Pfangirl Through the Looking Glass

Alice in Wonderland , the new film from director Tim Burton has been highly anticipated by his fans, as well as lovers of fantasy cinema, since the project was first announced back in 2007. Expectations were high not only because of the knowledge that Burton would be applying his typically eccentric visual style to an already offbeat universe created by novelist Lewis Carroll , but also because Alice was to see the visionary director working under the Disney banner. Disney remains, of course, an iconic name when it comes to the production of premium family film entertainment. Unfortunately though, Alice in Wonderland – released just this last week – falls short of its potential. The film is a mixed bag, succeeding marvellously in some areas and failing to satisfy at all in others. Let’s consider the good first. Alice in Wonderland starts well, with a 19 year old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) having to contend with the bizarre social norms and expectations of Victorian England, as she is expe...

We're clearly living in the era of the badass movie hero - whether we like it or not. The Superman film franchise is apparently undergoing a "darker" revamp because the character is seen as too much of a boring goodie goodie; winged horse Pegasus has gone black for the new Clash of the Titans; and now we even have a new, apparently highly intense take on popular English folklore hero Robin Hood. There's no place for Bryan Adams crooning "Everything I do, I do it for you" in this new film, which, if the trailer - complete with pounding rock music - is to be believed, really deserves the title Robin Hood: First Blood . Russell Crowe stars as 13th Century archer and nobleman Robin of Loxley, who returns to England after fighting in the Crusades alongside Richard the Lionheart. In Nottingham, however, Robin finds only crippling taxation and corruption under the rule of the despotic Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen), who is in turn answering to ineffec...

I had an excellent, if occasionally nervous, and definitely sleep challenged, weekend - including getting up at 3:30AM this morning (Monday) to watch the Oscars live. After all the day of the Academy Awards is like Christmas to many movie fans around the world, and the ceremony is Midnight Mass, especially for those of us who live in vastly different timezones. *Yawn* Anyway, in terms of my pop culture and entertainment exposure this past week or so, it's been a very mixed bag. Out and About: On Wednesday evening I went to my first ever professional soccer match, an international friendly between South Africa and Namibia. Honestly I was there less for the game (which South Africa was only able to draw despite being the vastly superior team in terms of footwork and overall technical performance) than I was to experience the atmosphere in the new Moses Mabhida Stadium . My tweets from the evening, with their focus on goings-on around the stadium, and player uniform colour, probably ...

The film industry's highest accolades were dished out on Sunday evening (or 3:30am, Monday morning, South African time) at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles. I won't comment about them too much here because: A) I know many South Africans prefer to watch the delayed (and refreshingly ad break reduced) broadcast of the Oscars tonight on MNET at 7:30, and don't want to be subjected to too many spoilers in the interim. B) If you're really interested in what I have to say, as opposed to millions of other online commentators, you can always read my Twitter stream dating from a few hours ago. So, right, below is the complete list of this year's Academy Award winners (the full list of nominees is here ). South Africans can now diarise Friday, 19 March as their first opportunity to see this year's Best Picture winner, which took home a total of 6 Oscars - winning in 6 out of the 9 categories it was nominated in. Out of interest, the film also made history w...

At the beginning of February I posted the list of nominations for the 30th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards - more commonly known as the Razzies. For those who don't know the Razzies are essentially the anti-Academy Awards, as they set out to "honour" the worst films released during the previous year. In keeping with Razzie tradition, the winners, or should that be sinners(?), were announced on Saturday, a day before the Academy Awards ceremony. And here are the chosen few: Worst Picture of 2009: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (AKA Trannies, Too) Worst Actress of 2009: Sandra Bullock (All About Steve) Worst Actor(s) of 2009: All Three Jonas Brothers (Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience) Worst Screen Couple: Sandra Bullock & Bradley Cooper (All About Steve) Worst Supporting Actress: Sienna Miller (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) Worst Supporting Actor: Billy Ray Cyrus (Hannah Montana: The Movie) Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel (Combined Category for 2...

It's a bumper week for new movies releases - probably the strongest collection of any Friday in 2010 so far. Although I do have a clear personal preference for the weekend, my choice is just a priority. I definitely want to see every one of the Big 3 released today. First up, and my obvious pick of the week, is family fantasy adventure Alice in Wonderland , which is releasing locally in both traditional 2D and, more importantly, 3D. Alice in Wonderland 2010 comes from Walt Disney Pictures (who of course gave audiences the classic animated Alice back in 1951 ), and is directed by animator-turned-filmmaker Tim Burton, a man known for his gothic sensibilities and striking visuals - and who, incidentally, is one of my favourite directors. The perfect creative combination, no? Anyway, this new Alice in Wonderland is not based on Lewis Carroll's book of the same name , or even its sequel . Rather it is an entirely new story, with 19 year old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) fleeing from a unwa...

During our On the Go tour , we spent a total of 3 days in Cairo: 2 at the beginning of our trip and 1 at the end. We truly hit the ground running. We had assumed that our first day in Egypt’s capital would consist entirely of free time, as we had arrived a day before our Road to Jordan tour was to begin. It turns out we were wrong. On the Go had organised an optional tour of the city for us, covering sights that weren’t part of the official tour itinerary. Of course, we could have relaxed all day in the gardens of our resort but that would have been a waste, so we paid our optional tour fees and headed off. Sightseeing Our first stop was the Citadel, a medieval fortress built during the Crusades by Islamic hero, Saladin (who was featured in the film Kingdom of Heaven ). The Lonely Planet guide is quite dismissive of the Citadel as unimpressive and difficult to get to, but I found it an interesting taste of Muslim Egypt. You see, most tours tend to focus on Ancient Pharaonic Egypt at ...

I don't think this Girlz 'N' Games comic requires too much explanation. Basically you can consider it the Valentine's Day 2010 edition of the strip, a fortnight or so after the fact. You can also probably consider it the most NSFW strip in the series so far. Anyway, this comic is about the communication difficulties that can arise in a relationship when one partner is a geeky gamer type, and the other is not. You see, this is the major problem of this kind of "interspecies dating" - the lack of shared reference and the confusion it can cause. Here though the usual real life roles are reversed, with the person immersed in geek culture and terminology being the woman in the relationship. No doubt this strip's star has worked hard to hide her inner-dork from her partner - as I know some geek ladies prefer to do - only to out herself during a moment her brain is a tad blood deprived and she's not thinking clearly. For the record, " Ding " is a...

Honestly, by the time an animated film series reaches its 3rd installment I've normally lost interest - my love for the characters having been replaced by disgust at the blatant greed of the studio behind the films, which seems so content to pump out soulless sequels conveyor-belt style. In the case of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek films , I adored the first Shrek (which out of interest has one of the funniest and most interesting DVD Directors' Commentaries I have ever experienced), was sold on Shrek 2 by the presence of Antonio Banderas's Puss in Boots alone, and was utterly disenchanted by Shrek the Third with its limp pregnancy plot. After the third film I was ready to be done with the franchise (even if I did quite enjoy Christmas special Shrek the Halls ). This said, watching the teaser trailer for, and reading more about franchise entry #4, Shrek Forever After , I think I may, just may, be lured into the cinema one final time. This is largely because Forever Af...

Well, my pop culture consumption has take a serious dip this week, especially in terms of gaming and reading. The reason for this is that I currently have a freelance copywriting and editing gig, running Monday to Friday for the next couple of weeks. As I'm attempting to appear like a productive and diligent employee, that means no leisurely start to the work day with an hour or so of blogging. So I've had to invert my schedule, using whatever free time I have in the evenings - and weekends - to get ahead with updates for the coming days, scheduling them to appear automatically. So as much as I just want to veg in the evening with a DVD or Dead Until Dark , I can't fit it in at the moment. Anyway, in terms of notable activities this weekend, I attended my first ever 27Dinner in Durban on Saturday. These events, held on the 27th of every month around the country, are a chance for local geeky types, gadget freaks, Social Media enthusiasts and individuals involved in the IT i...

It's a big day at South African cinemas today, with something like 8 new movies making their debut. These include Jozi , a frenetic local comedy about drug addiction and overcoming the humour-killing stresses of urban life in SA. Then there's acclaimed Aussie Aboriginal drama Samson and Delilah ( 100% Fresh ), and 60's set drama A Single Man ( 85% Fresh ), which has just landed Colin Firth an Oscar nomination. If these last 2 films are too highbrow and unconventional for you, then there's also always the action movie From Paris With Love ( 35% Fresh ), which presents the unusual onscreen pairing of John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as well as Toy Story 2 ( 100% Fresh ), re-releasing for a single week in 3D. In terms of my personal picks for this weekend though, it looks like it's going to be a box office face-off between the following 2 films: It's Complicated is easily the most well advertised of all the films released today. From Nancy Meyers, the w...

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I returned from my 3-week tour of Egypt and Jordan , and I think it’s about time I did some more comprehensive blogging about the experience – broken down into a few short-ish posts. To begin with, it’s worth doing something of a basic introduction to Egypt from a tourist’s perspective. For starters, I would definitely only recommend visiting the country as part of a tour group because it makes getting around, and gaining entry to sites, so much easier. You see, Egypt, paranoid about the threat of terrorism to its precious tourist income, has overcompensated in terms of security. There are innumerable police blockades, military convoys and general petty officialdom – all of which can frustrate your free movement, at least around tourist areas. More important than ease of moment, it helps to have a tour guide – ideally a trained Egyptologist – with you all the time because generally in Egypt exhibits and important sites come without information boards o...

An Education is a highly acclaimed British coming-of-age comedy-drama, written by Nick Hornby (based on a memoir by Lynn Barber) and directed by Lone Scherfig. The film is up for 3 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay and has been nominated for, and won innumerable more awards. In fact, just earlier this week, the film’s until now unknown star Carey Mulligan picked up the BAFTA (British Academy Film Award) for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film. Needless to say then that An Education is teetering close to the brink of overhype. Fortunately though, the film is worthy of the accolades it has been receiving, particularly in regards to performances. While the storyline is ultimately predictable, it’s the excellent, likeable acting that gives An Education much of its charm. An Education is set in the suburbs of London in 1961, and centres on overachieving teenager Jenny Mellor (Mulligan) – who seems to have spent her whole schoo...

The Apocalypse is, like, so hot right now! Forget celebrated video game Fallout 3 . On the big screen in the last year alone cinema audiences have visited the bleak, not-too-distant future in Terminator Salvation , The Road and, now, The Book of Eli . Denzel Washington is apparently channeling his inner Wesley Snipes for some blade-swinging, ass-kicking action in this action-drama about a grim loner (is there any other kind?) who wanders the sandblasted wastelands of America 31 years after a nuclear war destroyed civilisation as we know it. It turns out that unwilling warrior Eli is actually protecting something of immense value - a book that can redeem a society that has degraded into a collection of cowards, bandits and cannibal gangs. If you've watched the trailer above you'll have a very good idea what this book is. If you haven't, it doesn't matter. All you need to know is that Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the self-appointed mayor of a dangerous, ramshackle town, learn...