Day 281: Maximum Overdrive (1986)

For today’s entry to Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween, I was surprised that I hadn’t reviewed more Stephen King films more often than I have. So, today we decided to review a film that was always one of my favorite ones in Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive, a film about a renegade comet that the Earth gets stuck in for eight days. Things start going out of whack on Earth like Lawnmowers running over people, a vending machine killing people with it’s soda cans, and tractor trailers driving on their own. For a group of workers and patrons at a truck stop, they don’t completely know what is going on when things start going haywire in Wilmington, North Carolina. For Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez), a kid with a troubled past is just trying to get through life with his crappy job as a cook until he has to step up to be the hero when all of this craziness is going down. The film also stars Pat Hingle (Batman 1989) as Bubba Hendershot, Laura Harrington (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) as Brett, Yeardly Smith (The Legend Of Billie Jean) as Connie, John Short (Ransom) as Curt, Holter Graham (Fly Away Home) as Deke, Frankie Faison (Silence Of The Lambs) as Handy, Christopher Murney (The Last Dragon) as Camp Loman, Ellen McElduff (JFK) as Wanda, J.C. Quinn (The Abyss) as Duncan, and the film was directed by Stephen King. To see the rest of the review, please click here to go to Moshpits and Movies.

Day 103: Alice In Wonderland (2010)

I figured since Alice Through The Looking Glass is going to come out this year that I better watch the first film Alice In Wonderland so that I have an idea of what I am getting into. For Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska), she has been having dreams and visions of a land where animals talk, but for her she is always told they are dreams. That is until one day when she is about to be courted for marriage, she sees a rabbit with clothing on and she decides to follow it where she falls into a rabbit hole. Upon arriving in the magical world of Underland, she finds out that it has been held captive by the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and it is up to Alice to save Underland, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), and slay the Jabberwocky. The film also stars Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands) as Hatter,  Crispin Glover (Back To The Future) as Stayne-Knave Of Hearts, Matt Lucas (Shaun Of The Dead) as Tweedle Dee/Dum, Michael Sheen (Underworld) as White Rabbit, Stephen Fry (Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows) as Cheshire Cat, Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest) as Blue Caterpillar, Barbara Windsor (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) as Dormouse, Timothy Spall (Rock Star) as Bayard, and the film was directed by Tim Burton (Batman 1989).

One thing is for sure, this has to be about the billionth time that Burton has worked with Johnny Depp. It’s sort of like Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro back in the day and all of the great director/actor combinations. The same thing rings true as well with Helena Bonham Carter, but she’s married to Burton so it’s expected. The one thing I can say about all of them is that they were absolutely brilliant in the film. I actually didn’t mind Depp’s portrayal of the Mad Hatter (unlike his portrayal as Willy Wonka which I hated) because he nailed this role. He was both witty and crazy all wrapped in one and his performance was on point. The other thing I loved about the film was all of the visual aesthetics involved. The film was visually stunning to look at from the sets and the looks of the creatures. I know that a lot of it was filmed with a green screen and some animation, but the visuals is what kept me glued to the screen. The world of Underland is visually amazing even though it’s dark and desolate due to the fact that the Red Queen has taken over. It’s kind of sad to watch this film and hear Alan Rickman’s voice knowing that he is gone, but we know his voice is in the next film. and I cannot wait to check that out. My only hope is that the next one is a good as this one. With that being said, I am going to give the film an A- for a final grade.