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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 1: This is Rob Lamb and my name is Seth Nicholas Johnson.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Joe is still out on parental leaves. So

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Speaker 1: this week on Weird House Cinema, Seth is serving as

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Speaker 1: guest co host. Seth of course produces the show UH

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Speaker 1: and Uh and also hosts the podcast Rusty Needles Record Club.

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Speaker 1: So we've actually been cooking this episode up for a while.

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Speaker 1: I guess I think maybe just kind of off hand

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Speaker 1: conversation many many months back, you said, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: if I were to pick a Weird House film, I'd

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Speaker 1: go with Alice from UH film by check stop motion

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Speaker 1: animation master John's funk Meyer. And here we are. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think the listener might have been in on that conversation.

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Speaker 1: I think that might have happened in a listener mail

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Speaker 1: episode in real time. So so yeah, I think that

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Speaker 1: the audience has been along with us for this entire ride.

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Speaker 1: Here we are at our destination. Yeah, this this is

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Speaker 1: a film I had never watched before. I was familiar

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Speaker 1: with it because I'm familiar with um with Jon s

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Speaker 1: frank Meyer's work to a certain extent. I've seen some

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Speaker 1: of his work before, and we'll get into that as

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Speaker 1: as we go. But yeah, setting down and watching this

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Speaker 1: for the first time, this was an experience I had

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Speaker 1: just hours ago. I mean, it's it's it's a wonderful film.

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Speaker 1: It's one I've I've grown up with um and because

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Speaker 1: of that, I love to introduce people to it because

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Speaker 1: I do think that if people, I mean there are

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Speaker 1: there are obviously hundreds of adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,

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Speaker 1: mostly because it's public domain, but it's also got really

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Speaker 1: great recognizability, and I think more than that, it's actually

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Speaker 1: just a truly wonderful book. Like like, it's one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite children's books full stop. Probably just one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite books period. Like, I think Alice's Adventures in

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Speaker 1: Wonderland is probably the first book that I fell in

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Speaker 1: love with as a child that never went away. You know.

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Speaker 1: Obviously there's a lot of children's books that kind of

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Speaker 1: fall by the wayside, but that one I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh no, this is like high quality literature that can

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Speaker 1: stick with me throughout the ages, and and it has.

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Speaker 1: It's been a book that I've read dozens of times.

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Speaker 1: So how how did this film come into your life?

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Speaker 1: Do you remember, particularly like how you ended up watching

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Speaker 1: it for the first time, and how you latched onto it.

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Speaker 1: I think, and this this is a while ago, so

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Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure. I think as a youth, there

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Speaker 1: was a specific adaptation from the nineteen eighties of Alice's

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Speaker 1: Adventures in Wonderland that I really enjoyed that took yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so I think I was trying to track that

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Speaker 1: one down, and instead I came across this nineteen eighties

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Speaker 1: adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, started watching it, and then

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Speaker 1: just like, nope, I'm going to finish this. You know

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Speaker 1: this is the wrong adaptation, but I'm here for it.

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Speaker 1: For for my own part, I think I basically came

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Speaker 1: into John's funk Meyer a couple of ways via interest

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Speaker 1: in like industrial music, and then also by virtue of

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Speaker 1: moving to Atlanta, where we have the Center for Puppetry Art,

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Speaker 1: and pretty at least at the time, there's kind of

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Speaker 1: a robust, uh independent puppetry art scene, and and also

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Speaker 1: a great video rental store in Video Drone that has

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Speaker 1: a lot of the films, a lot of the films

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Speaker 1: all of john S Funkmeyer, and also many of the

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Speaker 1: individuals who are either his peers or people that influenced

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Speaker 1: him and um And in terms of like downstream influences,

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Speaker 1: like I feel like, especially in the West, like if

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Speaker 1: you were someone who did any kind of weird puppetry

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Speaker 1: or weird stop motion, I feel like his work is

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Speaker 1: probably or was probably on your radar. So even things

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Speaker 1: like creepy tool videos, which I think for a lot

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Speaker 1: of people like that's kind of your first um introduction

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Speaker 1: to strange stop motion, Like even that I don't think

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Speaker 1: would exist without a world in which we have Jance Funkmeyer.

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Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of really mainstream influences that

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Speaker 1: the average person has seen too. For example, both Wes

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Speaker 1: Anderson stop motion films Uh, The Fantastic Mr Fox and

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Speaker 1: um Isle of Dogs. Both of them have this very

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Speaker 1: deliberate look where the characters have for and they clearly

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Speaker 1: kind of rustle a bit from frame to frame. You

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Speaker 1: can see the you can see the handmade aesthetic in them,

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Speaker 1: and that I think is is clearly an influence and

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Speaker 1: homage and just kind of like an aesthetic choice that

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Speaker 1: Jan spank Meyer and you know, his contemporaries were doing

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Speaker 1: and they were doing it just because it's it's what

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Speaker 1: they were able to do the the Wes Anderson films.

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Speaker 1: I think they're doing it as like a note, we

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Speaker 1: want this to look handmade, we want you to see

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Speaker 1: the creator in every frame, just like these older stop

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Speaker 1: motion projects. So I think it's a wonderful look and

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Speaker 1: it does feel very handmade. You know. Yeah, there's they're

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Speaker 1: strong tactile um details in this film, like and and

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Speaker 1: it gets into the soundscape as well that we'll we'll

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Speaker 1: discuss here in a bit, like every all these very

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Speaker 1: very little objects that are manipulated, all the things and

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Speaker 1: creatures that are moving around. Um, it's I guess this

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Speaker 1: this might be to a certain some extent what Joe

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Speaker 1: sometimes describes as I rubbed the fur film tho the

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Speaker 1: same thing, and that you can imagine yourself holding these objects.

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Speaker 1: They're they're all these little often grimy or not really

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Speaker 1: grimy details. But uh, I don't know this whole film.

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Speaker 1: There are many times in the film where I like

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Speaker 1: really wanted to grab a broom. The meat freaking me

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Speaker 1: was like I could get a broom in there and

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Speaker 1: and do some work, and also perhaps warned this young

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Speaker 1: girl not to touch these things. You know, don't don't

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Speaker 1: stick your finger in that, Alice. No, a lot of

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Speaker 1: these things seemed very dangerous, and I was worried for her,

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Speaker 1: which which I'm sure is intentional from the director. Now, Alice,

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Speaker 1: I think it is very much a fascinating film, one

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Speaker 1: worth seeking out. But I think you do need to

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Speaker 1: know what getting into here. Um, this isn't really a warning,

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Speaker 1: but just just letting you know. This is a film

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Speaker 1: with a very very subdued pacing, a single human actor

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Speaker 1: who is also a child, strange ruinous sets, bizarre stop

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Speaker 1: motion animation, and virtually no musical score. It's also far

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Speaker 1: more watchable and enjoyable than anything I just said makes

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Speaker 1: it sound. Uh, it's not nearly as creepy as as

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Speaker 1: that is it makes, as we may be making it sound,

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Speaker 1: but it's also not un creepy. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: this is for children and adults who who like the

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Speaker 1: darker side of fantasy, you know. I mean, like, for example,

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Speaker 1: when I grew up, and I'm sure you were the same,

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Speaker 1: I loved things like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. So

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Speaker 1: so therefore this fit in that for me. Obviously it's

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Speaker 1: a bit more art house than either of those, but

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Speaker 1: but it's still you know, it would would be a

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Speaker 1: part of that world, at least into my child eyes

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Speaker 1: and partially to my adult eyes. Yeah, yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: there's something in this film that some might say or

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Speaker 1: interpreted as it is horrific but or or scary, But

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I don't think there's anything

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Speaker 1: overtly scary or mean about the film. I think for

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Speaker 1: the most part, there is this sense of wonder. It

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Speaker 1: may be get kind of a dark leaning wonder, but

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Speaker 1: it is authentic wonder. And there's like a sense of

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Speaker 1: humor to it too, Like I I believe Jon spank

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Speaker 1: Meyer he must have known some of these grotesque puppets

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Speaker 1: that he created had kind of a goofy look to them,

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Speaker 1: you know. And and and in fact, there's there's one

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Speaker 1: shot which perhaps I would say is the only quote

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Speaker 1: unquote scary shot of like almost like a jump scare

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Speaker 1: from like a frog creature, but it's he's got such

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Speaker 1: a goofy face that you aren't really scared. It's just

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Speaker 1: sort of like, what is that? Yeah, the creatures we

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Speaker 1: encounter are generally silly enough looking that it kind of

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Speaker 1: disarms the terror that might that you might expect to

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Speaker 1: be there when saying things like and then the poorly

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Speaker 1: taxidermy and rotting animals come alive and start crawling all

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Speaker 1: over the place. It's true, it's it's it's a charming

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Speaker 1: version of poorly animated taxidermy. Duff. Yeah, yeah, no, it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's fun and goofy and charming and disturbing and

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Speaker 1: dirty and a little frightening. Um. When I was trying

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Speaker 1: to think of elevator pitches for the film, I mean,

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Speaker 1: for to a certain extent, doesn't need one. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of a legendary film and and that's kind of the

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Speaker 1: maybe one of the challenges and even talking about it

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Speaker 1: because like with within and you can speak more to

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Speaker 1: this than I can, but within the world of stop

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Speaker 1: motion and stop motion animation, like this is a big film,

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Speaker 1: like and this is a master we're dealing with here,

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Speaker 1: and not not even to mention the subject matter, Like

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Speaker 1: I think, even if someone hasn't seen this film, I

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Speaker 1: would bet the vast majority of our audience has probably

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Speaker 1: read the book, or the very least is familiar with

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Speaker 1: all of the beats that happened in this very unconventional story. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it does stick to a lot of the major beats,

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Speaker 1: so which I do that. I think that helps with

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Speaker 1: what was force funk Meyer his first if I'm correct

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Speaker 1: on this, his first full length film, uh, coming after

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Speaker 1: coming off of a string of shorter animated subjects. But

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Speaker 1: knowing that those beats are in place, that kind of

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Speaker 1: helps propel you through what is essentially, you know, a

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Speaker 1: feature length art film. Yeah. No, I feel the same way,

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Speaker 1: Like like, even when I'm watching it, I'm most familiar

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Speaker 1: with the book that I am with any of the

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Speaker 1: film adaptations. When when certain like points in the story hits,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, they're playing croquet. I know where we are,

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Speaker 1: you know, like we're starting to wrap this up, you know.

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Speaker 1: But if I were to do an elevator pitch, I'd say,

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Speaker 1: it's it's Alice in Wonderland, except in one of the

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Speaker 1: houses from Silent Hill, but with the lights turned up

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Speaker 1: a bit, so it's not that scary. I think it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a fair pitch. There are a lot there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of trying to unlock doors and not being

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Speaker 1: able to. There are a lot of like range set

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Speaker 1: pieces and props, and then of course bizarre creatures that

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Speaker 1: you encounter. All right, let's go ahead and listen to

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Speaker 1: the trailer audio. This is a legitimate trailer audio from

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Speaker 1: the at least the English version of the film. And

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Speaker 1: I think it's quite nice because it does it certainly

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Speaker 1: doesn't give you any of the rich visuals that are

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Speaker 1: of course the main reason for watching the film, but

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Speaker 1: it does, I think, perfectly capture many of the elements

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Speaker 1: of the sound skin. I shall be too late side

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Speaker 1: the white traffic, how lazy side the white traffic. Well,

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Speaker 1: the Queen will be curious much of the white trappic

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Speaker 1: our invitations for Alice from the queen, said the white trabbic,

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Speaker 1: off with the heck, greeen the Queen. Now we'll we'll

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Speaker 1: come back to this of course. But yeah, what you

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Speaker 1: just heard, the the narration by Alice, the those kind

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Speaker 1: of ambient industrial sound effects that are happening in the background,

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Speaker 1: like this is the this is the soundscape of the film,

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Speaker 1: and and it's um. I I know folks who have

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Speaker 1: never really encountered art cinema that when I've shown them this,

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Speaker 1: they found that very cloying. But I think if if

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Speaker 1: you just accept it, I think it's perfectly fine. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in fact, I would say it's a good thing that

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Speaker 1: really uh enhances the overall aesthetics of the film, And

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Speaker 1: I think it's perfectly chosen. But yeah, I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: not warning you. I'm just letting you know that it's art.

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Speaker 1: This is art house. Maybe. Yeah, so you're you're you're

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Speaker 1: talking about the the Alice narration, the how she's she's

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Speaker 1: reading the things that the other people are saying, are saying,

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Speaker 1: and then she creatures are saying that she's saying, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Mad Hatter said yeah, And and that's

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Speaker 1: always accompanied by a close up of her mouth when

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Speaker 1: she describes all those kind of descriptive verbs, things like

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Speaker 1: Alice thought, Alice said the red the Mad Hatter yelled.

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Speaker 1: You know, whenever one of those, like you know, dialogue

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Speaker 1: descriptors is happening, one of those dialogue verbs, it's a

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Speaker 1: close up of Alice's mouth kind of kind of saying that.

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Speaker 1: But but in addition to that, also that the the

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Speaker 1: just the sound design. I've had friends tell me it's

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Speaker 1: very cloying, just like the sounds of all the scuttling

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Speaker 1: bones scissors chomping away and yeah, all that. We'll, we'll,

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Speaker 1: we'll definitely discuss this as we proceed. So at this

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Speaker 1: point you might be wondering, Hey, where should I go

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Speaker 1: if I want to see this film? Well, you might

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Speaker 1: be able to stream this via some of your arts

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Speaker 1: and your streaming sources. There. There's so many places to

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Speaker 1: stream films these days, I can't even begin to keep

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Speaker 1: track of them all, but it looks like you might

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Speaker 1: be able to find it on some of those. It

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Speaker 1: might also be available to digitally rent or buy, at

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Speaker 1: least in some markets the UK, for example, I watched

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Speaker 1: it on a risk store Blu ray edition that I

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Speaker 1: rented from Video Drome. Here in Atlanta, they also have

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Speaker 1: the DVD and just a superb collection of stop motion offering.

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Speaker 1: So if you're local to the Atlanta area and are

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Speaker 1: interested in films like this, well they've they've got your back.

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Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's talk about some of the people

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Speaker 1: involved here. Again, they're not not not really a lot

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Speaker 1: in terms of cast, but we do have to talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about Jan's funk Meyer, the director, writer,

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Speaker 1: and production designer for this film. So he was born

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Speaker 1: as of this recording is still with us legendary check

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Speaker 1: stop motion animator and and I think just general multimedia artist.

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Speaker 1: I think one thing to keep in mind, especially with

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Speaker 1: this film, and I think this applies to so many

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Speaker 1: of his other films as well. It's like, it's not

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Speaker 1: just wall to wall stop motion, their whole sequences where

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Speaker 1: it's Alice interacting with a strange environment, but there's there's

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Speaker 1: not something like crawling across the screen the whole time.

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Speaker 1: I guess also we should really state that in this

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Speaker 1: stop motion film, Alice is often a human girl interacting

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Speaker 1: with stop motion taxidermy and bones. But when she shrinks,

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Speaker 1: as people know she often does in the book, she

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Speaker 1: turns into quite often a little creepy doll version of herself.

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Speaker 1: So sometimes Alice the character is a stop motion doll,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes Alice is a full grown human being being

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Speaker 1: filmed on a camera, and so so it jumps back

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Speaker 1: and forth, it's all over the place, and so sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's like puppetry interacting with with the live action Alice.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a split screen where you see live action

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Speaker 1: Alice on one side and stop motion on the other.

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's a whole combination of effects and Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's wonderful. You're never fooled by like, oh, that's

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Speaker 1: not real Alice, you know, like like it's it's obvious

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Speaker 1: when it switches over, but it's it's always perfectly charming

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Speaker 1: and believable and like, um, as the Disney animators would say,

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Speaker 1: it's the plausible impossible, like everything follows a through line.

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Speaker 1: It all makes sense. So sung Bier has been active

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Speaker 1: since the mid nineteen sixties and i've and it seems

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Speaker 1: to still be active. Uh. Over the course of his career,

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Speaker 1: his unique surrealistic style has been highly influential, especially on

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Speaker 1: such filmmakers as Terry Gilliam also the Americans stop motion

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Speaker 1: duo The Brothers k or Key or Quay. We we

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Speaker 1: actually just looked this up to try and get the

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Speaker 1: definitive answer, and uh we found it pronounced all three ways.

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Speaker 1: So um, my apologies for inevitably getting it wrong twice

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Speaker 1: two out three times, but at least he got it

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Speaker 1: right once. Yeah, one of those has to be correct. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Certainly more familiar with their work than uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: interviews with them, but they have a very distinctive style

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Speaker 1: that's reminiscent of sync Meyer. Uh. At any rate, all

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Speaker 1: all of these individuals have also been highly influential as well,

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Speaker 1: of course, So again I think it's not that much

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Speaker 1: of a stretch at all to say that most of

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Speaker 1: the range of surreal stop motion animation you're finding in

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Speaker 1: the world has at least some connection to spank Meyer's

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Speaker 1: work or or that general period in world of stop

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Speaker 1: motion animation. Some of sink Meyer's most notable works include

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Speaker 1: Faust from Little O Tech from two thousand and Surviving

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Speaker 1: Life from two thousand ten. His many short films include

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Speaker 1: Jabberwockie from seventy one, Leonardo's Diary from seventy two, and

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Speaker 1: and Castle of Otranto from ninety seven. So I don't

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Speaker 1: know about you step from my own, from my own

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Speaker 1: part um, I think I went through a period, this

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Speaker 1: is maybe fifteen years ago where I was again into

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Speaker 1: strange puppetry and I was getting into stop motion. I

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Speaker 1: remember renting numerous discs from the likes of Spec Meyer,

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Speaker 1: also Jerry Barta, who was another big name in check

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Speaker 1: stop motion, The Brothers, the Brothers k that we just mentioned.

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Speaker 1: Um So my memory is a little little faint on

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Speaker 1: on all of it, Like some is getting confused about

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Speaker 1: which work was directed by which uh individual or duo? UM.

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Speaker 1: I know I watched some of Feankmeyer's shorts, and I

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Speaker 1: believe I watched two thousands Little Oh Tech. But a

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Speaker 1: lot of this kind of blends together. But I know

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Speaker 1: that I had never watched Alice, so I've been seeing

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Speaker 1: it on the rental shelf for years. Yeah. For for me, um,

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Speaker 1: it was all about stop motion growing up. UM. I

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Speaker 1: still love stop motion. It's still one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: mediums of just filmmaking in general. But you know, as

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Speaker 1: you know, I have a big background in um animation

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Speaker 1: for film and television, and it's just such a beautiful, expensive,

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Speaker 1: time consuming process, and I just I just adore that

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Speaker 1: it exists, like like by every standard of like um,

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Speaker 1: you know, financial and labor and all these other reasons

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Speaker 1: no one should do stop motion, but people want it

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Speaker 1: to exist, so people make it exist, you know, And

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Speaker 1: and so I really respect that, and uh yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: just false in that camp for me, I feel like

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Speaker 1: I've seen multiple documentaries where at some point there's the visionary,

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Speaker 1: there's the artist who says I want to make a

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Speaker 1: full length stop motion film, and someone is telling them, no,

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Speaker 1: you really don't want to do this. You should not

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Speaker 1: do this. Yeah, it's like you you don't have the money,

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Speaker 1: you don't have the time. You know that the audience

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist for it. Like, for example, my favorite stop

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Speaker 1: motion studio right now, not a surprise, is like they're

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Speaker 1: based out of Portland, Oregon. They make wonderful films. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'd have to double check to make sure these numbers

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Speaker 1: are correct, but at least last time I checked every

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Speaker 1: single Like a stop motion film has become less and

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Speaker 1: less profitable, has made a smaller profit every single time.

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Speaker 1: That's not a way that that you can run a business.

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Speaker 1: But they keep doing it, and I thank them for

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Speaker 1: that because I love their films, you know, and it's

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Speaker 1: I love I just love stop motion. I think it's

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Speaker 1: a wonderful process and and it's aesthetics really just appeal

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Speaker 1: to me now as as a as a child or

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Speaker 1: a young filmmaker yourself. Did you did you do any

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Speaker 1: stop motion? Did you make any little experimental films? I did?

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Speaker 1: I did? Um. I literally remember the first one I

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Speaker 1: ever did, which was with some playto um a camera

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Speaker 1: like literally just a camera camera, and um, I think

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Speaker 1: it was like a ninja turtle toy and it was

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Speaker 1: about a guy getting hit in the head with a

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Speaker 1: meteor and so then I had to use it like

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Speaker 1: a flipbook and to have it all come together. And

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Speaker 1: this is when I was gosh, maybe like seven or eight,

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Speaker 1: and it didn't really work. You know, the idea of

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Speaker 1: like having the camera like, you know, locked down, did I?

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Speaker 1: I did. Didn't understand that yet. And you know how

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Speaker 1: many frames you really need to like you know, experience

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Speaker 1: uh that that your eye to like see the motion itself,

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Speaker 1: twelve frames per second, all that jazz. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know any of that. Um. But then when

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Speaker 1: I did get into college, and you know, I my

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Speaker 1: my my animation studios at my university had like all

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Speaker 1: the equipment. Of course, I hopped right on it. One

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Speaker 1: of my favorites I ever did. This is kind of

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Speaker 1: cheating when it comes to stop motion, but I made

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Speaker 1: a short film using a light bright as stop motion,

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Speaker 1: which I loved. I thought thought that was it turned

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Speaker 1: out so beautifully, it was so much fun to do,

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Speaker 1: and um but yeah, yeah, no, I love stop motion

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Speaker 1: and uh yeah, people rarely pay me for it because

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Speaker 1: people can't afford it. But in my own time, and

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Speaker 1: for my own like student films and stuff, I would

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Speaker 1: use it all the time. The kids today have it,

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Speaker 1: I guess a lot easier to experiment with it because

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Speaker 1: I know my my own son has done some stop

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Speaker 1: motion experimentation because they have apps that can help with it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so I've I've seen some of these that he's

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Speaker 1: done where there's some sort of like Plato or Lego

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Speaker 1: creature crawling around and doing something. You know, isn't it

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Speaker 1: not super long? But I was really impressed when I

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Speaker 1: saw it. And and who knows, maybe twenty years from

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Speaker 1: now he'll be coming to me and saying, Dad, I

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Speaker 1: need I need some help financing my feature length stop

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Speaker 1: motion animation film. Exactly. We can only hope now. UM.

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Speaker 1: I also just want to make a point here again,

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Speaker 1: we can't go We could spend a whole, a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of time talking about John smenc Meyer uh, and

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Speaker 1: I don't want to. I also don't want to want

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Speaker 1: to over stress his importance. I don't want to state

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Speaker 1: that like he is check stop motion animation because check

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Speaker 1: puppetry and uh and subsequently um stop motion animation. And

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00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: this goes back quite a while, and there there are

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Speaker 1: other big names in check stop motion summer contemporaries, um

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Speaker 1: of spank Meyer. But then you also have some that

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Speaker 1: kind of predate him, such as Jerry trunka who nineteen

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Speaker 1: twelve through nineteen sixty nine. Who Um. I'm not super

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Speaker 1: familiar with his work either, but I know that he

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Speaker 1: did a lot of like children's stop motion animated films

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Speaker 1: for the check market. All right. As we mentioned, this

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Speaker 1: is of course based on the work of Lewis Carroll.

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Speaker 1: Lewis Carroll this was the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,

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Speaker 1: who lived eighteen thirty two through, best remembered for Alice

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Speaker 1: in Wonderland from eighteen sixty five, It's sequel Through the

402
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Speaker 1: Looking Glass from eighteen seventy one, and such poems as

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Speaker 1: Jabberwocke from eighteen seventy one. His style is often described

404
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Speaker 1: as literary nonsense, but he was also an inventor of games,

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Speaker 1: as well as both an academic and recreational mathematician. He

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00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,920
Speaker 1: suffered from migrains, which has often been discussed in connection

407
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 1: with some of his more hallucinatory ideas, and we actually

408
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,640
Speaker 1: have a migraine aura that is called Alice in Wonderland syndrome.

409
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Speaker 1: The details of his personal life have been subject to

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00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,639
Speaker 1: much speculation and analysis over the years, leading to a

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00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,360
Speaker 1: various darker interpretations of his life and work. We see

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Speaker 1: this reflected as well in such films as Night five,

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Speaker 1: Dream Child, in which Dodgson is played by Ian Holme.

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Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna get into the cast of this film,

415
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's not gonna take a lot of time. Alice.

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Speaker 1: The physical performance is played by a child actor named

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Speaker 1: Christina Quotova. This is her only acting credit, but I

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Speaker 1: will say she's quite good in the film. The film

419
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:14,640
Speaker 1: really ultimately demands a lot of her. She's constantly crawling

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Speaker 1: into and through things, interacting with sets and props that

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00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:24,399
Speaker 1: involved things like broken glass and um, yeah, I'm just

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00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,440
Speaker 1: gonna assume everything was was safe. But watching this, you

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Speaker 1: do and part of it is like the you know,

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Speaker 1: they're very believable fears like oh, don't don't get too

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Speaker 1: close to the glass, don't be careful handling that, I

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Speaker 1: don't know that that that jar of jam that also

427
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: has thumbtacks in it, things like that. But so she

428
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 1: often feels slightly imperil without it being like a real

429
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 1: movie peril feeling. But anyway, she's quite good. I also

430
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: really thought multiple times, like, wow, you've got a great

431
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,119
Speaker 1: like silent actor vibe going, you know, like just pulling

432
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: perfect faces is at perfect moments. Um, just just just

433
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: very believable as this child and also very like I

434
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: guess relatable to like like like she she doesn't feel

435
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 1: like she's acting despite the fact that the artifice is

436
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: very clear in this film, Like it's it's right up

437
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: front from the first words, which we'll we'll get to later. Yeah,

438
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: the way that Alice is betrayed, the way that this

439
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: performance works is that you don't have you don't have

440
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 1: often in kids films where kid is interacting with some

441
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: sort of a puppet or other um, you know, artificial

442
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:34,399
Speaker 1: creature or even like some sort of a clown or

443
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: fantastic character, you know, there's sometimes kind of a laughable

444
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,120
Speaker 1: quality to it, like a like an oh shucks kind

445
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: of cuteness to it. But Alice is it's pretty serious

446
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: through most of the film. A lot of time we

447
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,640
Speaker 1: have a lot of these shots of her staring directly

448
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: through the camera's lens at some wondrous site, and she

449
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: has has this very kind of serious look. That's kind

450
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: of this this kid's face that has a lot of

451
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 1: analysis and suspicion, that kind a face where like you're

452
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,719
Speaker 1: at the supermarket or something and a child is staring

453
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: at you from a from a cart, you know, a

454
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 1: child you don't know, and they're just looking at you

455
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 1: like they're they're they're trying to figure you out, but

456
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: they are very suspicious of you. That's well put. Yeah,

457
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: so that too, I think adds to the vibe of

458
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 1: the film. Now, I think we you watched the English

459
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: language version as well, didn't you? Or did you watch

460
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: a dub version? The version I have is a DVD

461
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: where there are no other language options other than dubbed

462
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 1: into English with an English actor. That's the only version

463
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: that I have. Okay, that's that seems to be the

464
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 1: case with the version I watched as well. The voice

465
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: of Alice in this is the voice of Camilla power Born.

466
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: She's an Irish born English actress who appeared in various

467
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: British TV productions over the years, including Whitechapel, Waterloo Road

468
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 1: and Hornblower Duty. She also appears in the Black Mirror

469
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,719
Speaker 1: episode Shut Up Dance, which was a pretty dark one

470
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: that that that one's really good. One of my favorites

471
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: about Shut Up and Dance is that it's one of

472
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: the few Black Mirror episodes that have nothing um supernatural

473
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:15,880
Speaker 1: and nothing science fiction about them. That they are it's

474
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: it's all science fact. What happens and Shut Up and

475
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: Dance could happen tomorrow period. You know, it's it's frightening. Yeah. Yeah.

476
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: The the only thing really speculative about it is sort

477
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 1: of the I don't know the the how intricate the

478
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: situation is, but that alone doesn't make it unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. Uh.

479
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: The The other interesting thing about Camilla Power is that

480
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 1: she played Jill Pole in the TV adaptation of C. S.

481
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 1: Lewis's Narnia book The Silver Chair, alongside Tom Baker who

482
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: played puddle Glom and Warwick Davis who played glim Feather.

483
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: I love these BBC adaptations for the late eighties early nineties.

484
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: Did you watch these two? Yeah? I remember watching these

485
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: like during the middle of summer day on a on

486
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 1: a PBS channel that we were receiving via antenna. So

487
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: you already have that sort of that that you know,

488
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: that that British TV style that is very much in

489
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 1: effect in these productions, and then also it was partially

490
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: scrambled via antenna. Yeah. Yeah, now they're they're they're really

491
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: great and um they've actually gotten all for some reason.

492
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 1: In all the adaptations of the Narnia books, uh, very

493
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: few ever actually finished the series. Most people get one

494
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: or two in then they realize that it's an uphill

495
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: battle for those last few books, they just stop. This

496
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:35,959
Speaker 1: one got further than most. I think this one got

497
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: at least four maybe five books in so um because

498
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: they combined some stories into one, which which helps with that.

499
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, it's it's it's a fun one. If

500
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: anyone's ever looking for like a really corny eighties adaptation, uh,

501
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: look up the BBC Narnia. I guess, I guess they

502
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,479
Speaker 1: called it a mini series back then. They're long, they

503
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: have really like handmade special effects, and the acting is

504
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: very like community theater. It's it's great. Yeah. I remember

505
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: the final battle in the Narni in the Lion, the

506
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: Witch and the Wardrobe, the first one. It has like

507
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 1: really kind of poorly integrated Uh, it's like traditional animation

508
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: utilized in the battle for some of the creatures. It

509
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: looks like our heroes are just kind of like swatting

510
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: it flies and then yeah, there's just these ghosts which

511
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:23,959
Speaker 1: aren't really interacting at all, just kind of swirling on screen.

512
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: It's um, it's it's it's great. Yeah. I watched it

513
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: with my my son after we watched the more recent

514
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: Narnia film, which of course is a special effects laden,

515
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: big budget affair, and um, he's still He definitely was like, well,

516
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 1: this doesn't look quite as real, but but he also

517
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: I think you found it very amusing now that this

518
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: is interesting. Um. The Dutch version of Alice features the

519
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: voice of Harris van Houten as well. Uh, this is

520
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: not the version we watched, but it's notable trivia because

521
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: van Howden is a Dutch actor, probably best known in

522
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: English film for her role as Melissandra in the Game

523
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: of Thrones series. That's pretty amazing. So yeah, I wonder

524
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: how old she was. I I can't do the math

525
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: in my mind, and I refused to, but but yeah

526
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: that that' that would be interesting as well, because because

527
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: she does have such like a kind of matching the

528
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: the physical actor kind of like that sternness as Melissandra.

529
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: So yeah, that that that'd be interesting. To see. Yeah,

530
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: because Alice in this film, and I guess like Alice

531
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: traditionally as well, like Atlas, is going to stand up

532
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: to weird, fantastic creatures that are being ridiculous. Uh, you know,

533
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: she's not gonna take any crap off of these things. Now,

534
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: Normally at this point we tend to highlight somebody involved

535
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: in the music, but again, there's not really any music

536
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: in this film, at least not for the vast majority

537
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: of it, so there's no credited composer. But I did

538
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: want to at least highlight the sound credits, which go

539
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: to Robert Johnson and Evo Spougege in particular has a

540
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: ton of it's mostly check films, but he also worked

541
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: on a dus Um. Again, I think there were singling

542
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: out because the sound and folly work I thought was

543
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: was pretty incredible. There's a great deal of rooting around

544
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: in this film. Alice is constantly exploring drawers, cramped spaces,

545
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: and strange potentially dangerous objects. Reanimated and decaying taxidermide animals

546
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: are constantly doing the same thing. And so for the

547
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: you know, the whole film, in lieu of music, we

548
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: kind of have this ambient industrial soundscape of noises that

549
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: all there reminded me a lot of the Folly Work

550
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: and Planet of the Vampires. There's something kind of almost

551
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: hypnotic about it. There's almost kind of an A S. M. R. Effect.

552
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: At least that's the way I felt listening to these

553
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: various sound effects. Yeah, it's like what's happening on the screen.

554
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: Not only are you hearing the sound, but the sound

555
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: is like almost within you. It's like right around you.

556
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: It's it's it's much louder than it should be in

557
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: a realistic adaptation of what's happening on screen. But but no, no,

558
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: it works perfectly because it is not only is it

559
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: so important to a story with very little dialogue and

560
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: no music, but it's so important because these extra i'll

561
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: call them heightened noises match the heightened visuals perfectly. Like um,

562
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,719
Speaker 1: but like when these scissors clank, it is a rusty, dirty,

563
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: loud pair of scissors on screen and in your ear

564
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: that that they match. Yeah, it definitely helps bring the

565
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,959
Speaker 1: visuals to life. And I was also thinking about how

566
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 1: it's interesting that we have a film with again creatures

567
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: and things and sights and sets that that one might

568
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: be attempted to interprets creepy or even scary, But the

569
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: sounds in the film, the soundscape doesn't push you in

570
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: either direction. Like you could imagine a version of this

571
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: film where you have like ridiculous, cute, disarming music to

572
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: sort of say, hey, this white rabbit, it's not creepy,

573
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: listen because listen to the music. Or the other side

574
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: of that, of course, is really like, you know, turn

575
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: the wheel in the direction of the dark and have

576
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: something some creepy sound effects that make everything seem creepier

577
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: than they are. Instead, no, the the visuals are kind

578
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, left um unaugmented by music, and

579
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: you're I guess you're more inclined to sort of take

580
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: them at face value and also see them more purely

581
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: through the lens of how Alice interacts with them. And

582
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: I think it matches the subject matter and especially this

583
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: adaptation of the subject matter, very well, because I mean, ultimately,

584
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: the story of Alice in Wonderland is an internal story.

585
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: It's one individual girl, a lot of internal dialogue, a

586
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: lot a lot of running monologue with her, and it's

587
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: what she thinks, what she feels. It's all very internal

588
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: and in this adaptation, it's all also taking place more

589
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: or less in a single household. Therefore, it is it

590
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: does feel like an abandoned child old thinking to herself.

591
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: And if that's if that's the case, you don't have score.

592
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: It is a child thinking up everything by herself. That

593
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: it feels more accurately lonely to have no score. And

594
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: these heightens, you know, very imaginative sound effects. We mentioned

595
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: already that in these these bits of narration where Alice

596
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: says something like the Mad Hatter said, or Alice thought

597
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: to herself, we see her her lips, her mouth moving.

598
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much of this is a

599
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: product of like remastered film, uh, but but I think

600
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: this was intentional. Surely the lips are a little bit chapped,

601
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: the teeth are of course their children's teeth, as they're

602
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: a little bit crooked, they're they're a little bit stained.

603
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: And I feel like that kind of matches up with

604
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: this this idea that you just mentioned of like, um,

605
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: almost a wild child, a child that is that has

606
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: maybe not had as much parental uh supervision and attention

607
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: and therefore is retreating more into the imagined world. That

608
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: this is just purely anecdotal connections in my mind. But um,

609
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: there's this episode of Breaking Bad where Jesse is like

610
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: trying to be a tough guy. So he's gonna go

611
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: get his money that he's owed by so and so

612
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And when he gets there, there's this heartbreaking,

613
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: you know, little child who lives in squalor. And it's

614
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: just this, this this little boy is just by himself

615
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: making do with you know, no resources in a filthy

616
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: like hovel of a home. That's what it reminds me of.

617
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: With Alice, there is in many ways it does feel

618
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: like an abandoned child just making do with what she has. Yeah,

619
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: and that that that's not too belittle this, this poor

620
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: fictional child in Breaking Bad. My heart goes out for

621
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: that poor fictional child. All right, well, let's let's get

622
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 1: into the plot of Alice. So to begin with, Um,

623
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: this story begins just like the book does. And and

624
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: I guess I'll say in advance that basically the adaptation

625
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: is very close to the source material. There there are

626
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: big chunks that have been exercised and are just moved

627
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: without even mentioning that they've been removed. But for the

628
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: most part, if it happened in the book, it's adaptation

629
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: on screen is pretty similar. Obviously, the circumstances in which

630
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, adapted, are very different. You know

631
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: that there is no real world other than what happens

632
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: in this one kind of run down house. But but

633
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: but it's it's pretty accurate for one to one. So

634
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: the as the book begins, so do we. We begin

635
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: with Alice and her sister sitting along the river bank.

636
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: The sister is reading a book and Alice has a

637
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: bunch of rocks in her lap and she's throwing them

638
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: into the river one by one. I liked the detail,

639
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: and this made even more sense later when I was

640
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 1: reminded of some of the plot elements. But the sister's

641
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: face or head is never seen. We see her from

642
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: the She's just from the neck down, which which I

643
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: thought was nice because there's the sense like there's no

644
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: attention there for Alice. This is not someone who's regarding

645
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: Alice really as a as as a as a as

646
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 1: a human being, or or or or anything. But then

647
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: also of we have the whole off with their head

648
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,919
Speaker 1: thing later, which perhaps reflects this as well. So keep

649
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 1: this scene in mind, listeners, will We'll be back to

650
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: it in just a moment. But so my first thoughts

651
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: are that this is a very age appropriate Alice, which

652
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: I appreciate quite often Alice is depicted as quite a

653
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: bit older, which you know, I mean, we all have

654
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: childlike wonder in our lives. But I think the big

655
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: point with the Alice story is that she is literally

656
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 1: a child making do with a child's logic. And you know,

657
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: I mean like I've seen adaptations where, like, you know,

658
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:34,359
Speaker 1: an adult Kate Beck and Sale is playing Alice, which

659
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: is fun at all, but it just it's it's not

660
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: quite the same, you know what, When it's a legitimate

661
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: child child, I just think the story works better. And uh,

662
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: I also like that this this child isn't like cutesie precocious.

663
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: She's kind of bratty and kind of just like selfish

664
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: and like a fun realistic way, like she feels like

665
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:58,760
Speaker 1: a real child. So in this, you know, selfish brady

666
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: kind of a point of view. Are are our hero?

667
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 1: Alice is just reaching over starts playing with her sister's book,

668
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: just kind of like flipping the pages like a flip book,

669
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: and her sister reaches over and slaps her hand immediately

670
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: we get our first close up of Alice's mouth as

671
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: she says Alice thought to herself, and then we cut

672
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: to Alice as the title screen. Uh. Now we go

673
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: back to the Alice mouth and now here here's what

674
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: she says, which is just a wonderful way to start

675
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,879
Speaker 1: a film. Alice thought to herself, Now you will see

676
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 1: a film. And this just breaks the fourth wall immediately,

677
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: letting us all know that we're all on the same

678
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: page here. And uh, then these more title cards just

679
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: kind of interrupt Alice's speech as she's talking, and then

680
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: she says made for children perhaps, but I nearly forgot.

681
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: You must close your eyes otherwise you won't see anything.

682
00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: Great way to set up this story, keeping it kind

683
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 1: of non sensical, um, making sure that we know that

684
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: everyone's on board with being fantasy. That you get it.

685
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: It turned out great. Oh yeah, and as we mentioned

686
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: this internal dialogue verb description, it will continue for the

687
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: entire film, So anytime someone says or thinks or does anything,

688
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's coupled with Alice's close up mouth

689
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: saying Alice thought, Alice said, etcetera. And it Uh. I

690
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 1: liked how it gave it a formal, almost ritualistic air,

691
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: you know, like, um, you know, I get some sort

692
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:40,320
Speaker 1: of religious right that's taking place here, I guess it.

693
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: It also reminded me of refrains from works like you know,

694
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: quote The Raven Nevermore, that sort of thing, And it's

695
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 1: a great way to interpret. Like I said, what is

696
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: a very internal story. How how do you do that

697
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: without just simple voice you know, voice over, which is

698
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: kind of kind of the standard option. In fact, I

699
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: remember back when UM Walt Disney did their very famous

700
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. When they initially released it

701
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: to theaters, it failed, It was not as successful as

702
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: they wanted it to be. And when asked about it,

703
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: Walt Disney said, oh, well, it's too much of an

704
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: internal story. And he said it's also he also, I

705
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: think blamed Alice's lack of like proactive action taking. But

706
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: but ultimately it is despite the fact that is it's

707
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: adapted perpetually. It is kind of a hard thing to

708
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: adapt the internal monologue of of of this child, you know, yeah, yeah,

709
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 1: how do you how do you make or feel like

710
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 1: a full fledged character and not just this um, you know,

711
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: agentless observer of weird things, especially as most filmmakers consider

712
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: a voice over to be a lazy way. You know,

713
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,919
Speaker 1: it's it's it's telling, not showing. So that's that's that's tough.

714
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: So so now remember where we were. She was sitting

715
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: on the river banks with her sister. These opening credits

716
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: happened real quick, and now boom, Alice is now indoors.

717
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: We see some quick establishing shots panning around the room

718
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: at you know, it's decrepit nature, discarded apple cores, peeling wallpaper,

719
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: chip paint, old mouse traps. Uh. And then we see

720
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 1: these two very frightening old dolls sitting side by side,

721
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,240
Speaker 1: and one of the dolls has a lap full of rocks,

722
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: which now Alice is is picking up from the dolls

723
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: lap and tossing into a half drunk teacup. So there

724
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: we go, even this nice gentle opening of of of

725
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: river banks and sisters reading. No, it's just Alice by

726
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: herself with two dolls being alone, just just not really.

727
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 1: Just get used to it, folks, where we're gonna have

728
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:56,839
Speaker 1: a lot of Alice by herself using her imagination. So uh,

729
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: the only sound we were hearing right now is a

730
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,840
Speaker 1: loud ticket clock and it's just Alice sitting by herself

731
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 1: until until suddenly we hear a creaking off screen, so

732
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: Alice looks up to see what what what that sound is,

733
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 1: and there is a taxidermied white rabbit in sort of

734
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: like a glass diorama type situation with like you know,

735
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: it's scientific name labeled and all that stuff what you

736
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: would find in a museum or collector's home. And this

737
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: rabbit is has come to life and is struggling against

738
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: the nails holding it in position inside this class diorama. Yes, yes,

739
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: this scene is just fabulous. This is the one where

740
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 1: after I finished the film, I had to go back

741
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: and rewatch this film immediately because it's just so good

742
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: with like the every detail of this rabbit, from the

743
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: eyes to its you know, protruding teeth, to the the

744
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: way the way it deals with those little nails stuck

745
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: through its hand. And also again I'll probably drive this

746
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: home multiple times, but this scene is not as creepy

747
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: as as it may sound when we're just describing it.

748
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: There's a lot more whimsy and humor to it. And

749
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: when we refer to these taxidermied creatures, none of them

750
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: are done very well they all have that uncanny look

751
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 1: of something that's been poorly taxidermied. So keep that in

752
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: mind if you haven't seen this, like really bugged out

753
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: glass eyes. Yeah, too much, too much view, like the

754
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: teeth or to expose. Uh, most of them I think

755
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 1: are also visually falling apart, like they're stuffing coming out

756
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: of them and so forth. So, so the white rabbit

757
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: is struggling, struggling, struggling. He finally gets free, uh, and

758
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:42,240
Speaker 1: he pulls up, revealing two giant nails protruding from each palm.

759
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 1: So it reaches up with its giant rabbit teeth, bites

760
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: off the nails and spits them to the floor. And

761
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: then it pulls a drawer of clothing up from the

762
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: ground inside of the diorama. So already starting with that

763
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: that like you know, mythical Oh it's larger on the inside,

764
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:03,399
Speaker 1: kind of lodge now. Uh. It then gets dressed from

765
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: the clothing inside of the drawer. It takes a large

766
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: pair of scissors out of the drawer and then breaks

767
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,800
Speaker 1: the surrounding glass at the diorama to make an escape.

768
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: And this scene, too is just the stop motion work

769
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,399
Speaker 1: is tremendous, and the and the fantasy of the whole

770
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: thing is also splendid, Like all the details of like

771
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: pulling on the gloves, I love because you can you

772
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: clearly see it has it's it's a taxidermy rabbit, so

773
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 1: it has rabbits appendages. But as the glove comes on,

774
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: and the glove is is stretched fully on, it's able

775
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,439
Speaker 1: to then flex all the little fingers in the gloved hand.

776
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: And just every detail in this is so beautifully rendered.

777
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: Now no one calamity that has occurred, uh, will repeat

778
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: throughout the throughout the film. Is that in his attempts

779
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: to escape the this white rabbit has torn a little uh,

780
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: I guess, just a little fissure. I I don't know

781
00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: what to call it. He's got a little hole now

782
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: worn in his chest which is leaking um sawdust. That

783
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: this this will repeat many many times. That there are

784
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: a few repeating gags. That's one of them, for sure.

785
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: Another one which I won't draw too much attention to,

786
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,399
Speaker 1: but is is funny. Every time Alice tries to open

787
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: a drawer, the knob falls off. It's pointless, doesn't really

788
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: advance the story. It just contributes to our our character,

789
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: Alice falling on the ground often yeah, uh so, So

790
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 1: we get our first um oh dear, oh dear, I

791
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: shall be late from the white rabbit, but it's voiced

792
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: by Alice, and then once again we are treated to

793
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: another up close mouth shots of her explaining the white

794
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 1: rabbit said. The rabbit then runs off, and now the

795
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: room has magically expanded and we are now outdoors in

796
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 1: a giant, craggy dirt field with just a little uh

797
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: desk drawer sitting right in the middle. She goes up

798
00:44:57,640 --> 00:44:59,919
Speaker 1: to it, tries to take off the drawer. Of course,

799
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: the knob falls off, she falls down, She pries it open,

800
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: and then crawls through the drawer, once again showing that

801
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: we are in a mythical, magical world at this point.

802
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: If you're familiar with the Alice in Wonderland story, you

803
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: can more or less tell where we're headed at this point.

804
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: We're headed towards the Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

805
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: This whole scene kind of just mirrors that. We next

806
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: see the white rabbit eating a bowl full of sawdust,

807
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 1: presumably replenishing what has leaked out, But he has not

808
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: yet sown closed the the chest wound, so the sawdust

809
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,320
Speaker 1: just keeps pouring out as he eats it. Again, not

810
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: as creepy as it sounds, but you know, he's in

811
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: a hurry. He doesn't have time to just stop and

812
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: and and and pay a lot of attention to this

813
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: gaping hole in his chest. Better to just have a

814
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: quick snack of sawdust and then keep moving. He also

815
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 1: stores his pocket watch in this hole in his chest,

816
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,320
Speaker 1: so every time he takes it out, he has to

817
00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:01,439
Speaker 1: lick the sawdust off the front glass of his pocket watch. Yes,

818
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: white rabbit runs off, and then so Alice passes by

819
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,479
Speaker 1: the sawdust and I'll try that. She has a couple

820
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 1: of bites singing up. I don't like it, yeah her again.

821
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: Her childlike curiosity kind of gets her into trouble at times,

822
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: and he seemed to like it. Yeah, I like the

823
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:23,760
Speaker 1: rabbit is eating. I'm gonna try it. Or this looks

824
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: like jam, of course, I'm going to try and see

825
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: what it tastes like. So Alice then pulls a classic

826
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 1: sideshow bob move. She steps on an upturned rake. It

827
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 1: flings up and hits her in the face, and then

828
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: she falls backwards into a cooking pot, which then turns

829
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 1: into a portal which she then falls through, and we're

830
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: now in uh absolutely a a descending elevator scene which

831
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,839
Speaker 1: very closely mirrors the followed down a rabbit hole. Yeah,

832
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:53,919
Speaker 1: this is the one. Whether it's like she's going down

833
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: and they're all these just shelves of of things, right Like,

834
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: it's a lot of it looks like like very old

835
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: preserved foods, but also maybe preserve specimens, and then also

836
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: jars of like random dangerous looking crafting supplies. And then

837
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:17,239
Speaker 1: sometimes there's a merger of the two, like you see

838
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:19,439
Speaker 1: more than once in this film. You see what looks

839
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: like like bread like bagats or or and so forth

840
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: that have like nails emerging from them, or tax stuck

841
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: in that stuck in them. And this is where we

842
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: get something you mentioned before, which is one of my

843
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 1: favorite I supposed to give Joe Credit a rub the

844
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: fir moment Alice is descending in this elevator, she reaches

845
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: out and she grabs just a jar of marmalade off

846
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 1: a shelf as she passes, as she does in the

847
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: book as well, but unlike the book, she she examines

848
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 1: it and it's a jar of marmalade with a saran

849
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 1: wrap top. She takes her finger and all of this

850
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: is the sound design is wonderful, which takes her finger

851
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 1: punctures the suran rap brings up a big finger full

852
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,359
Speaker 1: of the marmalade, and there's a giant thumbtack on her

853
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: finger and it's just like wow, Like the the feelings

854
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 1: that you get from seeing this and and hearing this

855
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: is just out of this world. So so yeah, she

856
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: doesn't want this. Thankfully, she does not eat the thumb

857
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:17,320
Speaker 1: tac what are the few things she doesn't eat? And

858
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: then she puts it back on the shelf and we

859
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 1: can continue with our story. And this of course leads

860
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 1: to the the big hall of Doors scene where you know,

861
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 1: there's a key on a table and you know, she

862
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: she's first figuring out that she can be too big

863
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: and too small to eat me, drink me all that stuff. Now,

864
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: like we mentioned, uh, when she does change into a

865
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:43,359
Speaker 1: a small character, you know, like like it's often shown

866
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 1: in the book, she turns into a creepy old doll

867
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,919
Speaker 1: with with stop motion stuff. But instead of a little

868
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 1: you know, cherry cordial or whatever it is that that

869
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: is the drink that she drinks, it's a bottle of ink.

870
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: She just pops that cork drinks it down like I

871
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: she first she tests it, she dips her finger in

872
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: like said, oh, this is fine, and then she drinks

873
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: it so yeah that the drinking the bottle of ink

874
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: makes her shrink. Then she's gonna wants to go through

875
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:15,320
Speaker 1: this beautiful door to get to the big, beautiful garden

876
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: like from the book. But of course in this adaptation,

877
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 1: there is no beautiful garden. It's like a very small,

878
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 1: like almost like doll house exterior, kind of like it's

879
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 1: it's like a tiny little stage play diorama, that's what

880
00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: it looks like. But she sees the white rabbits and

881
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: there she wants to go there too. She doesn't have

882
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: the key, darnet now and you get big And then

883
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:40,799
Speaker 1: this is one of the first appearances of these very

884
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 1: creepy looking cakes that the traditional eat meat cake. And

885
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: I can't tell what it is. It looks kind of

886
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:50,959
Speaker 1: like minced meat, maybe caviare What did you think it was, Robert, Yeah,

887
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 1: I got kind of it's weird because on one, it

888
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 1: doesn't look inedible to me. Uh, it looks like maybe

889
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: there's some sort of a mincemeat or um or some

890
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,360
Speaker 1: sort of very brown, very type of thing, you know,

891
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 1: going on maybe ground dates. But then there's something on

892
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 1: top that I guess is a like a sliver of

893
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: a nut or something, perhaps, yeah, some sort of seed,

894
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 1: but it also kind of looks like a tooth, yes,

895
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: and it makes it look very strange. Yeah, But she

896
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: eats it, and of course she grows big. Now she

897
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 1: can reach the key, but now she's too big to

898
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: go through the door, etcetera, etcetera. Y'all know this story.

899
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,280
Speaker 1: But she starts to cry, and now she has cried

900
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: an entire ocean. Uh she she she shrinks down a

901
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 1: bit again. And now here's here's here's here's a wonderful part.

902
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: I absolutely love this if you know the book. Next up,

903
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 1: we get a mouse swim by in this giant ocean

904
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: of tears. Now this, this mouse has decided it's time

905
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 1: to rest, you know, trying to make some lunch. So

906
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:52,359
Speaker 1: it goes up to this island that it sees, which

907
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:54,800
Speaker 1: is Alice's head bobbing in the water. Not even like

908
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 1: discreetly bobbing, it's just a child's head. But no, no, no,

909
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:04,439
Speaker 1: the mouse crawls upon top, hammers steaks into her head

910
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:08,320
Speaker 1: and then sets up a hole. I mean, this is

911
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 1: a step by step process of this mouse setting up

912
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: a campfire, uh, setting up a meal, opening cans with

913
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 1: a tiny little can opener, dropping its little like cooking

914
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,280
Speaker 1: pot into the water, and bringing it up with a rope.

915
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: And Alice is just kind of watching, kind of bufuddled,

916
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: kind of curious this whole time. And then and then

917
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 1: the mouse reaches down with a little scythe and it

918
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: cuts some hair off from Alice's head, and it's about

919
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 1: to prepare a fire to cook its food on top

920
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:40,359
Speaker 1: of Alice's head. And this is when Alice goes, now

921
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: that's too far. Yeah, I mean she dunks in. Yeah,

922
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 1: everything else was fine, hammering steaks into my head and

923
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 1: all that's fine. But no, no, no, you're not starting

924
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 1: a fire with my hair. Please? Now was this base?

925
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 1: Was this particular part from the book? It is, except

926
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: it did not happen on top of her head. Basically,

927
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 1: she was in the Ocean of Tears. She was lost,

928
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:10,799
Speaker 1: swimming swimming, and a creature swims by and she thinks, oh,

929
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:12,759
Speaker 1: it's quite large. It must be like a dog or

930
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: a giant bear or something. And then she realizes it's

931
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 1: a mouse, and she's like, oh, I must be very small.

932
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:20,320
Speaker 1: Then the mouse guides her and this leads to the

933
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: caucus race scene in the book, where it's basically the

934
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 1: mouse explains what it's like to be a mouse, why

935
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 1: it's trouble, etcetera, etcetera. But so so he skips some

936
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,560
Speaker 1: of that. But yeah, yeah, the mouse making an island

937
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,439
Speaker 1: and cooking on her head is not from from the book. Yeah,

938
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 1: the steaks being your scalp boy, that was a real

939
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 1: That was one of the many moments in the film

940
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 1: where I was yelping a little bit. Even though she's

941
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:45,359
Speaker 1: she's she takes it in stride, she's not in terror

942
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: or anything. But I was like, uh, so, the the

943
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:53,400
Speaker 1: rabbits is now seen in this ocean after she has

944
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:56,879
Speaker 1: scared off the mouse. He's in a little rowboat, he's

945
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: got some cakes with him, etcetera. If you've never read

946
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: this story before, the whole book is her chasing this

947
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: white rabbit. It is this mcguffin that she has chosen

948
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: in her childlike mind that this is the goal. I

949
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 1: need to follow this white rabbit wherever it goes. I'm

950
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,800
Speaker 1: sure you all know that already. Um, But when she

951
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: sees the rabbit. The rabbit accidentally just like rows its

952
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: boat directly into her, and he drops a plate of

953
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: these cakes again, these weird dark brown, sticky seed toothcakes.

954
00:53:28,040 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: She eats one, she shrinks way down and then you

955
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: know it's it's it's it just it just continues from there.

956
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 1: Suddenly we are we are in a new scene. She's

957
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: come up on the shore and she finally gets out

958
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 1: that door and gets to where she's going. Now the

959
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:45,359
Speaker 1: white rabbit, just like in the book, sees her and goes, hey,

960
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 1: Mary Anne, because because the white rabbit has confused her

961
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 1: for the servants, now that she has shrunk down to

962
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: his his height. Uh now in the book, he goes,

963
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: please get me my fan and gloves. But no, no,

964
00:53:56,920 --> 00:54:00,320
Speaker 1: this is a much scarier adaptation. Go fed me a

965
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 1: new pair of scissors because he lost his during the

966
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 1: the Ocean of Tears seen. So she does, and oh no,

967
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: this this house, it's it's a bit like a house

968
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:15,040
Speaker 1: of blocks that that on on the exterior, very beautiful.

969
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 1: Everything will be made of just things found around the

970
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 1: house throughout this whole story. But um, inside the house

971
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 1: are just weird skeleton monstrosities. Um like I guess these

972
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: aren't really in the house. They're mostly around the exterior.

973
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 1: But there are fish heads with big goggly taxes, dr

974
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,880
Speaker 1: me eyes and little feet from another creature. There's like

975
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: a taxidermied alligator with giant rodent skulls instead of alligator schools.

976
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: These are all the um uh, if we're again, if

977
00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:47,800
Speaker 1: we're looking to the books, these are the other servants

978
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 1: that work for the White Rabbit. There's a bill, a handyman.

979
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: There's a few others of some guinea pigs, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah,

980
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:58,839
Speaker 1: this is a fabulous, fabulous sequence where we basically get

981
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: a siege scene. Alice is inside the toy house and

982
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: the White Rabbit and the various reanimated minions of the

983
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: White Rabbit are trying to get inside, and there's a

984
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 1: lot of wonderful, strange stuff that happens, like at one point,

985
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:16,880
Speaker 1: the white rabbits climbing up a ladder with a with

986
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: a saw and acts like he's gonna I guess I'll

987
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: saw her arm off, and she's like, no get away,

988
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 1: and she's wats him down and he falls through a

989
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:29,239
Speaker 1: plate of glass. It's just wonderful. Of course, Alice is

990
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:32,239
Speaker 1: changing in size perpetually throughout this scene as she is

991
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:36,720
Speaker 1: want to do so. So the siege continues, and Rabbit

992
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: officially sends up a bill um. In the books, he

993
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:42,840
Speaker 1: is a lizard. In our adaptation, he is an alligator

994
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 1: with a rodent skull, and to climb up the roof

995
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: and go down the chimney. Alice shooes him away. He

996
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: falls and gets hurt. And then this is just an

997
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 1: odd little, you know, tableau that we see here. Can

998
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 1: you describe it? Rob Oh? Yeah? They so he gets

999
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:02,479
Speaker 1: the gator eat your bill here, gets his torso ripped

1000
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: open a bit, and of course sawdust comes out, spills out,

1001
00:56:06,040 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 1: and so the all the animals stop the siege. Mint

1002
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: for a minute. They stopped the siege, and they starts

1003
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:15,920
Speaker 1: like trying to re stuff him, to revive him. At

1004
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 1: one point they have a uh, they have like a

1005
00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 1: funnel in his mouth and they're pouring sawdust in it.

1006
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: You know, gotta gotta try and and resuscitate him here.

1007
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: But it's a prolonged sequence. It also feels like semi

1008
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:29,360
Speaker 1: religious because maybe it's sort of the way that the

1009
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: bill is laid across the white Rabbit's knee I think

1010
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 1: kind of like Mary holding the body of Christ after

1011
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: the crucifixion. Yeah, no, I I thought the same things.

1012
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's very sweet and very strange the

1013
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: whole time. But but I love a couple of little

1014
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:51,319
Speaker 1: animation choices, like, for example, when Bill is stretched out

1015
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:54,360
Speaker 1: being being fed the news sawdust and having his stomach

1016
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:58,960
Speaker 1: stitched up, we see Bill's skeleton eyes blink several times,

1017
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:02,719
Speaker 1: communicating to us the viewer, Oh, Bill's fine. This isn't

1018
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: like a grotesque stitching up of a dead creature. No, no, no,

1019
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:08,879
Speaker 1: this is live. Bill is fine, and he's just being

1020
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 1: helped by the White rabbits. Yeah. So many little little

1021
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 1: touches like that that add that little element of whimsy

1022
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: that keeps the sequence from straying too far into like

1023
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: the weird and potentially dark, keeping it within that realm

1024
00:57:23,640 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: of wonder. So Alice at this current moment is now

1025
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: in her shrunken doll state. She has escaped to the

1026
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:42,280
Speaker 1: White Rabbit's house, and now she is running away from

1027
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: this gang of skeleton monsters. Uh. In this pursuit, she

1028
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 1: falls into a vat of I'm gonna call it milk,

1029
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: but it's a milk like substance, whatever it may be.

1030
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: And immediately she regrows to her full human height, but

1031
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: oddly and amazingly, she has an incredibly creepy doll mask

1032
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: over her human face, which is just shocking to see. Yeah,

1033
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: you see her eyes, her her human eyes staring out

1034
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: of it. So it's this, it's like a costume doll

1035
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 1: death mask. And then we get we get this scene

1036
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 1: where it what it what it falls down into the

1037
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 1: or they what they kind of intumbate within a closet, right, Yeah,

1038
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 1: because when she grows up into this doll creature whatever

1039
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 1: it is that she turned into, inexplicably she's fully paralyzed.

1040
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 1: So this skeleton gang has the opportunity to kind of

1041
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:40,479
Speaker 1: um oh Guliver's travel style knock over. The giants tie

1042
00:58:40,560 --> 00:58:42,680
Speaker 1: her up and drag her, and they lock her in

1043
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: a closet. Why most of this is happening, I don't know,

1044
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:48,560
Speaker 1: but it makes sense. You see a monster, you lock

1045
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 1: it up in the closet. But then she emerges, she

1046
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:54,080
Speaker 1: breaks out of this thing, and uh, and it's another

1047
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,800
Speaker 1: great sequence because of course she's dressed inside the sarcophagus,

1048
00:58:57,880 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 1: She's dressed like the certain the doll on the outside

1049
00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: of the sarcophagus. So it's it's really weird. It's so strange.

1050
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 1: Just yeah, it's like she was a cocoon and her

1051
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 1: exterior was her, but now she's inside of her, crawling

1052
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 1: out of her. It's beautifully done. Very strange. What one

1053
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 1: one of the otter shots in this whole thing. Uh. So,

1054
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:22,640
Speaker 1: now that she's locked in the closet, she looks around

1055
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what she can do to to

1056
00:59:25,840 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: perhaps get out or just hey where am i? And

1057
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: she sees a lot of strange things. Uh. There are

1058
00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 1: a bunch of look like chickens eggs, but when they hatch,

1059
00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:40,200
Speaker 1: these little eggs are are bringing forth exclusively skulls, and

1060
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:44,040
Speaker 1: they crawl around and chomp around a bit. It's beautiful. Uh.

1061
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 1: We see some of that nail bread and we can

1062
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 1: see some stop motion bread that she picks up, uh,

1063
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:53,800
Speaker 1: like growing nails, which is beautiful. She'll open a can

1064
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:56,720
Speaker 1: with a can opener and it'll be full of cockroaches.

1065
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's full of giant cockroaches. That was as

1066
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: a bit much. Then there'll be a jar with a

1067
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: raw meats tongue just kind of flopping about the raw

1068
01:00:07,040 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 1: meats animation is some of the more grotesque in this thing.

1069
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:14,840
Speaker 1: And yet and yet it's it's not like attacking or

1070
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:17,040
Speaker 1: threatening and just kind of doing its own going about

1071
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:18,920
Speaker 1: its own business. So it's not as weird as the

1072
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 1: I think there's a crawling steak scene and Poultergeist, if

1073
01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 1: memory serves right, Yeah, it's it's it's whimsical still, And

1074
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 1: ultimately she finds a sardine can, opens it up with

1075
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 1: exerdine can opener, and there's a key inside. Good, you know,

1076
01:00:34,480 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: So this is what she's been rooting around for. Apparently

1077
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:38,960
Speaker 1: she knew there was a key here somewhere. She's found it,

1078
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:42,480
Speaker 1: and I love how she quite unnecessarily once she removes

1079
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: the key from the sardine can, it's dripping with oil

1080
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:49,560
Speaker 1: or water probably I'm I'm assuming sardine oil is dripping

1081
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:51,880
Speaker 1: from that key before she sticks it in the door

1082
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: to try it out, though, she licks it and she

1083
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 1: kind of makes a face like, look that tasted a

1084
01:00:55,760 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 1: little gross, and I was like, nobody told you to

1085
01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 1: do that, Alice, why don't you the key? Very believable

1086
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: child moment. Yeah, let's see so Alice then then exits

1087
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:10,160
Speaker 1: the closet and just continues to search for this white rabbit.

1088
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:12,240
Speaker 1: She's going from room to room trying to find things.

1089
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:17,320
Speaker 1: She enters a room with these giant holes just board

1090
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:20,840
Speaker 1: through the wooden floorboards, just peppering all over the floor,

1091
01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:23,680
Speaker 1: as if a rodent, you know, a giant rodent has

1092
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: dug them out, or like like giant cartoonish termites. Yeah,

1093
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:31,160
Speaker 1: but then we see socks burrowing and undulating through the

1094
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: holes as if they're like a sea serpent or worm,

1095
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 1: and it's it's wild. Yeah. I was a little afraid

1096
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: that we were going to see underneath those socks and

1097
01:01:40,960 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some sort of hideous worm creature, but

1098
01:01:43,960 --> 01:01:46,360
Speaker 1: it's ultimately revealed. I guess that they're full of air

1099
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 1: or nothing at all, because there's a scene where she

1100
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:51,919
Speaker 1: inflates a sock and then it crawls off like a worm.

1101
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: It's true. I appreciates that, Um, a sock moving like

1102
01:01:57,520 --> 01:01:59,600
Speaker 1: a worm is as gross as it gets there. There

1103
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:04,840
Speaker 1: is there is no extra skeleton inside or anything. And

1104
01:02:04,920 --> 01:02:07,680
Speaker 1: then this is actually one of my favorite moments because

1105
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:10,240
Speaker 1: because I would say, this whole movie, you're basically just

1106
01:02:10,320 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: like waiting for like, oh, how are they going to

1107
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:13,920
Speaker 1: do this scene like like like like what what what

1108
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:17,400
Speaker 1: elements from just sitting around an old dilapidated house are

1109
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: you going to cobble together to create this scene? And

1110
01:02:20,600 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 1: that this one, to me, I think is one of

1111
01:02:22,360 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 1: the more successful and one of the creepier. Uh so

1112
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 1: uh one of these socks, a pair of dentures and

1113
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: a couple of taxidermy eyes kind of cobble themselves together

1114
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: and they become the famous caterpillar from the Alice in Wonderland,

1115
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 1: and it sits on a darning block. I don't know

1116
01:02:40,280 --> 01:02:41,920
Speaker 1: if most people knows what these are. Basically, if you're

1117
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 1: trying to fix a sock, you put like the sock

1118
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 1: over like these like wooden kind of like shape that

1119
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 1: way it's stretched out and you can like sew it's

1120
01:02:49,320 --> 01:02:52,640
Speaker 1: shut to to repair a sock. So yeah, it's it's

1121
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:55,439
Speaker 1: kind of shaped like a mushroom. So the darning block

1122
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 1: kind of sits up like a mushroom and then the

1123
01:02:57,720 --> 01:02:59,800
Speaker 1: sock sits on top of it to be like, ah,

1124
01:03:00,200 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 1: you know, hello, Alice, let's have our dialogue. I'm glad

1125
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:06,360
Speaker 1: you explained this because I I had no idea what

1126
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: this object was other than oh, it looks like a

1127
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 1: wooden mushroom, and then of course it serves as the

1128
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:15,560
Speaker 1: mushroom for this tableau for the caterpillar. But I had

1129
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:18,000
Speaker 1: no idea that that's this is object had a practical

1130
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:21,400
Speaker 1: real world application. Yeah, yes, yeah, if the listeners don't

1131
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:22,760
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Picture kind of like a

1132
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 1: door knob, but made of wood and looking like a mushroom. Yeah,

1133
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:30,280
Speaker 1: it's like a darning block for for sewing socks. So,

1134
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:32,560
Speaker 1: as we know in the story next up, the caterpillar

1135
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:35,000
Speaker 1: tells her that one side will make her grow larger,

1136
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: one side might could grow smaller. Now of the books

1137
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:40,480
Speaker 1: and other adaptations, this is just a mushroom, so you

1138
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:42,560
Speaker 1: can just pull us pull a little bit off. But no, no, no,

1139
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 1: this is a piece of wood. So Alice gets out

1140
01:03:46,240 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: her her scissors and big loud chomp chomp on each

1141
01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:54,880
Speaker 1: side cuts off these little I guess uh, an exaggerated splinter,

1142
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: a hunk of wood, something around the sides of like

1143
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 1: a pencil, maybe smaller than that, like a golf pencil

1144
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:04,720
Speaker 1: worth of of, like a wooden splinter. So then that

1145
01:04:04,800 --> 01:04:07,680
Speaker 1: the caterpillar goes to sleep by sewing its eyes shut

1146
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 1: with a needle and thread, and then we continue Alice

1147
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:14,560
Speaker 1: uh takes a couple of steps outside and she wants

1148
01:04:14,600 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 1: to test these mushroom bits a k a. Giant splinters

1149
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 1: of wood, so she takes a little bite of one,

1150
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: and this I think is one of the more beautiful

1151
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 1: adaptations of her growing and shrinking. What it does is

1152
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:30,960
Speaker 1: instead of the character Alice getting large and small, which

1153
01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 1: we've seen many times. At this point, there are a

1154
01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 1: bunch of trees sitting in like little Christmas tree stands outside,

1155
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 1: and when she takes a bite of one, we see

1156
01:04:39,040 --> 01:04:41,640
Speaker 1: them all shoot to the sky or shrink all the

1157
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 1: way down to saplings. And this is her doing a

1158
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 1: little trial and air to see which piece of mushroom

1159
01:04:46,720 --> 01:04:48,840
Speaker 1: makes her big and which which piece makes her small.

1160
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 1: And so there now she has a solution to this

1161
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:55,680
Speaker 1: our Our next scene is with the Duchess. Alice is

1162
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:59,760
Speaker 1: walking and she sees a taxidermied fish and it's a

1163
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:02,840
Speaker 1: there to deliver a letter, and as we find out,

1164
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:05,400
Speaker 1: it's an invitation to a croquet game. So she goes

1165
01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 1: to the that the fish, goes to the Duchess's door

1166
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:10,760
Speaker 1: and delivers it to a taxi dermied frog This, to

1167
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:14,040
Speaker 1: me is the one scary moment in this movie when

1168
01:05:14,120 --> 01:05:16,360
Speaker 1: that door slams open and we get our first like

1169
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:19,080
Speaker 1: jump scared, look at the Texas dermaed frog. I don't

1170
01:05:19,120 --> 01:05:21,320
Speaker 1: know what it is, but it's just shocking, and I

1171
01:05:21,680 --> 01:05:24,400
Speaker 1: think they intended it that way. Yeah, this is also

1172
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:28,080
Speaker 1: this whole sequence also has a lot of um of

1173
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:31,200
Speaker 1: baby crying in it, like that's the that's the soundscape

1174
01:05:31,200 --> 01:05:33,200
Speaker 1: that we have going on here, which of course fits

1175
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:35,440
Speaker 1: the scene. It's not like it was just put in

1176
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:40,560
Speaker 1: here to make us feel uneasy, but it did add

1177
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:42,680
Speaker 1: to the uneasiness of the scene. I think, like, you

1178
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 1: can't have that much baby crying in your film and

1179
01:05:46,200 --> 01:05:48,600
Speaker 1: it not unnerved the viewer a bit. I mean, we're

1180
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 1: just hardwired to feel on edge when you're presented with that. Now,

1181
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:55,760
Speaker 1: especially and I will say that this is a moment

1182
01:05:56,360 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 1: when the book deviates from from what has been adapted here.

1183
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:03,400
Speaker 1: Uh in the book versions. I'm sure most of you know,

1184
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:07,640
Speaker 1: the Duchess is inside and she's dealing to this small baby.

1185
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:10,439
Speaker 1: But the baby is getting like pepper in its face

1186
01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 1: from the cook making some soup in the background. So

1187
01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:16,560
Speaker 1: the baby is sneezing and crying and very upset. And

1188
01:06:16,640 --> 01:06:20,080
Speaker 1: then the cook just keeps throwing cutlery and plates and

1189
01:06:20,160 --> 01:06:22,520
Speaker 1: dishes and pots and pans at Alice, just to be like,

1190
01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:25,439
Speaker 1: get out of here, go away. So so we hear

1191
01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 1: the din going on inside, all the shaking and plates

1192
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:32,960
Speaker 1: and cutlery being thrown around. But when Alice opens the

1193
01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:36,080
Speaker 1: door to go inside, it's just the white rabbit and

1194
01:06:36,120 --> 01:06:38,480
Speaker 1: a baby. So, at least for me, this is kind

1195
01:06:38,520 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 1: of shocking because it's like, no, no, no, this is

1196
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:42,000
Speaker 1: not how this story goes. Oh, I need to be

1197
01:06:42,080 --> 01:06:44,560
Speaker 1: on my toes. This isn't really going to follow what

1198
01:06:44,720 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 1: I expect to happen. Uh. Now, so it's been the

1199
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:52,440
Speaker 1: rabbit throwing the plates and cups and all those things, which, uh,

1200
01:06:53,480 --> 01:06:56,640
Speaker 1: you know, it's still scary. She runs away, she has

1201
01:06:56,680 --> 01:06:58,840
Speaker 1: the baby, and then the baby turns into a pig,

1202
01:06:59,360 --> 01:07:01,720
Speaker 1: just like from the book. Look that that the pig

1203
01:07:01,840 --> 01:07:05,560
Speaker 1: runs away. There we are, yeah, and thankfully the baby

1204
01:07:05,680 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 1: this the sound of a crying baby becomes predominantly the

1205
01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:10,760
Speaker 1: sound of a squealing pig, which is easier to take,

1206
01:07:11,080 --> 01:07:16,200
Speaker 1: yes and cuter, I would say, yeah. Then uh we

1207
01:07:16,360 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 1: move on to probably the most famous scene from the story.

1208
01:07:20,320 --> 01:07:22,440
Speaker 1: Of Alice in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter scene at the

1209
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 1: mad Tea party. Uh, here's how they adapted it. Basically,

1210
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:30,720
Speaker 1: there's a very creepy wooden marionette of the Mad Hatter,

1211
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 1: which is one of the more human elements we've seen

1212
01:07:33,440 --> 01:07:36,960
Speaker 1: in this story so far. And the march Hare is

1213
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:41,320
Speaker 1: a very filthy wind up stuffed toy of a rabbit.

1214
01:07:41,680 --> 01:07:43,400
Speaker 1: So no, no, no, no taxed on me for this

1215
01:07:43,520 --> 01:07:45,840
Speaker 1: rabbit it is. It is a stuffed toy and of

1216
01:07:45,960 --> 01:07:50,680
Speaker 1: course very dirty. Yeah. The scene is of course very mad,

1217
01:07:51,000 --> 01:07:53,400
Speaker 1: and all the things you'd expect happen in it. Um

1218
01:07:53,600 --> 01:07:57,320
Speaker 1: wow wow. So many times do they just kind of

1219
01:07:57,360 --> 01:08:00,160
Speaker 1: like go in this loop, starting with the march Hair

1220
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 1: putting butter in a watch and then he attaches the

1221
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:05,600
Speaker 1: watch to the Mad Hatter. The Mad Hatter drinks tea.

1222
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:07,760
Speaker 1: We see out the back that that that the t

1223
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:10,160
Speaker 1: is just pouring down his empty hole and out the

1224
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:13,720
Speaker 1: back of this of this marionette puppet, and then they

1225
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 1: need clean cups. They moved down, repeat, repeat, repeat, It

1226
01:08:17,360 --> 01:08:21,200
Speaker 1: just goes and goes. Yeah, this sequence goes on for

1227
01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:23,920
Speaker 1: a while. This was for the most part, even though

1228
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:26,920
Speaker 1: this film has again kind of a subdued pacing to it.

1229
01:08:27,400 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 1: It's not going to have it's his you know, art

1230
01:08:29,640 --> 01:08:34,320
Speaker 1: film pacing as opposed to modern child cinema pacing. But

1231
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:36,040
Speaker 1: but for the most part, I feel like there's not

1232
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,479
Speaker 1: a dull moment in the whole piece. There's always something

1233
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 1: interesting to look at. This one this one scene maybe

1234
01:08:42,120 --> 01:08:44,280
Speaker 1: goes on a little too long for my taste. I

1235
01:08:44,320 --> 01:08:49,360
Speaker 1: could have maybe done with just like six pocket watches

1236
01:08:49,439 --> 01:08:52,600
Speaker 1: being buttered and not like eight pocket watches buttered. But

1237
01:08:53,160 --> 01:08:55,960
Speaker 1: it's still it's still excellent. I I don't I don't

1238
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:58,360
Speaker 1: want to trash on it. Yeah, and I think it

1239
01:08:58,400 --> 01:09:00,519
Speaker 1: does a good job of kind of um, you know,

1240
01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:03,439
Speaker 1: in a very simple, subdued way, talking about you know

1241
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:06,840
Speaker 1: how uh you know, the the repetition of actions and

1242
01:09:07,040 --> 01:09:11,000
Speaker 1: and and basically having this insanity be very practical and

1243
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:15,400
Speaker 1: then this storytelling. But yeah, no it works. But you're right,

1244
01:09:15,640 --> 01:09:20,040
Speaker 1: it is definitely repetitive on purpose. And we see a

1245
01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:22,400
Speaker 1: quick shot of the dormouse, but in this he is

1246
01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:24,720
Speaker 1: not a dormouse. He is a fox stole, or at

1247
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:26,840
Speaker 1: least what I presume as a fox, some sort of

1248
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:30,160
Speaker 1: like you know, the kind of wrap that a fancy

1249
01:09:30,200 --> 01:09:33,400
Speaker 1: person would wear made of fur. Um, it's not a

1250
01:09:33,479 --> 01:09:36,800
Speaker 1: drunk little sleepy mouse that's cute like like we see

1251
01:09:36,800 --> 01:09:39,519
Speaker 1: in the Disney animated version. It is a pealth of

1252
01:09:39,640 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 1: some kind that crawls around on the table and licks

1253
01:09:42,360 --> 01:09:47,519
Speaker 1: out the teacups. Yeah. Um, moving on. Next, of course,

1254
01:09:47,760 --> 01:09:50,080
Speaker 1: Alice leaves this party. It's it's too mad for her.

1255
01:09:50,200 --> 01:09:52,080
Speaker 1: She is, she's not a fan of this. Uh. The

1256
01:09:52,120 --> 01:09:54,800
Speaker 1: white rabbit passes by and she chases after it, and

1257
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:58,080
Speaker 1: this brings us to the croquet scene, another very famous scene.

1258
01:09:58,479 --> 01:10:02,879
Speaker 1: Now I love this because it's the most practical adaptation visually.

1259
01:10:03,320 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: All of the cards from this scene are cards. They

1260
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:09,240
Speaker 1: are cut out, they are they are puppeted with like

1261
01:10:09,280 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: a little just like you know, little brads. They're all

1262
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,439
Speaker 1: two dimensional, very flat. It's it's it's it's a great

1263
01:10:15,120 --> 01:10:19,679
Speaker 1: adaptation with this. And of course, since um the Queen

1264
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:22,280
Speaker 1: of hearts big order that she says when she's upset,

1265
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 1: off with their heads, they can actually come off because

1266
01:10:26,479 --> 01:10:29,920
Speaker 1: these are paper cards and Um, in the book, we

1267
01:10:29,960 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 1: never actually see anyone beheaded. It's like it's like understood

1268
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:35,320
Speaker 1: that she always says, go behead these people, but they

1269
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:37,680
Speaker 1: never actually kill anyone. She just forgets about it and

1270
01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:41,160
Speaker 1: moves on with her life. We see the executioner, which

1271
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:43,479
Speaker 1: is the White Rabbit, pull out these giant scissors that

1272
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:46,640
Speaker 1: he's been hauling around this whole movie. That's that's his

1273
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:49,599
Speaker 1: execution device. He cuts off the heads of these cards

1274
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:52,720
Speaker 1: and they they are they are lifeless after the heads

1275
01:10:52,760 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 1: are gone. Yeah. Yeah, he snips a number of paper

1276
01:10:56,160 --> 01:11:00,800
Speaker 1: heads off and sometimes not paper heads, but he jumps

1277
01:11:00,800 --> 01:11:04,040
Speaker 1: in there and execute um. So we move on to,

1278
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:08,080
Speaker 1: of course, the famous actual croquet game. Uh the the

1279
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:12,040
Speaker 1: the flamingos are start off as cards, of course, and

1280
01:11:12,360 --> 01:11:16,160
Speaker 1: the hedgehogs that are being hit around his balls are

1281
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:19,360
Speaker 1: these little pin cushions, Like, oh, great, great choice. But

1282
01:11:19,520 --> 01:11:22,080
Speaker 1: then things are things are starting to turn wild. Things

1283
01:11:22,120 --> 01:11:24,320
Speaker 1: are starting to get a little weird as they do

1284
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:27,840
Speaker 1: towards the end of a story. The flamingos have suddenly

1285
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:31,960
Speaker 1: turned into real live chickens jumping around and are causing

1286
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:35,479
Speaker 1: mayhem in what has been a a very no no,

1287
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:39,599
Speaker 1: only Alice is alive here reality. Suddenly we have live chickens,

1288
01:11:40,040 --> 01:11:42,680
Speaker 1: and then the pin cushions turned into real hedgehogs. Now

1289
01:11:42,720 --> 01:11:45,719
Speaker 1: they're crawling around and it's it's it's it's a little

1290
01:11:46,040 --> 01:11:48,600
Speaker 1: um surprising, a little baffling, but but but you go

1291
01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:51,880
Speaker 1: along with it. And then I love this part because

1292
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 1: it's just some very subtle commentary but very good. Uh.

1293
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 1: The White Rabbit then walks up to Alice and gives

1294
01:11:57,520 --> 01:11:59,639
Speaker 1: her a script, and it's like quick, now it's time

1295
01:11:59,680 --> 01:12:03,720
Speaker 1: for the try. All let's go, and so Alice is

1296
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 1: supposed to learn her parts, uh for her participation in

1297
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 1: this trial. Now there's a seat maybe skipping head. But

1298
01:12:11,800 --> 01:12:14,599
Speaker 1: there's also a scene here where we see the mad

1299
01:12:14,680 --> 01:12:17,680
Speaker 1: Hatter in the march Hare again playing cards, right, and

1300
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:21,599
Speaker 1: their their execution is ordered. White Rabbit jumps in cuts

1301
01:12:21,680 --> 01:12:24,599
Speaker 1: their heads off, but then their bodies are still alive,

1302
01:12:25,040 --> 01:12:27,720
Speaker 1: and they reach around and they find, of course the

1303
01:12:27,800 --> 01:12:30,479
Speaker 1: wrong head, and they put the wrong heat on top

1304
01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:33,439
Speaker 1: of their body. So now we have the the march

1305
01:12:33,520 --> 01:12:36,920
Speaker 1: Hare's body with the mad Hatter's head and vice versa.

1306
01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:39,880
Speaker 1: And then they just continue playing cards, much like the

1307
01:12:39,960 --> 01:12:43,720
Speaker 1: logic of Bill being sewn up while blinking. It's it's

1308
01:12:43,760 --> 01:12:49,640
Speaker 1: like none, everybody's fine, you know. Uh. So the the

1309
01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:55,360
Speaker 1: trial happens, who stole the Queen's tarts? Alice is stubborn

1310
01:12:55,439 --> 01:12:57,439
Speaker 1: and doesn't want to go along with the script. She's

1311
01:12:57,439 --> 01:13:00,519
Speaker 1: trying to use logic on them and spell out nobody

1312
01:13:00,640 --> 01:13:03,360
Speaker 1: is guilty. That the charts are right there, and of

1313
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:07,719
Speaker 1: course these are the very ugly uh seed tooth brown

1314
01:13:08,160 --> 01:13:11,960
Speaker 1: gunky tarts that we've seen throughout this story. And uh,

1315
01:13:12,400 --> 01:13:15,800
Speaker 1: she wakes up just just like it goes. Alice wakes up,

1316
01:13:16,160 --> 01:13:20,120
Speaker 1: but she's still in her dingy, dirty old house. That

1317
01:13:20,280 --> 01:13:23,560
Speaker 1: part wasn't a dream, and um, some of the artifacts

1318
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:27,000
Speaker 1: from her dream still remain here in this what we

1319
01:13:27,080 --> 01:13:30,519
Speaker 1: presume is a real real life for her. Um, the

1320
01:13:31,200 --> 01:13:34,439
Speaker 1: rabbit terrarium where the taxidermy white rabbit was is still broken,

1321
01:13:34,560 --> 01:13:36,880
Speaker 1: and the white rabbit is still gone. The nails that

1322
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:39,880
Speaker 1: he bit off with his rabbit teeth are still sitting there. Uh,

1323
01:13:39,960 --> 01:13:43,160
Speaker 1: the drawer still exists, and there's a pair of scissors

1324
01:13:43,520 --> 01:13:46,960
Speaker 1: in this drawer inside this terrarium, the rabbit scissors. So

1325
01:13:47,080 --> 01:13:49,600
Speaker 1: Alice picks up the scissors, and as a as a

1326
01:13:49,680 --> 01:13:53,200
Speaker 1: final line, we have Alice saying he's late as usual.

1327
01:13:53,760 --> 01:13:56,519
Speaker 1: I think I'll cut his head off, thought Alice to herself,

1328
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:01,000
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much. Yeah, that's like credits. Yeah, and

1329
01:14:01,200 --> 01:14:03,200
Speaker 1: it really does set up that no, this is just

1330
01:14:03,320 --> 01:14:06,360
Speaker 1: all in her mind. She is, she is every one

1331
01:14:06,400 --> 01:14:08,800
Speaker 1: of these creatures. And in fact, there's a visual moment

1332
01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:10,920
Speaker 1: to that, kind of a company's that that's very beautiful.

1333
01:14:11,240 --> 01:14:13,639
Speaker 1: When she's waking up from her dream, there's this moment

1334
01:14:13,760 --> 01:14:15,840
Speaker 1: where she's kind of thrashing her head back and forth,

1335
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:20,080
Speaker 1: and her head transforms into each of the creatures briefly,

1336
01:14:20,240 --> 01:14:23,000
Speaker 1: you know, Queen of Hearts for a moment, Matt Hatter

1337
01:14:23,080 --> 01:14:25,360
Speaker 1: for a moment, White Rabbit for a moment right before

1338
01:14:25,439 --> 01:14:28,240
Speaker 1: she wakes up, Just just quick visual cue. And then

1339
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:30,479
Speaker 1: coupled with this line of I think I'll cut his

1340
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:33,439
Speaker 1: head off something, the you know, the Queen of Hearts

1341
01:14:33,479 --> 01:14:37,240
Speaker 1: would say, we go, okay, this is just a very imaginative,

1342
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:41,840
Speaker 1: imaginative girl, that this is the world she's creating. Are

1343
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:44,280
Speaker 1: we still in that world? Because look, here's still a

1344
01:14:44,360 --> 01:14:48,320
Speaker 1: drawer inside a you know, a terrarium where a drawer

1345
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:51,479
Speaker 1: would not fit. And again, this is not as dark

1346
01:14:51,520 --> 01:14:55,120
Speaker 1: as a nice it's really it's it's not played for darkness.

1347
01:14:55,200 --> 01:14:57,320
Speaker 1: The music that plays at the very end is is

1348
01:14:57,520 --> 01:15:01,680
Speaker 1: actually more light and wins the cole really one of

1349
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:06,280
Speaker 1: the few against a few touches of emotional manipulation by

1350
01:15:06,320 --> 01:15:08,320
Speaker 1: the music. But but even then, it doesn't feel like

1351
01:15:08,400 --> 01:15:12,639
Speaker 1: it's really augmenting the existing trajectory of the scene. It's

1352
01:15:12,800 --> 01:15:15,880
Speaker 1: it's there's nothing creepy about Alice saying, well, I'm gonna

1353
01:15:15,880 --> 01:15:18,080
Speaker 1: go cut that rabbit's head off now or what or whatever.

1354
01:15:18,200 --> 01:15:20,760
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's presented with this kind of

1355
01:15:20,960 --> 01:15:24,240
Speaker 1: you know, childlike imaginative wonder. I think now that we

1356
01:15:24,360 --> 01:15:27,840
Speaker 1: have wrapped up this story a really good elevator pitch

1357
01:15:27,880 --> 01:15:29,640
Speaker 1: since we've said it so many times, it's not as

1358
01:15:29,680 --> 01:15:34,400
Speaker 1: creepy as it seems. Yeah, but not uncreepy. Like if

1359
01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:38,639
Speaker 1: you like, if the idea of creepy stop motion animation

1360
01:15:38,720 --> 01:15:41,720
Speaker 1: appeals to you, you will love this film. There's a

1361
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:44,759
Speaker 1: lot to love in it. But if if you're afraid

1362
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:48,840
Speaker 1: of of creepy stop motion animation going too far, well

1363
01:15:49,120 --> 01:15:51,680
Speaker 1: this film will probably not be going too far for

1364
01:15:51,840 --> 01:15:54,960
Speaker 1: you unless you have a very low threshold. Yeah, yeah,

1365
01:15:55,000 --> 01:15:57,879
Speaker 1: fully agree. It's uh and I I just find it wonderful.

1366
01:15:57,920 --> 01:16:01,760
Speaker 1: I I think it's very original, very easy to watch too,

1367
01:16:02,000 --> 01:16:04,040
Speaker 1: like like like it goes down easy for something that

1368
01:16:04,200 --> 01:16:08,000
Speaker 1: can be really ob to, something with no dialogue deliberate pacing,

1369
01:16:09,000 --> 01:16:14,240
Speaker 1: caustic sound design, and um, you know, all all the choices. Honestly,

1370
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:18,400
Speaker 1: it's actually very watchable, very simple. It's it's still just

1371
01:16:18,640 --> 01:16:20,080
Speaker 1: a great film. And I think you're right when you

1372
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:23,160
Speaker 1: said perhaps because it has the blueprint of the original

1373
01:16:23,200 --> 01:16:25,600
Speaker 1: book to work from, we can kind of just like

1374
01:16:25,920 --> 01:16:28,680
Speaker 1: follow along much easier, you know. It's it's it's it's

1375
01:16:28,680 --> 01:16:31,360
Speaker 1: an easy narrative to follow. Yeah, it's. I think it's

1376
01:16:31,400 --> 01:16:35,439
Speaker 1: more watchable than than some sort of creepy stop motion

1377
01:16:35,720 --> 01:16:38,559
Speaker 1: works that I've seen, Like I think particularly there's some works,

1378
01:16:38,760 --> 01:16:41,640
Speaker 1: some work by Jerry Barta that I also quite like.

1379
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:44,120
Speaker 1: And it but and it's also sort of in the

1380
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:49,000
Speaker 1: realm of like strange decrepit garbage comes around, it comes

1381
01:16:49,000 --> 01:16:51,760
Speaker 1: alive and starts crawling around all over the place, but

1382
01:16:52,040 --> 01:16:55,920
Speaker 1: is maybe a little less accessible. And you've got to

1383
01:16:56,040 --> 01:16:59,519
Speaker 1: definitely be on board for that sort of thing where

1384
01:16:59,680 --> 01:17:03,880
Speaker 1: this film is kind of meeting you halfway. Yeah, yeah,

1385
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:07,120
Speaker 1: I I give this two thumbs up. All right. Well,

1386
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:09,240
Speaker 1: on that note, uh, look, I guess we're gonna go

1387
01:17:09,280 --> 01:17:12,080
Speaker 1: and close this episode out, but we'd love to hear

1388
01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:14,200
Speaker 1: from everyone out there if you have thoughts on Alice,

1389
01:17:14,720 --> 01:17:18,760
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts on other films of full length

1390
01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:21,840
Speaker 1: and short by John's Funkmeyer or any of the other

1391
01:17:21,920 --> 01:17:26,280
Speaker 1: stop motion artists that we mentioned in this episode right in,

1392
01:17:26,479 --> 01:17:30,400
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. Reminder that we're

1393
01:17:30,439 --> 01:17:32,840
Speaker 1: primarily a science podcast. Here's stuff to blow your mind,

1394
01:17:32,880 --> 01:17:35,280
Speaker 1: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and

1395
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:38,160
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.

1396
01:17:38,640 --> 01:17:41,080
Speaker 1: I blog about the movies that we cover here on

1397
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:43,720
Speaker 1: some new to music dot com and if you use

1398
01:17:43,880 --> 01:17:46,200
Speaker 1: letterbox that's l E T T E R B o

1399
01:17:46,439 --> 01:17:49,120
Speaker 1: x D dot com. We have a profile there it's

1400
01:17:49,160 --> 01:17:52,040
Speaker 1: weird House. We have all the movies we've covered listed

1401
01:17:52,080 --> 01:17:54,200
Speaker 1: there as well as sometimes there's a peak at what

1402
01:17:54,400 --> 01:17:57,200
Speaker 1: movies are to come in case you want to watch ahead.

1403
01:17:57,800 --> 01:18:00,360
Speaker 1: And if anyone out there is missing Joe while he's

1404
01:18:00,400 --> 01:18:02,800
Speaker 1: on his paternity leave, I have a little treat for you.

1405
01:18:03,320 --> 01:18:06,519
Speaker 1: An episode that he and I recorded back before he

1406
01:18:06,600 --> 01:18:10,400
Speaker 1: went on his leave airs today literally today, the same

1407
01:18:10,840 --> 01:18:14,400
Speaker 1: the same day, this airs of my podcast Rusty Needles

1408
01:18:14,479 --> 01:18:17,519
Speaker 1: Record Club find out wherever you find podcasts and um

1409
01:18:17,600 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 1: if people have never heard my show before. Basically, it's

1410
01:18:20,560 --> 01:18:23,000
Speaker 1: a book club, but for music. Each episode is a

1411
01:18:23,040 --> 01:18:26,000
Speaker 1: different album. Me and my guest discussed that album. Uh,

1412
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:28,800
Speaker 1: Joe has been on a couple of times. We're hoping

1413
01:18:28,840 --> 01:18:31,800
Speaker 1: to get rob on soon in the future, and this

1414
01:18:32,000 --> 01:18:35,439
Speaker 1: one was Joe's pick, and he picked the self titled

1415
01:18:35,640 --> 01:18:38,880
Speaker 1: Black Sabbath album, their debut. So if you'd like to

1416
01:18:38,920 --> 01:18:42,840
Speaker 1: hear me and Joe discuss Black Sabbath's debut album, yeah,

1417
01:18:42,960 --> 01:18:45,360
Speaker 1: just go to wherever you get your podcasts, type in

1418
01:18:45,479 --> 01:18:49,000
Speaker 1: Rusty Needles Record Club. You'll see a cartoon dog as

1419
01:18:49,040 --> 01:18:51,400
Speaker 1: the logo. You'll know that's me and Yeah, listen to

1420
01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:54,280
Speaker 1: me and Joe talk some Black Sabbath. Alright, that that

1421
01:18:54,439 --> 01:18:57,960
Speaker 1: is seasonally appropriate. Yes, So thanks for hosting, Seth, but

1422
01:18:58,000 --> 01:19:01,519
Speaker 1: also of course thanks Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing the show.

1423
01:19:02,040 --> 01:19:03,920
Speaker 1: And if anyone out there wants to get in touch

1424
01:19:04,000 --> 01:19:06,719
Speaker 1: with us, well just email us at contact at stuff

1425
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:16,080
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

1426
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:19,000
Speaker 1: Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

1427
01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:21,120
Speaker 1: for My Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,

1428
01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:24,040
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.