Alice in Wonderland

Last night, I actually made it out to a movie theater and saw a movie before it came out on DVD. This is unusual for me since I haven't been to the movies since last summer. Alice in Wonderland was a very well done movie production to say the least. Tim Burton really managed to capture the spirit of the story without it being all about Johnny Depp. Before seeing the film, the reports that I had heard were that it was "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe meets The Nightmare Before Christmas meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" but to me it seemed more like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Wizard of Oz than any other Tim Burton movie.

Alice in Wonderland appeals to our sense of intrigue and fantasy. It is intriguing as children that there is a whole other world on the other side of the rabbit hole, or wardrobe, or train platform, or rainbow that is connected to our world but one does not know the existence of the other. That is what separated fantasy from other genres of fiction. All fiction relies on some degree of "What if?" but the "what" and the the "if" and the "?" are all much more inflated in fantasy than they are in more traditional realistic or historical fiction. Some may ask if there is any difference between science fiction and fantasy and at one time I read a pretty solid explanation. I cannot remember who it was that said it (it was either Arthur C. Clarke in a preface to a C.S. Lewis book or C.S. Lewis in a preface to an Arthur C. Clarke book) but the difference to them was that fantasy is something you wish could happen but cannot, and science fiction is something that could plausibly happen but we wish would not. In that case I am not sure where Star Wars fits because I would love to live in that galaxy but it is usually classified as sci-fi, but that is another discussion for another day.

If you like Tim Burton movies, go see this one. If you do not like Tim Burton movies, see it anyway. It is different from the others. If you like Johnny Depp, see this movie. If you do not like Johnny Depp, see it anyway. Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover and Anne Hathaway are really good, too. If you like fantasy or if you ever liked fantasy, see this movie. The worst case scenario is that you get to complain that they don't make them like they used to and you will be more motivated to contribute to the blogosphere on this subject.

Harry Potter Remake

Today, I finally saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as I did not get around to viewing it when it was in the theaters. Yet again, i was disappointed with all the details that were left out. I know, I know. Whenever we Harry Potter book purists complain about this, I hear the same "Americans do not have the patience to sit through long epic movies the way they did in the fifties anymore" argument and I am sick of hearing it. If millions of people around the world had the patience to read books of seven, eight or nine hundred pages, I think they would be able to understand that the movie that does it justice would also be long. Most of the people reading these books worldwide were teenagers or younger. As a teenager (for a few more months anyway) I know that we have the shortest attention spans in the world AND IF WE GET THIS EXCITED ABOUT A NINE HUNDRED PAGE BOOK, WE WOULD APPRECIATE THAT THE MOVIE PRODUCTION PEOPLE MAKE THE MOVIE WORTH THE EIGHT BUCKS FOR A TICKET OR THIRTY BUCKS FOR A DVD THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS. SO DO IT RIGHT!!!!!

In twenty years or so, I think that Hollywood will realize that they could make more money by remaking these movies and I hope that by then they have the sense to do them the right way. In the current Harry Potter movies, they insisted on exclusively using British actors to make it authentic with the book. If they use some A-List American actors and kept more consistency with the actual books, they would seem more authentic to me. For me, growing up in Massachusetts, I knew the stories were in England but in my mind I pictured Harry, Ron and Hermione boarding a train in Boston and heading to a magical school in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Here are some of my thoughts of the acting roles in the current movies and my ideas of who would better portray the characters.

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter- He looks exactly like what the Harry on the cover of the books. I get that. Overall, I thought that he has been okay as Harry but far too often it seems that he is not the main character. He seems like the passive one in most of the movies and he just goes with the flow. Ron and Hermione steal Harry's thunder too much. They do a good job, but the name of the series is Harry Potter not The Ron and Hermione Show. If age did not paly into it, I would rather see Edward Norton as Harry.

Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley- I like the way he plays the part. I used to be jealous of Rupert because we are the same age, we are both redheads, and he is rich, famous, and can get any girl he wants just because he was born on the other side of the pond. Ron is hysterical in the movies and makes for a great down-to-Earth sidekick for The Chosen One and Smartypants Granger. As the movies wore on, I realized that he really was the right guy for the job and right now I would not change the casting. As for me, I would happily settle for playing Arthur Weasley in the remake when I'm in my forties (if I live that long).

Emma Watson as Hermione Granger- Right from the first movie, she has fit the part. Not changing this one either.

Richard Harris and Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore- I thought Richard Harris was great as Dumbledore in the first two movies. When he passed away and was replaced by Michael Gambon, I did not like the change at first but it grew on me. By The Order of the Phoenix I realized that they needed a darker colder Dumbledore for darker colder times so the casting worked out. When thinking of who I would cast, only one name crossed my mind as an adequate Dumbledore alternative. Regardless of race, nobody can play old men with sage wisdom better than Morgan Freeman. He would be my headmaster and stoic leader of the Order of the Phoenix if it were up to me.

Alan Rickman as Severus Snape- THIS ROLE WAS CAST PERFECTLY. There is nobody in the world who could pull off Snape the way Rickman has. No way. Hands down. End of story.

Gary Oldman as Sirius Black- I really like the way Oldman plays Sirius. Good job casting on that one.

David Thewlis as Remus Lupin- They got this one all wrong. I do not like the portrayal of this character at all. He does not look or act like the Lupin I read about. ANY ACTOR IN THE WORLD WOULD BE BETTER FOR THIS PART. Personally, I would pick Christopher Walken because he is supposed to be a good guy with a dark secret and despite his good intentions, his terrifying alter ego can be exposed in his voice. Liam Neeson is another possibility.

Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom- When I first began pondering this cast, I thought about hypothetically casting Michael Cera in this role but then I realized that Lewis has done a good job and a change in this role is not really necessary. Cera could work as Neville but there is no use fixing something that is not broken. I would like to see Neville's role expanded, however. It seems that he is a big part of some of the movies but does not do a whole lot in others. Throughout the book series, Neville had been a part of a larger circle of friends along with the other Gryffindors but at times was almost as close to Harry as Ron and Hermione. Ginny was also in a similar spot in the books until she and Harry started "snogging".

Other Alternate Castings:

Julie Andrews as Minerva McGonagall

Al Pacino as Mad Eye Moody

Frank Oz as Dobby and Kreacher (and have their role significantly expanded)

Eric Idle as Professor Flitwick

Samuel L. Jackson as Kingsley Shacklebolt

Willem Dafoe as Rufus Scrimgoer

Kevin Spacey as Cornelius Fudge

Danny Devito as Vernon Dursley

Rhea Perlman as Petunia Dursley

Ozzy Osborne or David Bowie as Lord Voldemort

Wayne Knight as Wormtail

Jane Lynch as Professor Umbridge

Angela Lansbury as Professor Trelawney

Michael Richards as Professor Lockhart

Steve Carell as Professor Quirrel

Christopher Plummer as Igor Karkaroff

James Earl Jones as Aragog

Jeffery Tambor as Horace Slughorn

Russell Crowe as Firenze the Centaur

Gene Wilder as Mr. Ollivander

Christian Bale as Barty Crouch Jr.

Michael Palin as Barty Crouch Sr.

Conan O'Brien as Arthur Weasley

Jack Black as Peeves

Okay that's enough. Some of these casting choices are a little ridiculous but this is a story about wizards and witches and magic. It is allowed to be a little over the top. I imagined the characters talking like Monty Python so this list can't be much more ridiculous than that.

Feel free to comment with your own ideas for the different characters. I want to make sure that we, as a human race, get this right the next time around because otherwise future generations will not be able to appreciate this story once books become obsolete.