Up & Coming Weekly

Twas Briling and the Slythy Toves Alice in Wonderland (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Oh Look! Tim Burton is doing some- thing slightly imaginative and Johnny Depp is wearing a lot of make-up! Let’s go see that movie and embrace the child within! Let’s face facts. You don’t need my opinion because you already know if you like Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movies. The film might be called Alice in Wonderland (109 minutes) but it might as well be called The Mad Hatter in Wonderland. The emphasis of the original story has subtly shifted to include a larger role for several secondary characters, most of whom were better left in the background. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), dressed up in the pouty little girl chic that all the older men find so appealing these days, attends a garden party. The color scheme is a carefully controlled pas- tel that contrasts nicely with the bril- liant colored contrasts that characterize Underland (the updated Wonderland, which, it wasn’t broke, so why did you “fix” it Tim Burton?). Once in Underland, Alice makes a familiar series of decisions in a fairly beside-the-point fashion. Of course, all the growing and shrinking, combined with some deliberately inconsistent rules regarding what hap- pens to her clothes when she grows and shrinks, result in the barely post- adolescent Alice wearing the shreds of a gown seductively draped around her. Seriously, I was waiting for Chris Hansen and the Catch a Predator crew to swoop in and tell the Mad Hatter (Depp) he was free to leave as Corndog du jour Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution deplores America’s diet TV by Dean Robbins In Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (Friday, 8 p.m., ABC), the British chef arrives on our shores to change the way we eat, beginning with the statistically proven “unhealthiest city in America”: Huntington, West Virginia. It sound like an annoyingly self-aggrandizing project, but Oliver is no British reality-series showboat on the order of Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsay. He’s a low-key bloke with a working-class accent who simply wants to stop us from eating ourselves to death. His sincerity is evident as he strives to change a local school’s horrific lunch menu. But Huntington won’t go down with- out a fight. “We don’t want to sit around and eat lettuce all day,” says an outraged local radio host, standing up for the city’s Jamie Oliver, host of ABC’s Food Revolution. right to feed its kids a steady diet of corndogs. The crusty school cooks insist that their menu of chicken nuggets and “breakfast pizza” conforms to federal nutrition standards — which, sadly, it does. They protest when Oliver proposes a meal of fresh chicken, fruit and rice. “I might as well be a criminal going into that kitchen with fresh produce,” he says. Indeed, Jamie may well end up in a Huntington jail before the series runs its course. You separate America from its corndogs at your peril. Fly Girls Wednesday, 9 pm (CW) This reality series purports to be a candid look at sexy female flight atten- dants. But the “candid” part is questionable. The women apparently have mul- tiple cameras and a lighting unit following them at all times. Thus, a supposedly spontaneous interaction with a hunky passenger is filmed from several angles, and clearly not in the dim light of an airplane cabin. The CW must have cleared 24 UCW MARCH 24 - 30, 2010 the aisle and set up tons of equipment to capture a few seconds of “candid” flir- tation. I wouldn’t mind the artifice if Fly Girls were as fun as it keeps telling us it is. “The world is our playground!” one Fly Girl exclaims. “Anything can happen!” I braced myself for a wild ride, but all these women seem to do is attend canned promotional events and make small talk at excruciating parties. As long as Fly Girls is faking its situations, couldn’t it do a better job of faking fun? Kids’ Choice Awards Saturday, 8 pm (Nickelodeon) It’s refreshing to encounter an awards show whose only goal is to entertain the viewing audience. You can tell the Kids’ Choice is committed to having fun from the playful categories, such as Favorite Couple. President Obama and wife Michelle are up for the award, going head-to-head with Edward and Bella from Twilight. If the Obamas lose, it will bode ill for November’s midterm elections. Saving Grace Monday, 10 pm (TNT) I used to enjoy watching this series despite its supernatural nonsense. Holly Hunter burned a hole in the TV screen as Grace, a troubled Oklahoma City cop, and her intensity offset the silly subplot about a homespun angel providing up- dates from God. But not even Hunter can save the final season. The miracles fly thick and fast in this week’s episode, as Grace falls off a building without being injured. Everybody stands around wondering how that could have happened, but none of them suspects the likely culprit: bad scriptwriting. Hunter is reduced to screaming at God in a deserted church in the middle of the night — in a thunderstorm, yet. “You hunted me down like a spurned lover!” she tells the Lord, who can be forgiven for scratching his head. Then she goes out in the rain to have hot naked sex with a demon. Hunter had better not get on God’s bad side. After this embarrassment, she’ll need his help to save her career. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM soon as he answered a few questions. Anyway, the classic Hook framing narrative demands that Alice wan- der through most of the film in denial, but eventually come to accept her destiny. On the way to accepting her destiny, she meets some familiar char- acters with extremely stupid names. The first of those is the White Rabbit, Nivens McTwisp (Michael Sheen). After their exposition party is crashed by a Bandersnatch, Chessur the Cat (Stephen Fry) serves as a spirit guide lead- ing Alice to the Hatter, Tarrant Hightop. Note to Depp’s make-up crew: Smearing your male lead with clown make-up, setting a red bird’s nest on his head, and then throwing paintballs at his face does not constitute a Mad Hatter costume. Alice, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse), and the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor) share tea served with a spoonful of back story. Once Exposition Party 2: Electric Party-Loo is busted up, Alice makes a new friend, who takes her to the moat of gross things surrounding a castle. She meets the Red Queen, Iracebeth of Crims (Helena Bonham Carter) and they become the bestest of friends, until they’re not friends anymore. Then Alice meets the White Queen, Mirana of Marmoreal (Anne Hathaway). The White Queen has moral objections to fighting people face- to-face so she attempts to manipulate other people into fighting her battles for her. She is very much like the carnivore that wants to eat the burger but gets upset when you describe the life and death of a cow. To whit: irritat- ing. Also irritating? Anne Hathaway’s floaty little gestures and unnaturally humungous mouth. Eventually, Burton tires of destroying a classic chil- dren’s story and Alice crawls out of the hole she fell into. Presumably, Alice lives happily ever after despite her role in massacring a delightful tale of imagination. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer

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