokes
hehehehe "no, impassable"
oh sure NOW there's a table
Direct, isn't he
it's not marked "poison" though. So your advice sucks
that is one strange-flavored potion
you're an asshole is what you are, door
I like how this is a universe that just straight up mocks her
the tears are sort of abrupt, eh?
UNLOCK THE DOOOooooooooh you're stupid
well that worked.
that's a... NOPE. HE'S USING A TOUCAN AS A BOAT
"NOTHER NAUTICAL EXPRESSION"
way too many birds out here well those make more sense and that' sRow Row Row your Boat
I hear a new song
I've got noting.
THEY'RE GETTING DRY??? very badly, obviously
hahaha the umbrella
STOP KICKING THAT MACKEREL
so I may as well say right now that the white rabbit has NO TIME FOR YOUR SHIT
THE FUCK ARE THEY
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
they honk
we're songing again
nope, just dance
there's the song
"THat's MANNERS!"
Tweedle Dumb is right
did she seriously just get played... with oysters
song again wow this movie is loaded with them
Everyhting about this is just all kinds of absurd and I'm on board with all of it
cabbages and kings!!!! he's just babbling nonsesOYSTERBABIES
YOINK
what is with the gloves with holes in them. Dishonest JHohn had them too
THERE GO THE EYEBROWS
shaddap fool
hehehe he nose is a pearl
the pied piper is now a walrus everything in my life makes no sense
WHY DO THEY HAVE FEET AND WHY ARE THEY NOT ATTACHED TO ANYTHING
why would they go into a place labled fish dinners, oysters don't eat fish
this is morbid
FEEEED?
how do you eat like a cabbage
man don't piss off a guy with a hammer
"yeah... if you're an oyster"
ANOTHER song
not so much
tiny house. this is feeling a bit anecdotey WHITE RABBIT that's no Mary Anne
NO TIME FOR YOUR SHIT, MARY ANNE
oh COME ON stop taking advice from cookies
BOOM. SUPERKICK
MONSTER
HELP, ASSISTANCE
Dodo's back!
BY JOVE
out the chimney?
well lucky for you
White Rabbit reminds me of Doc
GIANT EYE? BEHOLDER. EVERY LIZARD FOR HIMSELF
so long, Bill
Dodo you're supremely unhelpful
"Sure sure, just burn the house dowNOPE"
I give up. This is just a world where verse and song ae mandatory
FUCK YOU, THOSE ARE MINE
sure, random resizing carrot because why not
oh so she's super tiny now
NO COOPERATION AT ALL
can't have those monsters about, no
the backgrounds are all so lush
ahahahaha bread and butter flies
flowers with faces!
ahaha puns all around
ROSE!
oh goddammit they're the elephant bitches
oh the shy little violets are the most adorable things
the character BOOM BO BO BOOM ahahahaha yesssss so on baord with all of this
new song, but this one feels songy for a change
hhehe etiger lilly and dandy lion
of course there are dog AND cat erpillars
this is fantastic
AND NOW THEY ARE INSTRUMENTS
all the character work is amazing
singing out of your range there, dearie
"quiet, Bud"
bitch flower, you're a weasel
annnnd soaked
funny how she looks more we t now than she did when she was getting hit with an ocean
I hear music. In this movie, you know what that means]
caterpillar found
O U E I OA...
vaguely arabian tune
love the smoke letters. So unhealthy
C
knot :D
U?
nie going kid, already doing smoke letters at your age
knot just kills me :D
what does a square have to do with "recite"
right, cause that was correctical of you
AHAHAH the back legs
NO TIME FOR MY SHIT
caterpillar's a massive dick
oh sure now he wants to be helpful
man just sat on his own head
well done Alice, now you've got him DEAD. right then
WOW Tehre okay let's not be in faces
Alice come on don't be with the magic mushrooms. That's a bad move no matter how you look at yup now you're gigantic
okay seriously how do you figure SERPENT
SERPEEEEEEEEENT well you should have realized
the most helpful roadsign collection ever
new song coming
that's the Jabberwocky poem! :D
okay nope disembodied smile EYES let'\s there we go that what the hell is with those colors
he just took off his friggin ears I don't even
okay the cat is officially bending all of reality
Who did?
Coan you stand on your head? wow Labyrinth flashbacks
You should have thought of that before you became an adventurer, girlie. annnnd then he unraveled
I spot a Mad Hatter. And another song
just everything is alive in Wonderland?
why am I even questioning it
I'm obviously mad too
NO ROOM NO ROOM
manners lesson from two madmen and a sleepy drunk
I refguse to comment on what just happened.
UNbirthday, eh?
NEITHER DO I
there's a weird lack of musicality to most of the songs in this movie
SHOCK. IT IS??
Mine too, by the way
THST IS NOT HOW CAKES WORK
nope, I refuse to comment on that either
MOVE DOWN what are they saying about why?
you have been logicked by madmen. Well done Alice
"and when you come to the end, STOP!" excellent adice
CAAAAAAAT? and resultant freakout
...jam on his nose?
THOSE are the things that upset you, not a rabbit cutting tea with his ears
half a cup why am I even I have nothing
THUNK. annnnd now he's a talking hat. Dishonest John again
SHE'S STARK RAVING MAD
wait now she';s ahead of him why am I trying
HOW CAN A CLOCK BE DAYS SLOW WHY AM I PARTICIPATING
would it be all the salt?
TWO SPOONS.
fuck your mustard.
MAD WATCH
THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO Sand now the color's gone
"two days slow"
Alice you need better hobbies, seriously
I strongly doubt both of those statements.
EYES
...welp
literally eyes
awww that's adorable
EXCUSE YOU?
annnd we have percussion frogs
will you call it Lewis Carroll Eat A Dick?
okay they're surprisingly creepy
that is a bird cage
I'm with you on that one, Alice
well, that would explain all the excessive signage
annnnd we have hairy pants with eyes that are an arrow
fuck yo path, apparently
reminds me of Snow White in the woods
song? song
how would that be a CHANGE?
wait, are the nonsense beings melting away?
that's kind of a different sort of eerie you have going there annnnnnnd now it's you and the doom cat alone in a dark void
SIMPLY MAD ABOUT YOU
well, tjat would do it
wait where did she enter this movie just MADE Labyrinth, didn't it
and we have a new song about roses
Painting the roses red
sung by playing cards. Of course.
oh come on what about anythjing you just heard suggests "the Queen" sia good thing
MARCH OF THE CARDS
who come in some unusal colors
hehe jaunty march whistling
and now they're cutting the deck
explains his trumpet
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
"and the king."
SOMEONE WILL LOSE IS HEAD
NOT ME YOUR GRACE, THE ACE
her army just folded
you are surprisingly enchanNOPE
YYYYYYEEEEEEES, YOUR MAJESTY
YOOUR MAY? ALL WAYS HERE ARE MY WAY
she's so over the top, I love it
poor king, such delusions of grandeur. and the clubs, of course, are flamingos because that's the rules. What were the balls?
Hedgehog
"If you know what's good for you..."
I don't remember the rules to croquet. It's that game we'd bring out and then try to play and then food would be ready and we'd all go to the picknic table
uh oh, you done fucked up, Ace
ahaha poor chairflamingo
poor Alice. "uh huh!" :D
AHAHAHAHAHA YESS
oh but it's loads of WELP
THAT CAN'T BE GOOD
WELP SHE LOOKS LIKE A MONSTR
TRIAL???
and the n they all leap into the air and suddenly courtroom
"and the king
SENTENCE FIRST, verdict afterwards
this is guaranteed to be helpful
THAAAAAAT'S VERY IMPORTANT
evertyhing is completely insane now
OFFF WITH YOUR HAT
Alice is just so done with all this shit
oh no yup it's a cat
AND NOW EVERYTHING IS GOING AMOK. Time to escape
LEEEEEEEEET ME HAVE IT
wait but those shoud cancel out
I love how there's a rule for mile-high persons
oh don't do it you'll annnnd there you go
here we go with the jumping itno the air again
this definitely inspired Labyrinth
...
I have nothing
everything came back for the mad finale
that is some fantastic lighting they did there
definitely mom. and the goddamn choir is back
that ending sucks, just for the record.
Right, so... that was exceedingly daffy
If you can find it, Martin Gardner's "Annotated Alice" is a terrific resource. Explains a lot of the references and puns.
ReplyDeleteI may have mentioned on RPG.net, here is where you may start to hear a lot of voice actor reuse. Already we've got J. Pat O'Malley as the Walrus, the Carpenter, and both Tweedles; and Bill Thompson is both the White Rabbit and the Dodo, and you should hear Bill Thompson's voice work in some more Disney films, though you may have already heard him if you've seen any of Tex Avery's Droopy cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. James MacDonald, the voice of the Dormouse, was also Cinderella's main mice and dog, and he took over some parts of Mickey Mouse's gang, including Chip of "Chip 'n' Dale", Humphrey the Bear, and Mickey himself.
ReplyDeleteAnd already you've heard the voice of the Cheshire Cat, Sterling Holloway, as Mr. Stork from Dumbo and adult Flower from Bambi, and you'll definitely hear him again. He and Jerry Colonna, the voice of the March Hare, also did some narration for some of the movies you skipped. Likewise, you already heard the voice of the Queen of Hearts, Verna Felton, as Mrs. Jumbo and the elephant matriarch from Dumbo and the fairy godmother from Cinderella, and would you believe she goes on to play another elephant and another fairy godmother for Disney?
(Looking at the credits for Dumbo, I saw some other prolific actors in bit parts, such as Jim Crow voiced by Cliff Edwards of Jiminy Cricket fame, and a clown voiced by Billy Bletcher, who I see had voice roles in a ton of shorts, including MGM's Barney Bear and Disney's own Pegleg Pete, the Big Bad Wolf, and Horace Horsecollar. And Marion Darlington just did bird noises for these early features... and Alice's crying?)
Yeah, there are a lot of songs in this movie. The opening title song is actually quite lovely as an instrumental, I once heard it played on harp very impressively. The big hits are "Golden Afternoon" and "The Unbirthday Song". By the way, if you think this was a lot of songs, you have no idea, they wrote something like 40 or 50 of them that ended up being scrapped during production. Alice was something of a favorite of Walt Disney, so he really wanted this movie to be a hit. It did... okay, and like Fantasia only really hit its stride once the hippies got a load of it.
ReplyDeleteAlice's voice actress, Kathryn Beaumont, continued to voice her as needed for decades; I think she only retired from it sometime in the last 5-6 years. As an adult she was also an English teacher, and from what I'm told she was a very engaging, popular one.
Other than that I don't have a lot to say about this movie. It's entertaining, but not one of my favorites-- like its source material it doesn't have much of a story to follow, just Alice wandering around encountering weirdness until she wakes up from her dream.
Yeah, I think the book had plenty of funny verse that could be turned into songs; the trick was identifying the catchiest sayings, or the "memes" if you call them.
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