Alice in Wonderland

Was the movie everyone was talking about as spectacular as everyone thought it would be? No, is my answer to that. The movie was good, entertaining, but also a bit of a disappointment after all that hype.

 

Alice in Wonderland (for those of you doesn’t know) is about Alice, a young girl who keeps having the same dream over and over again. When she is older, and is tricked into coming to her own engagement party that is set up for her with a guy she can’t stand, she runs away and follows a rabbit with a watch that she sees in the garden. She falls down the hole where the rabbit went, and finds herself in another, crazy world with weird looking creatures and people. Most of the characters in this wonderland is already familiar with Alice, as it turns out she has been there before, not just once, but many times. 

There is a war going on between the Red Queen and the White Queen (sisters, one bad and one good), and Alice ends up at the Red Queens castle and sees, first hand, her reign of terror. Basically this is your traditional movie of good versus bad, and you already know what’s going to happen at the end after just watching a little bit (even if you don’t know the original story of Alice in Wonderland.)

 The movie itself has stunning visuals (especially seen with 3D-glasses), and great, famous actor/actresses, but the story itself isn’t quite how I remembered it to be, to be honest it was sort of dull. The thing is that this movie seems to be just another one of those “Tim Burton movies”, and Johnny Depp (who I think is a marvelous actor) is just doing the same character he has been doing for the past years. Depp’s character, Mad Hatter, resembles Captain Jack Sparrow a little too much, and this ruins a lot.

The newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice is perfect for the role. At least the way she looks. Her performance isn’t the best, but she is good at playing surprised and baffled. Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen is arguably the best actor in this movie, even though she might me overdoing it a little, and I can’t even count how many times she said “off with their heads” in the movie.

 I have always been (and still is) a big Alice in Wonderland fan, and I’m not going to lie and say that this movie is not entertaining, because it definitely is, but that is mostly, like I said, thanks to the visuals. Alice in Wonderland is a great, mysterious story, and if you are familiar with it and like it, I will definitely recommend it. Also, if you are a fan of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you will most likely enjoy this one as well.

Gigapan-Shoot!

Today we (Phil, Susanne, Phil, Annabelle and I) all met up at around 7:30 a.m. and went to Makapu'u for our Gigapan shoot. We got there pretty early so there weren't too many people there yet. We set up the camera on the tripod on our chosen spot (put on the rocks by the beach) and began plotting in the coordinates for the camera. I think we started shooting at around 8:00 a.m. and we were done by 10:00 a.m. We took 874 pictures in total, so it didn't really take to long. We actually had a lot of fun, even though everyone was tired. While we were waiting aroundfor the camera to get done shooting, we had a little photo-shoot of our own! It was a good start to the day. The sun was shining, so I think the panorama's gonna turn out quite nice.