Tim Burton has made a movie based on my (second) favorite book! Is it worth seeing? Find out here on the One Minute Review of “Alice in Wonderland.”
OMR: Alice in Wonderland from Thomas McKenzie on Vimeo.
Andrew Peterson
Pete Peterson
Jason Gray
Eric Peters
Evie Coates
Randall Goodgame
Matt Conner
Curt McLey
Russ Ramsey
Jonathan Rogers
Ron Block
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
One listen to Ben Shive’s debut The Ill-Tempered Klavier will provide obvious evidence of why this young man has secured the respect of peers and colleagues on the inside of the Nashville music community. With The Ill-Tempered Klavier, Shive’s skills are now planted in the public garden.
Heretofore, there have been unsubtle hints: Andrew Osenga pronouncing Shive as his favorite songwriter, Andrew Peterson naming him as producer of The Far Country, his ubiquitous presence as a studio piano ace on a wide range of mainstream CCM records, Sara Groves choosing him to produce her next record, and the majestic arranging of the strings for Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ. Like a fast growing wildflower, Shive seems to pop up everywhere, though always in the background. Now, the secret is out. Raise the curtain on Ben Shive.
I just stumbled on a copy of O’Connor’s complete short stories at a used bookstore here in Nashville and listed it in the Rabbit Room store. Years ago a friend bought me this same edition and I read it with a sense of creepy amazement; it was like nothing I’d ever read. I knew Chris Slaten was a big fan of her work so I asked him to write a recommendation for the book. We only have one copy, so if you click here and can’t find it, someone beat you to the punch.
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This collection is essential to both long time fans and first time readers interested in the work of Flannery O’Connor. My first time to read a handful of her short stories I was helpless to interpret them. One would expect that reading the 1950’s work of a female “Christ-centered” southern fiction writer would be a simple, modest or at least predictable experience.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Several people in the last few weeks have commented to me about how glad they are that they discovered Wangerin’s The Book of the Dun Cow here in the Rabbit Room. It really is a remarkable book, and I still can’t recommend it highly enough. It won the prestigious National Book Award when it was first published in 1978, and was only the beginning of Wangerin’s career.
I just stumbled on his most recent novel, Saint Julian, and was so captured by it that it bumped aside the other four books I’m reading. Last Sunday afternoon–a perfect Spring day–I sat on my front porch swing and read the last half of the book, savoring the careful prose, the pastoral tone, and even the look and feel of the book itself. The cover illustration fits the epic, vivid quality of the story perfectly, and the fonts (I’m a sucker for a great font) added just the right atmosphere.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
But once a year the Sea Dragons sing just off the coast of Glipwood. With their song, life reasserts itself in the hearts of Skreeans who have long since learned to numb themselves:
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Walt Wangerin is a name I’ve seen in print many times. My dad had Ragman and Other Cries of Faith lying about at home for years and I remember thumbing through it at Christmas or Thanksgiving, reading bits here and there, and being intrigued by the style of writing; the words on the page had a canter to them, and a sparseness that gave them strength.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Do you have any CD’s in your collection that will be forever associated with some event or season of life—like the soundtrack to your last high school summer or what you listened to over and over again on that one road trip to wherever it was?
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
I love Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter. I think that whenever they are in a movie, their characters are so believable. I think JD can take on just about any role and make it very “true”. HBC has a knack for playing needy characters. I loved/hated her in Harry Potter. I can’t wait to see Alice in Wonderland this weekend. Thanks, Thomas, for the good review.
Thomas! We loved it, too - once again you’ve nailed on the head why this film works. HBC’s villain is less evil than she is insecure and tragically needy - I loved that about her performance. And McFly! Fun to see him in a major role again (though he was maybe my least favorite character… I just like seeing him)
I’m curious about your statement about Tim Burton never having made a bad film and it just made me want to ask you about that. I’m a huge Tim burton fan, have been for years, but lately upon repeated viewings I feel like he’s made a couple of stinkers… and I’d love for you to talk me out of this feeling.
We just watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas” for the first time this last year, and… we didn’t like it. I loved parts of it, but other parts - to me anyway - seemed aggressively irreverent. I know some of that is part of the fun, but it mostly felt less fun and more mean-spirited to me. But I loved the first half of it… Thoughts?
Also, we watched Beetlejuice again about a year ago and… well… mostly good but fell a little flat to me… when Michael Keaton wasn’t on screen it felt like it really dragged… But I remember how great it was when it first came out. Am I forgetting what an achievement it was when it first came out?
And lastly, “Planet Of The Apes”. Critics panned this, and when it first came out I remember being disappointed. But when I watched it again recently, I was like “you know, this isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s pretty good.” But maybe still wasn’t great - what was it that didn’t quite work with this movie? Some of the performances by themselves seem great - Tim Roth and HBC in particular….
Anyway, I know this isn’t probably what you intended to talk about here, but I was just curious if you had any opinions about these films that might help me appreciate their virtues.
I was having a hard time getting excited about “Alice In Wonderland” because I’ve lost some enthusiasm for Burton’s films, but I was grateful to be wrong and loved this movie.
Hey Jason,
That is a great question to discuss. I do believe what I said “Tim Burton has never made a bad film.” Now, in order to back that up we have to define the word “bad.” Bad, for me, is a film that just doesn’t work. A film in which I don’t care about the characters, or the story is filled with holes. Ultimately, a film that I walk out of and wish I had my time back. This is not to be confused with “OK,” a film that had some real problems but ultimately did not make me angry at having lost 2 hours of my life.
This, of course, will vary from person to person. I hate Pearl Harbor, for instance. Transformers 2 was a bad film. Prince Caspian was OK, as was (even though I railed a bit on it) Crazy Heart.
Tim Burton has never made a bad film. He has made good films, a couple of great films, and some OK films. You may not like all that Nightmare has to offer, but you have to admit that it was groundbreaking in its day, is creative and entertaining, has a good plot and good characters. Is it, for you, a great film? No, not at all. But is it bad? I bet it is OK.
Beetlejuice I haven’t seen in at least a decade, probably more. I remember loving it. I don’t know how well it has held up, but it was very well regarded in its day.
That all said, I did a tiny bit of research into your question and came up with fairly objective way to prove that Tim Burton has never made a bad film. I went to metacritic.com, the site that brings together critical ratings from all over. I did an Advanced Search for the director Tim Burton. It gave me the ratings of all 16 of his films. And, guess what, all of his films were either Green (Good) or Yellow (OK). His lowest rated film was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure with a 47. On metacritic, therefore, none of his films are “bad.” They aren’t all great or even that good, but none bad.
Michael Bay, on the other hand, has only made 8 movies (half as many as Burton) and two of them are rated Red (bad) on Metacritic: Transformer 2 and Bad Boys 2. Martin Scorsese has made 17 films, and all of them are Green, which means that each of his films have been reviewed as Good.
On a side note, I have never actually used metacritic.com before in my life, but I may have just discovered a new addiction.
I just have to chime in to say that I thought Planet of the Apes was horrible. I’ve lingered on it a few times when I’ve seen it on TV lately and have gotten some really great laughs at just how very bad indeed some of it is. Love the make-up though, and I’m always intensely disturbed that I find the HBC monkey kind of attractive. Ugh, can’t believe I just admitted that.
Shouldn’t there be a pithy comment from Aaron R right about now, regarding Pete and Helena and monkeys?
I’m not a fan of Tim Burton. I have an appreciation for his talent - I didn’t hate Planet of the Apes, and in fact it’s the only film of his I’ve seen where Tim Burton disappears from it. Burton has a tendency, I think, to overshadow the movies he makes, and he appears as an invisible character in each one, which is something I can’t stand. His take on the Batman franchise, his take on Willy Wonka, and now his take on Alice all have that Burtonization which I find frustrating, because I think it tends to elevate the artist over the art he creates. Big Fish is probably my favorite film of his, and I can stand his self-indulgent tendencies for the sake of the story weaved in that film.
It’s the same problem I have with Neil Gaiman and (in his later work) M. Night Shyamalan. Their art comes across to me as being vehicles for their own promotion of their cleverness.
My wife and I liked the movie, as did our 9 year old and 24 year old.
I haven’t seen the movie, or even watched this review yet, but the still frame of Father Tom is scaring me.
Mars Attacks? Planet of the Apes? Batman Returns? “Okay” is very kind for these stinkers. I’d take Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure over any of them. A film with the classic line “There’s no basement in the Alamo!”
My issue with Burton is that he always seems to fall in love with the effects (much like Lucas) and seems to lose the story - Big Fish was the last straw for me. It was a good film, but not great because of Burton. I like the idea, but found “Finding Never Land” much more winsome in its use of the same types of effects.
The first Batman was good and my Burton favorite until this film. I went into “Alice…” expecting him to over do it, but he really crafted a very nice story and it all seem to work well. Bravo Burton!