Hotter in a Hat: Andrew Lee Potts

I finally got around to watching SyFy’s Alice–the sweet little Alice in Wonderland reimagining that’s been hunkered down in my DVR for longer than I care to admit. It wasn’t the greatest thing I’d ever watched, but I enjoyed it just as much as I enjoyed Syfy’s Wizard of Oz-inspired, Tin Man, last year.

One special surprise: Discovering Andrew Lee Potts as the sheisty Wonderland rebel, Hatter. Just like Joshua Jackson, I’m considering only referring to him by the name of his most memorable character (for me). Hatter it is…for now.

That could all change, because ZRose (like a true junkie) fed our shared interest in this English muffin by adding Potts’ BBC America series Primeval (2007-2009) to our Instant Netflix queue. Potts plays the delightfully nerdy Connor, who just happens to be gaga for Abby the zoologist (played by his real-life girlfriend, Hannah Spearitt). I have some catching up to do, but luckily I have some time as well. Primeval isn’t due back with new eps until 2011.

Hatter or Connor, what shall I do?

I think I’ll stick with Hatter, because Potts is twice as fine with a chapeau. Evidence:

Sometimes you feel like a hat...

Sometimes you don't (but you should really reconsider).

My favorite movies of 2009

Make list, check it twice
The decade is too daunting
I’ll stick with ‘09

I didn’t see everything from 2009, but I did see enough to make a list–70 out of 277 releases to be exact…so far. That’s almost 12x the typical U.S. moviegoer (averaging six trips to the theater per year). iYowza!

Favorite “Boy” Movies:

Comic books, sci-fi, and gaming. Oh, my! Alls I can say is this: I’m a lady, I went to Comic-Con, I’m hip, and I like to rock that casbah of thought that action is for boys and love is for girls. Also, each of these has super hot hotties (hey, I didn’t say I wasn’t a girl :: swoon ::). Gamer might throw some for a loop, but Michael C. Hall’s grand finale was well worth the admission price (gots to love a dance number).

1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
2. Star Trek
3. Pandorum
4. Gamer

Favorite Surprises:

I love going into something with one idea of what it’s going to be and coming out via a cinematic 180°, completely satisfied with the experience. For each of these, I thought stock thriller, sci-fi, disaster flick, and tween cheesy. I only went because I liked actors in the movie. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

1. A Perfect Getaway
2. Moon
3. 2012
4. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

Favorite Weep Generators:

I L-O-V-E love me a good cry, and these ought to be everyone’s go-to emotionable triggers. I’m pretty tear-prone in general, but all of these films caused *audible* weeps. Good show(s), Movies!

1. The Messenger
2. The Time Traveler’s Wife
3. Phoebe In Wonderland

Favorite Game-changers:

I’m a history nerd, and in general movies that get it wrong, get under my skin. Imagine my surprise when I discovered how much I loved a bunch of movies that toss out the book altogether to create original history. A ‘what if?’ never looked so good. Of course, District 9 is a little different, but as historical commentary it’s brilliant. Take that, The Man!

1. District 9
2. Inglorious Basterds
3. Watchmen

Favorite Music Machines:

They’re nostalgia fueled celebrations–and technically I’m way too young to feel nostalgic, but as a history nerd I feel nostalgia for a myriad of times/places I have no business missing in the first place. In any case, they all put a little canned heat in my heels and made me want to get in a time-machine (which I did, by way of my music collection and new Pandora stations). RAWK!

1. Pirate Radio
2. Taking Woodstock
3. This Is It

Favorite Inspirationals:

I dig the fact that these movies made me want to do something–not on some grand scale, but I really wanted to get some roller skates, master some french cookin’, and expel my credit card debt, respectively.

1. Whip It!
2. Julie & Julia
3. Confessions of a Shopaholic

Favorite Laughy-times:

Don’t you love when something delivers? When they supply you with new catchphrases for the entire year? Slappin’ da bass! Also, I am not ashamed to admit I love a flop.

1. Zombieland
2. The Proposal
3. The Hangover
4. I Love You, Man
5. Fanboys
6. Land of the Lost

Favorite Animationals:

Quite frankly, I can’t believe that Pixar continues to top itself–especially after Wall•E. But 9’s inventiveness (no pun intended) and Coraline’s artistry were marvels in their own right, and you can’t put a price on feeling like a kid again.

1. Up
2. 9
3. Coraline

Favorite Manic Pixie Vehicles:

Women want to be them, and men want to be with them. I said it. Okay, well maybe not the manic part, but in the life-changey, quirky, kick ass wardrobe kind of way. Also, Tom’s musical number to Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams” in (500) Days was the best sequence of the year.

1. (500) Days of Summer
2. The Brothers Bloom
3. Adventureland

Favorite Debatables:

Arguing until you’re blue in the face? Lost your voice from out-shouting? Have you temporarily lost a few “friends”? Now, that’s just good times.

1. Twilight Saga: New Moon
2. Avatar

Favorite “I’m Seeing Them This Weekenders”:

1. Nine
2. It’s Complicated
3. Sherlock Holmes
4. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
5. Up in the Air
6. Me & Orson Welles
7. The Young Victoria

What were your faves?

About a [new film called] Boy

Taika Cohen, director of one of my all-time favorite movies Eagle vs Shark, is screening his new movie Boy at Sundance 2010. Boy is one of 14 films selected to compete in the international narrative feature category (out of a pool of about 1,000 films), and it’s been nominated for Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize. Go Kiwis!

Here’s the official Sundance synopsis:

It’s 1984, and Michael Jackson is king-even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy’s father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version-an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters.

My love for Michael Jackson is well documented on Little Junkies, so I insta-love the premise. Just watch the trailer and prepare to fall in love. If you don’t, you may want to get your soul checked out.

Avatar, I See You…for what you really are.

My review of Avatar:
$300 million Ferngully meets Dances With Wolves. I said it. Also, Sigourney’s avatar creeped me out almost as much as the dialogue bummed me out.

Don’t get me wrong–I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it either, and it’s not completely because it didn’t live up to the hype. It’s because people are willing to give it a free pass because of the effects. Others will certainly call on the success and continued debate of Cameron’s other films to justify this one, but that’s kind of bunk. I think Titanic’s success was so great, because it was driven by Leo DiCaprio-era Twihards (Tihards, DiHards?) and liteFM Celine Dion fanatics (DiHards2? DiHarder?…heh). And what did Cameron do? Duplicate the best archetypal bits of Titanic, including topping it off with a meh ballad by a new Dion, Leona Lewis’ I See You, and ripping off other movies. Allow me to present my case:

Titanic characters in Avatar

1. Sam Worthington as the hunky ne’er do well that gets a chance ticket to the main setting (Jack)
2. Zoe Saldana as the princess dying for a little freedom from her societal duties…care of a certain ne’er do well (Rose)
3. Sigourney Weaver as the dedicated scientist striving to celebrate and conserve, generally underused throughout the film (Brock Lovett)
4. Stephen Lang as the evil to the core person (Rose’s mom, Ruth Dewitt Bukater)
5. Michelle Rodriguez as the sassy lady with a penchant for going her own way in a man’s world and justness (Molly Brown)
6. Giovanni Ribisi as the greedy, self absorbed, privileged scoff/bigot that cares for nothing but his prize (Cal Hockley)

Also, Ribisi and Rodriguez will live on as the best bits of the movie– as in Kathy Bates (Molly Brown) was one of the best supporting characters and Billy Zane (Cal Hockley) was the “OMG remember that guy!” of Titanic.

Jimmy Cameron didn’t stop there:

Plot for Ferngully: The magical fairy people of Ferngully have never seen humans before, but Christa falls for one anyway (Zak), even though he is part of a logging team who is there to cut down the forest. Zak via magic gets shrunk to fairy size and goes native–discovering the beauty of nature. The big bad is Hexxus, an evil oil-like creature that has taken over “The Leveler,” a logging machine as he begins his evil scheme to destroy the magical forest. Only Zak, Crysta, and a rag tag team of fools can defeat Hexxus and save Ferngully from destruction.

Plot for Dances with Wolves: Sent to a remote outpost during a time of political strife (read: the Civil War), Lieutenant John Dunbar encounters, and is eventually accepted into, the local Sioux tribe. He falls for the beautiful “Stands With a Fist”, who teaches him the ways of the tribe as he gradually he sheds Whitey’s ways. He also has a special connection with local wildlife, aka “Two Socks.” The beauty of the nature worshiping tribe’s way of life is about to be destroyed by the The Man (aka the military) and Dunbar has to choose sides.

See Avatar and try to tell me Cameron didn’t wed these two plots. Challenge!

Look, end of the day, Cameron will be remembered for expensive extremes–and for pushing envelopes others wont be greenlit to afford for ten years. Plus, the dude is kind of an a-hole so I feel inclined to dis, whereas you can’t dis Tim Burton because that’s like kicking a quirky puppy. Gush if you must, but FYI movies can be beautiful AND have the story AND have the characters AND be unique…AND cost a lot less. As Zrose would say, I’m not about to poo my pants because Cameron made a glow in the dark planet full of Mother Nature’s version of a USB port sprinkled about. Movies are NOT better because of great effects :: cough :: The Phantom Menace.

Suddenly, I’m wishing I would have gone to art school…

This site might be the best thing that’s happened to me the entire year. I said it. See samples below of actual childrens’ letters to Christopher Walken for CHRIStmas (and by children, I mean aspiring art students):

Fun Fact: Walken always tries to work a jig into his movies. (This one’s for you, Adrienne from Ann Arbor.)

Fun Fact 2: Walken’s real first name is Ronald, so my jokes at the beginning of this post make no sense. Apologies.

Merry Ronniemas to all, and to all a good night!