{Alice in Wonderland opened in Seattle Friday, 3/5, and is playing at The Neptune, The Meridian 16 and the IMAX}

I love pretty much everything Tim Burton does (outside of Planet of the Apes), but I admit: I was a little worried about this based on the previews. I went in expecting an over-the-top slap-sticky version of Alice, and ended up being pleasantly surprised. Except for one dance scene that takes place at the end, as a whole I thought it was pretty great.

Taking place 13 years after she originally falls down the rabbit hole, a quirky doesn’t-quite-fit-into-Victorian-England-19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska, who was clearly born to play this part) stumbles into Wonderland, or Underland, as the residents call it, while fleeing from an arranged marriage to a floppy aristocrat.

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{Creation opens in Seattle today, 2/19/2010, at the Metro}

Based on the book "Annie’s Box", written by Charles Darwin’s great-grandson Randal Keynes, Creation tells the story of Darwin’s life pre-publication of "The Origins of Species".

You’d think a movie that includes the line "You’ve killed God, sir." would indicate that the film would mostly examine Darwin’s epic struggle between science and religion as a way of talking about Creation Vs. Evolution and how they could symbiotic.... but it doesn’t, really. The bulk of Creation is about watching a sickly, mostly-bald, laudanum-addicted Charles Darwin hallucinating and talking to the ghost of his dead daughter Annie while struggling to write his book.

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Getting tired of formulaic rom-coms designed to tug at your heartstrings yet? Most of the film-going audience must not be, based on the amount of laughter & "aww"s I heard at the screening for Valentine’s Day. 

But this is directed by Gary Marshall! The guy who gave us such classics as Pretty Woman! And Beaches! And those Princess Diaries movies everyone loves! Of course, he’s also responsible for the train wreck that is Georgia Rule, but I digress. Gary Marshall should know how to make a romantic comedy, and yet all he’s done here is take a bunch of popular actors and fit them into an anthology of predictable scenarios designed to make audiences go all soft & gooey. Let me break it down for you:

Ashton Kutcher is the loveable boy-next-door type, who asks gorgeous, work-obsessed girlfriend Jessica Alba to marry him. Meanwhile, his best friend & girl-next-door/grade school teacher Jennifer Garner is sleeping with selfish a-hole Patrick Dempsey. WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

Bradley Cooper (mygod WHY is he in everything???) meets military Captain Julia Roberts on an INTL flight into LA, and marvels at her strength and courage! Also, she’s on leave for just 24 hours to "visit someone special". How endearing.

Mailroom boy Topher Grace has luckily stumbled into hot sex with office temp Anne Hathaway, who has a burning *secret* to conceal, and Queen Latifah plays Anne’s sassy temp boss (of course she does), who is also pro-ball player Eric Dane’s Agent (and he has a burning *secret* too! Ooooh). 

Jessica Biel gets stuck playing the unfortunately stereotypical lonely single girl who has an anti-valentine’s party every year and chokes down her unhappiness with boxes of chocolates followed by 4-hour treadmill sessions, and then ends up collapsing in tears into the arms of a total stranger: local sports news reporter Jamie Foxx. Oh yeah, he's a player who HATES Valentine's Day.

(take a deep breath, we’re not done yet)

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{The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus opened in Seattle on Friday, 1/8 at the Meridian 16 and the Metro}

The story breaks down to basic good vs. evil: Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a one-time meditating monk, makes a deal with Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) in order to gain true love and immortality—the payment being his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), on her 16th birthday. In the interest of more fun, Mr. Nick adds a new wrinkle: whoever can win 5 souls first, wins Valentina's soul too.

As Parnassus and his crew travel through cities by horse-drawn cottage/collapsible stage, Director Terry Gilliam throws in a few more wrinkles: The Doctor’s assistant, Anton (Andrew Garfield), is madly in love with Valentina, and they end up finding Tony (Heath Ledger) hanging from the underside of a bridge, half-dead, apparently with amnesia. While the game to get souls takes place inside the Doctor’s head, Valentina falls for Tony, Anton tries to keep his jealousy in check, and Tony starts remembering his true nature.

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{Sherlock Holmes opened in Seattle on Christmas Day, December 25th, and is playing at The Majestic Bay, The Metro, and The Meridian}

The stage is set for us at the beginning of Sherlock Holmes with a harried chase through the streets of London to the lair of principal villain Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), wherein his 6th virgin slaughtering is about to take place in the name of the dark arts. Luckily, Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) & Watson (Jude Law) save the day with deduction—and some kick-ass martial arts moves.

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{The Young Victoria opens in Seattle on Christmas Day, Friday, December 25th at The Meridian and The Metro}

Movie fans who love period costume dramas learn to expect certain things—tragedy, betrayal, depression and lots of death. They also learn to be wowed by sets and clothing, but sometimes, not much else. Fortunately, The Young Victoria stands out with exceptional casting, interesting camera work, and believe it or not, a relatively uplifting story.  

Under the influence of Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong), Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson), keeps her daughter under lock & key since birth, to the point where she’s not allowed to descend or ascend stairs without holding an adult’s hand. The master plan being that Victoria will become Queen while she’s a minor and sign over all ruling powers to her mother by "regency"—with Sir John taking the lead on the whole ruling thing.  Fate intervenes via loud-mouthed drunkard King William (Jim Broadbent, maybe hamming it up a little too much here), who hates the Duchess and Conroy so much, he pretty much refuses to die before Victoria turns 18.

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I admit, I was scared of seeing this, knowing that having to say "I didn’t think it was that good" would probably be a hard sell for a movie that’s already gathered so much award buzz and praise they may as well just hand over the Oscars now. But hey, guess what? I liked it. Precious really IS that good.

Considering most people know this is a movie about an abused, overweight, African American teen living in Harlem, and thus it’s going to be depressing, I’m sure that most people will also want to skip it. I’m here to tell you – don’t. Don’t miss this if you’re thinking it will be too much for you to handle. Because I bet you can handle it, and I bet it will open your eyes (even more than you think) to things that go on in the world and how people manage to harness incredible strength and love in order to get through them.

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{The Box opened in Seattle today, Friday 11/6 and is playing at The Metro, Oak Tree Cinemas, and Pacific Place}

After seeing Director Richard Kelly’s long-anticipated thriller The Box, I imagined that his decision to make it originated like so; "Oh, you people didn’t like the futuristic-comic-booky-comedy-political-musical statement (Southland Tales) I created? You just want another Donnie Darko, is that it? WELL HERE YOU GO".

That’s not to say that The Box is anything close to Donnie Darko – of which I am a big fan - but you can definitely tell it's patterned after the 2001 cult classic: dark, brooding atmospheric shots, multi-dimensional sci-fi effects, similarities to Darko characters: a glaring old lady (think a more upscale Grandma Death), and a sullen, slightly-more-maniacal mini-Frank (sans bunny costume). There’s even a suspicious similarity between this film's "Human Exploitation Handbook" and "The Philosophy of Time Travel" from DD. Tie-in, much?

So goes the plot: Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur Lewis (James Marsden) are a school teacher and NASA scientist who apparently live in a giant, perfect house in a giant, perfect neighborhood with really nice things, but are struggling with money. When Arthur loses his chance at becoming an astronaut and Norma is told she can’t get the faculty discount for her son’s private school tuition anymore, they start feeling a bigger crunch - or something. I couldn’t really tell because the script spent exactly 5 minutes examining their money issues.

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{Where the Wild Things Are opens in Seattle Friday, 10/16 and is playing at the Meridian, the Majestic Bay, and the Metro}

Almost as soon as I found out that 826 Seattle was holding a preview benefit screening of Where the Wild Things Are–probably my most highly anticipated film this year–I bought tickets. A wise move, as it quickly sold out (the screening raised an awesome $47,000!). 

The energy in line and inside the Cinerama was kind of amazing. Most people seemed to really get into the spirit of things, wearing the gold paper crowns passed out at the door and buzzing happily about being able to attend. Teri Hein, founder of 826 Seattle, introduced screenwriter Dave Eggers and star Max Records before the film for a quick Q&A. Eggers gracefully spun attention away from himself and focused on 826 and their young guest by asking witty questions about injuries sustained while filming and working with Director Spike Jonze (reportedly quite the prankster)—as well as encouraging the audience to "howl when appropriate" during the film. That might sound a little dry written down, so let me clarify: my brains were basically falling out of my head from excitement by the time the movie started.

Max Records (as…Max) uses his fresh-faced enthusiasm and soulful eyes to draw you into the story of a lost and lonely little boy almost as soon as the film starts to roll. Relationship problems with his now-distant teenage sis and busy single mom cause Max to retreat into a fantasy world ruled by monsters with complex personalities who take pleasure in destroying things, and have quite a few issues of their own. In other words: Wild Things aren’t all about fun & games, even if Max would like them to be. The plot is definitely simplified, but there’s a deeper seriousness implied. The dialog is exactly what you’d think a 9-year-old boy would imagine, conveying the struggle of a kid trying to make sense of situations that are just beyond his realm of understanding and process them in a way that makes sense.

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The timing of the new documentary The September Issue couldn’t have been more relevant at this very moment. Conde Nast, the publishing company of several notable magazines, recently went through an audit by a company called McKinsey. They were looking for areas where costs can be cut and reportedly told most of the magazines under Conde Nast to cut their expenses by twenty-five percent. In reference to this audit, Gawker ran a story with the post “The New Yorker Will be Sold for Scrap Before Anna Wintour Stays in a Cheap Hotel”.

Wintour is editor of Vogue magazine and at one point during The September Issue, she is referred to as the “most powerful woman in America.” She’s not, but she is the most powerful woman (and actually person) in the fashion industry. Reportedly, she has a salary of $2 million and an annual clothing budget of $200,000. This documentary, which is endlessly fascinating, goes behind the scenes of the September issue of Vogue from 2007, which was the largest magazine ever published at 840 pages. As a comparison, the 2009 September issue is 584 pages and still looks like a goddamn phone book. The tagline for the movie reads “Fashion is a religion; this is the bible”. The estimate in the film is that one out of thirteen American women will own a copy of Vogue’s September issue.

The film begins with an interview with Wintour, who says “just because someone wants to wear [something by] Carolina Herrera instead of something from K-mart, doesn’t make them a dumb person”. That is probably how she views the world and that quote keeps Wintour from fully rehabilitating her image – by all accounts, she was the inspiration for “The Devil” in The Devil Wears Prada. Still, the filmmakers do make it be known that Wintour is something of a visionary, hailing her for putting celebrities on the cover of Vogue and for putting an African American model on the cover of a September issue.

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