Alice in Wonderland

Okay everyone. Let's all have a round of applause for my first post on this blog. It's a big day, I know. Anyway, I think Andrea asked me a couple weeks ago what I thought about this movie, so I thought I'd do the full-fledged review.

The story goes along pretty well with the original. Same characters, same events (mostly). Johnny Depp obviously looks a little freaky, but he does an awesome job as the Mad Hatter. I thought the girl playing Alice did a pretty good job. The Queen of Hearts was awesome! The visuals were really well done in my opinion.

I'd give this movie two thumbs up, and I'd definitely watch it again. This is one I'll probably buy. Maybe a little scary for kids, but then you never know.

The Ghost Writer

Two thumbs way, way down. I'd give it more thumbs down if I had more thumbs. I definitely do not recommend this one. I'd seen a trailer, and thought Matt would like this suspense film. It . . . was . . . so . . . s . . . l . . . o . . . w!

Here's a spoiler breakdown for you:

The former prime minister of England (Pierce Brosnan) is writing his memoirs. He has a ghost writer helping him with it, but that guy ends up dead. A new ghost writer is hired (Ewan McGregor), and then Brosnan's character is accused of war crimes. McGregor's character finds that the memoirs have some lies, and he tries to get to the bottom of them. His life is in jeopardy. The prime minister is shot and killed, and then the memoir gets published. Then the ghost writer finally puts things together at the release party and realizes that the widow was a CIA agent, and she was influencing the prime minister's decisions (including the war crime actions). And then he walks out of the release party and is hit by a car and that's the end of the show. It felt like three hours, but apparently it was just over two. I was reading for the last half or so, occasionally looking up to see what was happening. I wasn't even sure what the point was. The ending was so abrupt, and since the only person who knew the truth was killed at the end, there was no resolution.