Friday, March 27, 2009

Alice



Něco z Alenky (aka Alice) is Jan Svankmajer's surreal look at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Wonderland here means, a crumbly old house and yard filled with raw, walking meat, living animal skeletons, and tube socks with a mind of their own.

Go down the rabbit hole, or if you're this Alice, a drawer, or down an elevator shaft that looks like a masochist's pantry, and enter the world of Jan Svankmajer, complete with stop motion, live action, meat, dolls, and puppets. Most of the elements from the original story are there; the Queen, the cards, the caterpillar, the Mad Hatter and March Hare... I think I found everything, except for the Cheshire Cat and Door Mouse.

I first saw this movie on mute, being projected on the screen of my local goth club Vertex. I asked the DJ what he was playing, and I barely heard what he said (something something Alice), but I figured it out easily enough. I was immediately won over by the choppy animation and the creepy dolls and puppets, and of course, I know of no other filmmaker that uses raw meat and taxidermy to animate a fairy tale.

+10 for creepy. +6 for background sounds. +9 for including Pig and Pepper.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Minimum Maximum


I was excited to bring home a free poster advertising Kraftwerk's DVD of their 2004 world tour, and doubly so when my boyfriend brought home the DVD itself. I could have worn a hole in the disks (oh wait, they come with holes!) from watching it so much. It's great to watch in bed, and as background video at home gatherings. Moog synths are popular here around the house.

This 2-disk DVD release comes packed with what I think is the very best of Kraftwerk. I was thrilled to hear the band open with The Man-Machine. I think it's my favourite track. The band gets animatronic during the song Robots (of course), which I found super fun, because I'd never seen them perform that way before. The dvd show is a truly profound audio and visual spectacular.

Kraftwerk is a band that's way ahead of its time, and still might be. I wish I had been exposed to them when I was younger.

10/10 for visual amazement. 10/10 for the best-of quality of the selection.