Sweating Bullets

I think my brain went into pop-culture overload with this particular comic. I’ve had the chance to see both Alice in Wonderland and Shutter Island this week. I really enjoyed and wanted to do reviews for both, and as such, I tried to come up with a comic that could tie those elements together, and somehow I landed on doing it by playing off of a current Old Spice Body Wash commercial that playing right now, and is completely hilarious! The title, like others before it, is a bit of a throwback, although I’m interested to see if anyone catches what I’m referencing with it. Consider it a mystery to be solved, which leads into my reviews nicely.

This past weekend Jill and I took Lilly to see Alice in Wonderland. It’s actually somewhat odd that they called it Alice in Wonderland, since that would imply to most that it was a live-action version of the book or at the very least the Disney movie of the same name. Granted the trailer makes it clear that were going to see an older Alice returning to Wonderland, part of me still expected to see some of the same scenarios. In some cases we do, but for the most part we get the characters doing other things. It’s almost more similar to American McGee's Alice but not nearly as dark. That being said, there were some interesting decisions made for a movie that was more or less aimed at families. The moat around the Queen of Hearts castle being the one thing that sticks out most in my mind as “not exactly kid friendly, but yet done in a way that they didn’t necessarily get it.” There are points in the movie where it does seem a bit rushed, and almost feels as if there are pieces missing, but ultimately, I don’t think I would have wanted it to be much longer. The ending also seemed off to me. I understand what they were going for, but I really felt with the chemistry that we see between Alice and the Mad Hatter, that the two characters should have still been together at the end of the film, whether that meant that she stayed in Wonderland, or he somehow escaped into the real world. As a whole the movie was an entertaining adventure in the realm of Labyrinth or something from the Narnia franchise.

Now for crazy of a different flavor, Chris and I got a chance to see Shutter Island on Tuesday. The interesting thing about this movie is that it ended up being almost exactly what I expected before going in, but it did such a wonderful job of trying to convince me that I was wrong the entire film. The real genius of this film is that it shifts seamlessly between reality and perceived reality to the point that you question which reality is the correct one. That said, it also does a fairly good job at telegraphing which the correct one is, but it constantly gives you just enough doubt that the entire film you’re trying to rectify the two.  I don’t recommend seeing this film while tired, because it is mentally fatiguing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m saying that in a good way. There are a lot of cuts in the film that are jarring in the subtlety of what shifts from one shot to the next. Some changes are obvious while others seem like they could be mistakes in editing, but seem so frequent and intentional that I refuse to believe that they’re just continuity gaffs. If you’re watching as a keen eyed observer, these subtleties make for a dizzying viewing experience, and really help to put you into the mindset of the main character. I highly recommend this film.

I think that covers everything I wanted to touch on this week. I’m looking forward to see if anyone submits a guess on the title of this week’s comic. If no one gets it by the next comic, I’ll let you know then.