I just saw Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland today, and much like the Sherlock Holmes movie some months ago, it’s not part of the canon, although it does borrow much of Lewis Carroll’s  Alice is 19, doesn’t remember any of her “Wonderland” adventures, and falls down the rabbit hole again as she flees from a marriage proposal from the foppish Hamish. Alice must fulfill the prophecy in the oraculum and slay the Jabberwocky to save Underland from the evil Red Queen.

Like all Tim Burton Films, it’s a visual spectacle, and I credit him that. I liked the Cheshire Cat, the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman!), and the Red Queen, not so much the jaded Alice, the depressing Mad Hatter (as much as I love Johnny Depp, I don’t like his Wonka and his Mad Hatter and they both seem like the same eerie caricatures on crack), or the  hammed up White Queen.  With this grown up version of Alice, I missed the heart and whimsicality of the original Alice, and I wouldn’t trade that for all the visual effects in the world.

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Last year, the graphic novel was one of the new genres I started getting hooked on, and Craig Thompson has fast become one of my favorite graphic novel writer-illustrators.

I’ve been salivating over Blankets at the bookstore for years now, but it’s waaay out of my budget, and so it remains on my wishlist. A couple of years back, though, I was able to mooch Thompson’s Goodbye, Chunky Rice, and so I started with that.

Late last year, I finally got the chance to read Blankets, when Flipper friend Mike (aka GNP, or Geek and Proud) lent me his copy, along with his prized volumes of Maus. Of course, before I read Blankets, I felt a reread of Goodbye, Chunky Rice was in order, so I could review the two books side by side before I finally return Mike’s book this weekend (I returned Maus earlier), with gratitude for entrusting one of his favorite books to me for several months now. (more…)

I saw the Christmas Carol movie this weekend, and I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand the animation was amazing! Five years has certainly done wonders for 3D performance capture — compared to Zemeckis’ 2004 Polar Express, Christmas Carol looks phenomenal! The musical score (especially Bocelli’s God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen) was hauntingly beautiful too.

I’m glad Disney didn’t “cutesify” this movie, but for a holiday flick, it didn’t do much for my holiday spirit, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come  terrified quite a few kids in the audience — a bunch of parents had to take their kids out of the theater because they started screaming and bawling. I think the film lacked the warmth and goodwill that the classic story evoked.

Anyway, this post isn’t the start of my Christmas posts, but it is related to A Christmas Carol.

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I’ve been meaning to read the classic Dracula ever since I read (and reread) The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. With all the vampire fiction that’s been coming out recently, I realized I really abhor the glamorized vampire and prefer the good, old-fashioned Dracula, and so I grabbed the chance when I spotted the Viking Studio illustrated edition featuring comic book artist Jae Lee at last year’s Cut-Price Sale at National Bookstore, for about P200, along with a copy of Jane Eyre from the same line, also P200.

I knew I read Dracula when I was in 6th grade but it must have been abridged, or maybe I covered my eyes over the scary parts (Rich Hall has a sniglet for it — “snargle” — to lessen the visual impact of a horror movie [in this case, a book] by filtering it through one’s fingers) because I don’t remember much of it.

Anyway, I had to read Dracula because I need to read the book “Mina” by Marie Kiraly, a Dracula spin-off assigned to me by another Flipper for the Flips Flipping Pages Diversity Challenge this year. I also have some more Dracula-themed books in my TBR that I’d like to read so I figured I needed to read the original for comparison.

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I’d been avoiding reading The Lovely Bones because for a while everyone seemed to be reading it, and it wasn’t really my type of book. I don’t like dramatic fiction, especially domestic dramas. I find them very stressful to read, sometimes even traumatic, like a A Heart of Stone. Sometimes, it’s just nothing spectacular for me, like The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

The trade paperback I mooched had been languishing in my TBR for over a year already, and I dreaded reading it, but it was taunting me (yes, it all happens in my mind) so I decided it was time to conquer this book.

It surprised me, actually, because as much as I was prepared not to like it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, which goes to show how going out of your comfort zone once in a while can be rewarding.

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