The international trailer for Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus arrived online last Friday, but most of us were too busy mourning John Hughes to notice. So, because I’m a diehard Gilliam fan and because most of the good reactions are hitting the web today, I’m going to just pretend this post is called “The Last Four Days in Bloggery.”
I am a huge defender of Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen so I’m seeing a lot of similar stuff I like here, even if the visuals are a little too computer-generated to exactly have that Georges Méliès feel. But the hot air balloon really clinched it for me. And I’m definitely in agreement that this colorful, CG-rific Lewis Carroll-esque fantasy film looks better than that other one starring Johnny Depp (I’ll take a premature guess that I’ll like it more than that other one starring Parnassus‘ Lily Cole, too).
I can’t say I believe the trailer is going to bring too many people in. It’s very rushed, both in visuals and exposition, and even with the credits it should confuse unknowing viewers regarding the four-actors-in-the-same-role thing. Plus, with my appreciaition in the minority, I wonder if it’s going to be a bad thing that this looks like Gilliam’s biggest financial flops. Will “Academy Award Winner Heath Ledger” help fill seats?
Check out four days’ worth of film blogger responses to the trailer after the jump:
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With Comic-Con beginning tomorrow, there’s so much movie stuff being talked about today that I almost didn’t know what the biggest topic was/is. And really, the most discussed film-related news of the day was the Sam Raimi/World of Warcraft movie announcement. But WOW fans have apparently gone back to playing the game and aren’t hanging out on the web so much anymore, so it appears the teaser trailer for Alice in Wonderland has taken over as the most exciting thing for movie geeks to drool over right now. Even more than the hot photos of Freddy Krueger, Jeff Bridges on the set of Tron 2.0 and the Megan Fox Fangoria cover.
All I can say is that if you told me 15 years ago that I’d ever be this disinterested in something involving either Tim Burton or Lewis Carroll, let alone both, I would have called you a liar and then beat you with my Edward Scissorhands DVD (see, the joke is that I was such a big fan back then that I had the DVD before it ever existed). It doesn’t look as bad as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I guess, but it looks a whole lot duller than I expected. Maybe this is just too perfect and obvious a pairing that there’s no need for it, in the same way we don’t really need a Terry Gilliam-directed Good Omens or a Chris Columbus-directed Percy Jackson (doh!). I guess that’s the main reason I have no desire to see this movie, but the fact that it somehow looks both murky and meretricious has me turned off completely.
Let’s see what the rest of the film blogosphere thinks of the teaser, after the jump:
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USA Today has really been at the forefront of hot-topic movie publicity lately. After recently premiering pics of Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2 and Michael Moore in his own untitled upcoming documentary, the national news rag brings us our first official look at Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The candy-colorful images include Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Also, there are some great new concept art images of Alice, the White Rabbit, the talking flowers and Tweedledee and Tweedledum (for a fresh look at Matt Lucas as these brothers, head over to Movies.ie).
A lot of people are talking today about how creepy this movie looks. We agree that it will likely give some children nightmares, but that’s merely to be expected of any movie featuring Bonham Carter, who scares the crap out of me even in non-fantasy films like A Room with a View and Mighty Aphrodite. In this, looking like an older version of those big-head Steve Madden ads, she’s especially frightening, but I’m actually more worried that this bright-palette 3-D fantasy is more like Burton’s crappy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation than the brilliant take on Lewis Carroll’s classic we’ve been hoping for. After all, Depp is almost wearing the same top hat as he had in that movie. His hairdo is just more Carrot Top than Emo Philips now.
Check out what the other blogs are saying about these new images after the jump:
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