Tim Burton+Disney= A NEW Alice in Wonderland!

On opening day (March 4th, 2010) My mom, my boyfriend Kevin, his cousin Shania, and I loaded up in the car (I of course bedecked in my beautiful Alice dress and apron and some readiculously beautiful but painful heels) and drove to our nearby movie theater to view Tim Burton and Disney team up to tell my life's story (lol ok not my REAL life's story but certainly a huge part of my childhood as I consider it). I was very nervous. I simply adore Tim Burton. Other than Sweeney Todd, which simply wasn't my tipple and had nothing to do with how exquisitely the movie was done, I have yet to find a TB movie I didn't enjoy. But I was very nervous to see how twisted he would make my favorite story. I have done many research projects for sheer curiosity and enjoyment on the Reverend Charles Dodgeson (foremost known as Lewis Carroll) and have a piece of my heart just for him and for the sweet story that brought Alice in Wonderland into existence. I was afraid that our dear Tim Burton would follow the trend (which sounds absolutely ludacris because he doesn't follow a trend of any form, one reason why we love him) of bringing forward the rumors of Lewis Carroll being a pedophile and drug addict. These rumors offend me because anyone who truly researches the man knows that these were entirely false accusations. But this is another topic I will touch on in another post.

I was beautifully and pleasantly surprised with Alice. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, every bit of it. I have to say my favorite element was the wonderland-ful addition of the Jabberwocky references and details. Even though the movie's storyline didn't fallow the exact story lines of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (or Underground as it was originally published) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, I fully appreciated this new, rather fan-fiction-esque story that was brought forth. I am a fan of (well-written) fan-fiction and always love to see new spins on classic stories and popular books and was very pleased to see the creativity and the truth to the characters involved used. My heart truly broke for the Mad Hatter (beautifully portrayed by Johnny Depp) and for some reason I wanted to give him a hug during some very desperate points in the movie, which i assume was the goal.

The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) was a very gentle character but I felt that Miss Anne's performance lacked somewhat in sincerity. The character itself was sincere enough but I felt the actress portraying her needed to tap in a little more into her connection with her. Overall, I liked her. The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) was phenominal but not in the way I expected her. I expected the classic temper-tantrum-till-her-face-turns-tomato-red Queen of Hearts. What I found was a much deeper performance. I loved that the Queen was not just a selfish person (she was indeed that) but also a wounded one. She had much more under her layers of power hunger. She fought the eternal villain question "Is it better to be loved or feared?" The answer made me quite sad for her. An unexpected character, The Knave (Crispin Glover), I found to be well-played to the point of annoying. He was very good at his role, a selfish, manipulating second in command, which of course made us all squirm in our seats wanting to punch him right in the kisser. This, however, is the mark of a well-played villain. Well done Crispin Glover.

I LOVED the March Hare (Paul Whitemouse)! I loved how frantic he was throughout the movie. He reminded me of one of my favorite people, Kevin's cousin, Shania. She and I giggled and joked through the whole movie about the parallels between the two of them. He was throughly enjoyable even in the desperate times. He provided a wonderful comic relief for the tough moments. The Cheshire Cat (Stephan Fry) was much more clever in this telling than I expected. The Cat has always been a point of fun for me as I had my own Cheshire Cat once upon a time, but her name was Cleo and she was a great deal more silent (to the regular observer) than the clever Cheshire. I barely recognized Stephan Fry's voice during this performance. While I usually enjoy Stephen's natural tone, I loved this new, smoother, deeper sound he gave for the Cat. A wonderful job, Mr. Fry. The Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), The Tweedles (Matt Lucas), and The Caterpillar (the ever marvelous Alan Rickman) all gave wonderful performances. I desired more from each of them and felt that there simply wasn't enough screen time for each. Their characters were very well done and the detail on their animation left me stunned with the quality.

I know I've not gone through all of the characters, and I aplogize if I haven't mentioned your favorite, but I simply must move onto my favorite character of all time. Alice.

Alice. Well what can I say? The acting was wonderful. Mia Wasikowska was beautiful and dressed in truly amazing costumes. She did a wonderful job. Of course I was seethingly jealous and at first could not admit this as I've always wanted to be Alice in a movie, but indeed she was wonderful. There were times that, as an actress myself, I felt areas of her performance could have been differently and it would have enhanced it, but the look of wonder that she gave off as she traveled through this magical land was exactly on key. I loved the "Six Impossible Things" monologue best. It deffinately showed me that Alice and I have more in common than I remembered.

Overall rating? About as many stars as there are in the sky! I loved the new story line, all the actors and actresses, the visuals were incredibly, I coveted the costumes, and most importantly I felt like I was there. I felt like I was Alice battling the Jabberwock (an impressive addition, if I may add). I ducked when tea cups and scones were tossed about. My heart broke for the Mad Hatter. And I wanted to help these desperate characters in any way possible.

Thank You Disney and Mr Tim Burton for bringing Underland to life. There is no doubt that this movie will be in my collection for many, many years as soon as it comes to DVD.

Signed

The Real Alice

Life....unscripted

Girls can be mean. This is a common fact of life. And sometimes people can be irrational. Also a common fact of life. But life becomes very very odd when both of those hit at the same time as everything else stressful in your life. I just got through a pretty nasty week last week. I got cusses at from too many angles, yelled at over the phone, and a friend threatened suicide. Now that's what I call fun. But what I love about life, even with the totally cruddy bits, is that God always slips a little bit of sunshine in unexpected places. Friday night, I went to my friend Lenny's house for a sleep over (where i proceeded to talk a different friend out of suicide for about two hours), not expecting to have anything really extraordinary happen and ended up falling in love with a flump of baby bunnies! The bunny that was dubbed as "mine" is named Cow. He's the sweetest, most precious baby bunny ever. Each of the five bunnies had a different, funny, little personality and I could spend days telling you all about each one. I love cuddling up with them and watching them hop all over the place. The next day, Saturday, went alright. Nothing really bad happened, I had a great meeting for Showstoppers, but later on my stomach starting hurting really bad and I realized another of my ovarian cysts had burst. This lead to a vicadin induced sleep-struggle. Sunday was by far the best though. After a truly fabulous sermon in both big service (well what I remember of it. I still had the tail-end of the vicadin in my system during first service.) and high school (I was fully awake for that one. Props Rick, great talk.), I spent the rest of the day with my wonderful love, Kevin. We didn't do anything spectacular, nothing of any importance to humanity, nothing that changed history in any way. Just a relaxing, happy, calm day together. After all the stress of the week before, It was exactly what I needed. I love those simple little blessings that remind you that life is totally horrible, just a little complicated sometimes. Thank God for these small hours and these little wonders.

Seasons of Love

I have rehearsal again today for the song Seasons of Love in my show. I'm thinking only the guys are going to show up today because they need the most work. One of my girls is in Utah, another is elsewhere but I don't know where that is, and the last girl for it can only come to rehearsals for one of the other songs because of busy schedule. But none of this really bothers me since the girl parts for the song are super super simple and we got it on the first day. With rehearsing this song though, You'd think i'd get sick of it and want to hear something else. Not true. This song has become a favorite of mine and I'm most excited to perform this song above any other in my show. It's become our anthem and will hopefully inspire many people in the audience. Rehearsal is a little crazy right now due to reordering the schedule and having to send it out to everyone again (which is a huuuuge pain in the neck). So a lot of people are frustrated right now and I'm totally stressing. But I know it will all work out just fine and this show is going to be amazing.

Julia Moment

RATATOUILLE!!! Ok so I'm feeling pretty nifty right now. I've always loved to cook but oh boy this is a fun recipe. I'll be sure to post pictures of how beautiful this dish is. The red bell pepper, zucchini, red onion, and yellow squash look so beautiful all swirled in together and the chevre mixed with fresh basil from our garden smells incredible. All in all this is an incredible recipe and I cant wait to make it again sometime!!

Peanut Butter Playdough, Chocolate Frozen Yogurt, and RATATOUILLE!!!

Emma and I decided that we very much need to cook. This is a common for us ever since we were little. I remember one night when we had gone to see No Reservations (a charming movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones) we came home after it had ended and immediately held our own Iron Chef in my kitchen. Secret ingredient: pasta. We had a blast and later made a mixed berry cobbler completely from scratch. Ever since it has been our tradition to cook when she comes to stay. Tonight we decided to make desserts and to prepare veggies for making tomorrow's dinner. Our first endeavor was chocolate frozen yogurt. My mom has a frozen yogurt machine so we were very excited to try it out. Once we had mixed all the ingredients together, we put it in the machine and pressed on. Nothing happened. We jiggled the switch. Still nothing. Finally we asked my mom why it wasn't working. She looked over the machine and found the problem. It sprang to life. We excitedly asked her how she did it. She pointed to the electrical cord and said "Simple. I plugged it in." Needless to say we felt rather dumb. While the machine whirred our mixin's into frozen bliss, we grabbed the peanut butter, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract and mixed together our favorite treat, Peanut Butter Playdough. A few years ago I had found the recipe in Disney Magazine. The recipe had come from Disney World and it had been so much fun to make and eat that it quickly became our favorite. We both enjoyed feeling little again as our fingers squished through the sticky peanut butter. Now we're about to have an wonderful night of sweets while we watch movies and do each others nails! 

Hi!!!

So originally I had another blog for a show I am putting on but I'm a lazy butt and could never remember what it was called or what my login was or anything to do with it!! So being the super special person I am, I decided to create a new one that I actually will blog on and support my blogging family with. Hi, my name is India, and I am a dreamer. I live in a world simply made of imagination and creativity. I love to plan events and am a true actor through and through. I am a paper addict (especially anything to do with Alice in Wonderland or any classical fairy tale) and can't help myself when I have an intriguing idea for a story. I'm dancing through life to my own musical soundtrack and love those who inspire me to reach further. I can't wait to tell you all my adventures!