Now I’m not a huge Tim Burton stan, but I thought that Alice In Wonderland was pretty good! The strengths were exactly what you would probably think them to be: visually it was very nice to look at-the landscape design was done by Robert Stromberg, the same guy who did Avatar’s. The characters were all very charming and amiable with all of their British accents (and what not!), especially the lead girl Mia Wasikowska who was very crushable by the end. And while the plot/story seemed simple, I was okay with that because it’s supposed to be palatable for children, but also because it was really positive and uplifting and supportive of young girls being confident in themselves and believing that they can do things that they set their minds to-which seems like a good thing to convey to today’s youth. Considering these takeaways I had from the movie, you can imagine my surprise when I went on Rotten Tomatoes and saw that the movie had a composite review of 67% (coincidentally the same as Shutter Island, which I also thought was a really enjoyable movie-less of an emphasis on girl power, sure, but still fun to watch nonetheless) which seemed a little unfair.

Upon further review, after I went a little deeper down the rabbit hole (LOL, do you see what I did there?*) to find out what people’s complaints were, I learned that for the most part the reviews were all pretty positive! It seemed like most people were alright with the movie as a whole, their disappointment stemming more from the film’s performance against their expectations. Unhappiness based on what their preconceptions of what Tim Burton matched with the material of Lewis Carroll should be (which seems unfair to do, but whatever) rather than judging the film just against itself. And really, those opinions all make sense and, especially within the framework of what movie criticism is, an opinion, all fair enough. Eventually though, I came across this gem of a review by Time Out: New York’s Keith Uhlich:

Burton’s Alice is just another anachronistic feminist tearing down Victorian patriarchal norms. Even her-[shudder]-Avril Lavigne-blared theme song is a skin-deep grrrl-power accessory.

OH WORD? Now, I’m willing to accept that I might not have the highest standards for liking movies (although, to be fair, I didn’t love Avatar, so who knows!), but I’m not sure I quite agree with Mr. Keith Uhlich here (full name included again just in case his Google Alert didn’t catch it the first time) and his full review.

I mean fine, when I first saw the trailer for Alice In Wonderland I obviously thought to myself: “Oh shit! This better not be ANOTHER movie about an anachronistic feminist tearing down Victorian patriarchal norms!” Oh wait! No, I didn’t think that, because that would be an f-ing ridiculous and haughty thing to think! Has anyone ever thought that sentence before? What does it even mean?!?

What is another instance of this sort of character existing in film? That Jessica Biel movie where she’s some sort of unruly American woman who lives as she pleases is then subsequently shunned by Colin Firth and his British family? Well you know what? That’s probably not what you’re thinking of, but if it were, it wouldn’t be a good example because no one even saw that movie! It’s not even a relatable point!

So who are all of these other “anachronistic feminists” we’re talking about then? Jane Eyre? Anne Of Green Gables? Pygmalion/My Fair Lady? Well those were all written within their respective time periods so they’re not exactly “anachronistic” as it were, right? What are we really talking about then? The Fifth Element? Star Wars? Okay, fair enough, I guess those and Aladdin are all pretty applicable. Touche Uhlich. Oh wait! You added the caveat of them having to be feminists tearing down Victorian patriarchal norms! Say what? I guess you wish you hadn’t taken out the old thesaurus and then ctrl+T’d now!

I’m not quite sure what your qualm is with the Avril Lavigne theme song that isn’t in the movie at all and just used for the credits, much less what it means for something to be a “skin-deep grrrl-power accessory?” Are you trying to imply that the character of Alice somehow draws power and confidence from a song that exists outside of viewing experience of the movie? Did you see a cut of the movie that somehow had the Avril Lavigne song interposed into the movie? I guess it’s cool that you spelled the word girl with the r’s instead of like a normal person! I’m going to go out on the limb and say that your “grrl-power” spellings and use of “[shudder]” is an even more obnoxious construct than all of the exclamation points I’ve used in this review!

Now, maybe I’m being harsh on this random person who I don’t know anything else about apart from this one review that he wrote for a magazine. And truth be told, while I enjoyed Alice In Wonderland, and think that it’s worth going to see if you like nice-looking movies that have a simple story and are paced pretty well, the movie isn’t so amazing that it requires this vehement of a defense. But conversely, I don’t think that the movie is so bad that it deserves this sort of dismissive and uppity criticism that was dished out in such a haphazard and baseless way by one KEITH UHLICH. I just think everyone should maybe think about being a little nicer.

*It’s a reference to what happens in Alice In Wonderland when Alice follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole to get to Wonderland, you see.

David Cho is the publisher of The Awl, which has no financial arrangements with the Disney Company.

It’s nice to know how things become a priority in New York State: “Senate Republicans moved for the first time this morning to exploit the hit parade of domestic violence scandals that have rocked Democrats — including Gov. Paterson — in recent months by unveiling legislation to protect battered women.”

Nutty iCarly Carleton Sneed Fiorina, she of the demon sheep, is coming hot and heavy for Barb Boxer in the upcoming California Senate race. BUT NOW here is The Box giving the people what they want: TAX AND/OR KILL THE BANKERS! (Mostly tax.) She and Jim Webb have proposed a new 50% tax on all bonuses, under the newspeak name of the Taxpayer Fairness Act, introduced today, and now the Republicans have to come out… in favor… of FAT CAT WALL STREET BONUS SEASON. Do watch Rachel Maddow tonight for extra giggling about how the Republicrats have to turn their backs on MAIN STREET thanks to their (probably Jewish) WALL STREET backers.

My favorite part of this RadarOnline (I know!) exclusive report that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is planning to step down comes at the end: “The decision paves the way for President Barack Obama to make his second appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court following his first, Sonia Sotomayor.” That is the kind of historical and political value-add you completely do not see coming.

“The number of discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission related to anxiety, depression and other psychiatric disorders nearly doubled between 2005 and 2009.”
-Crazy people: they are coming to work, and if you try to stop them, they will sue you.

The Japanese can choose from 19 different flavors of Kit Kat, which range from “yubari melon and baked corn from Hokkaido island to green beans and cherries from Tohoku in northeastern Japan to uzu fruit and red potatoes from Kyushu island at the southern-most tip of the country. The Kanto region, including Tokyo, contributed the sweet potato, blueberry and kinako (soybean) flavors.”

Seattle Weekly columnist “The Uptight Seattleite” is all about helping you become the best citizen of this planet-you know, the one we borrow from our children, not inherit from our parents-that you can be. His new book, A Sensitive Liberal’s Guide to Life: How to Banter with Your Barista, Hug Mindfully, and Relate to Friends Who Choose Kids Over Dogs is out now. Here is a list of places you can buy it. And here is an excerpt from it. It may remind you of someone you know! Not yourself, obviously, you’re doing just fine. But definitely someone in your life.

Sometimes when I’m using chopsticks to eat bi bim bop at my local Korean restaurant, I notice other people using spoons to eat their own bi bim bop. I smile at them and their spoons. My smile says, “Hey, great for you! You’re branching out and trying something new, even if that’s a little uncomfortable for you. You might find that your experience of another culture is even more enriching if you try using chopsticks. Just a thought! Enjoy your meal!” That really sums up what we’re going to discuss here: how the buffet of diversity is best enjoyed with unfamiliar utensils.

Before we get into a discussion of how to relate to people of all sorts-be they differently hued or simply given to sneezing more than seems wholesome-I want to make one thing clear: I include myself here. I don’t hold myself up as someone who doesn’t need this kind of advice. But since we’re on the topic, I’ll just throw it out there that I’m pretty much color-blind. I can’t help it-I just see people, period. This one time, when I met a new co-worker? Someone asked me later what he looked like, and I didn’t remember. When pressed, I could dimly recall that he was a six-foot-five Filipino squinting into the sunset, with a blood-red kerchief tied neatly about his throat. Whatever, though, right? Because what difference did it make?

Bon appétit!

Should a Native American be allowed to kill a whale with a shotgun?

Honestly? I’m glad you asked. Native American history is something of a forte of mine. Indeed, you could bury my heart under the books I’ve read that deconstruct the manifest destiny of our tragically misguided cowboy-ism. This one time, at a Sherman Alexie book reading here in Seattle? I asked Sherm a question that I prefaced with my own personal spin on Native American history, as best I can glimpse it with a mind stumbling humbly toward a truly postcolonial perspective, a perspective that takes in with an easy grace the full landscape of ca-RAY-zy Native wisdom. The long, silent look he gave me was, I dare to believe, a tactful (so as not to exclude the rest of the audience) acknowledgment of my hard-earned Native cred.

I wouldn’t even bother to tell you all of this except that I’d like to admit to a few sneaking concerns about Indians and whales. And that was just a quick little flash of my blindingly shiny “don’t-mess-with-me-on-that-whole-racism-thing” badge so I can express these concerns freely.

Since Native Americans claim a right-whale hunting-that makes sensitive people squeamish, I don’t think it’s too much to ask them to claim it in a picturesque manner. For example, it seems to me that a hollowed-out canoe should be involved anytime a Native American kills a whale. Based on designs that go back through the generations and all that. Drums booming slowly in the background would also help, as would a chanting medicine person of some type to get the whole myth-invoking, pipe-toking deal on the road.

But when the Makah tribe won the (very valid!) right to hunt whales here in the Northwest, they used a shotgun in their whale hunts. There was a picture in the paper of a guy in the back of the canoe holding it across his legs. I have to ask, what next? If it’s efficiency over tradition they want, why not a huge conveyor belt that carts whale carcasses from the ocean to factories on the shore? Profitability doesn’t sound very authentic to me.

Again, I know there is danger in a Caucasian male seeming to pass judgment on a minority group, especially one with such an impressive history of oppression, and so I say all this merely as someone whom circumstances may have blessed with an odd insight or two.

Chinese people and their towns

I’ve noticed that people in other cities persist in using the term “Chinatown.” Here in Seattle we say “The International District.” People refer to this neighborhood when discussing where the best place to get dim sum is. They usually mention some place packed with tourists. I smile to encourage their continued pursuit of food prepared by foreigners, and silently hope they’ll discover a more authentic experience. Such as can be found at the small, out-of-the-way place I go for the real best dim sum in town.

Anyway, “Chinatown.” I know it seems like an innocuous term, a richly historical term, even. But if the neighborhood is “Chinatown,” why not call its residents “Chinamen”? That term has history, too. Maybe you want them to wear those little pajamas and do laundry? And perhaps lay a bit of railroad track? But of course you wouldn’t say “a Chinaman” any more than you’d say “a colored,” “a gay,” or “a Jew.” I’m actually not quite clear on the Jew thing. But it does sound harsh somehow, doesn’t it? “He’s a Jew, she’s a Jew, they’re all Jews.” But you know what? I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t even be talking about this, so never mind. Also, I apologize, if that’s called for.

I recently had my appendix out, by the way, and my surgeon was an Asian. And female. Not that that matters at all. I actually didn’t even notice. But an Asian woman wielding the scalpel of Western medicine on a Caucasian male does raise some fascinating issues. I’m talking male/female, dominant/submissive, penetrated/penetrator, knife/phallus. On my last visit with Dr. Yuen, I tried to explore this with her a little bit. Purely as a matter of professional interest. Maybe I overestimated her intellectual curiosity. At any rate, I thought calling security was a bit of an overreaction on her part.

We mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: The Uptight Seattleite’s A Sensitive Liberal’s Guide to Life: How to Banter with Your Barista, Hug Mindfully, and Relate to Friends Who Choose Kids Over Dogs is available now.

Shocking news out of California, where a Republican state senator with a history of hostility to gay rights legislation was arrested for driving drunk after spending time at a popular Sacramento gay bar. Not only that, there was an unidentified male (who, the news report helpfully notes, was not a fellow lawmaker) in the passenger seat! This is kind of astounding to me. Why would a guy who does not support gays go to one of their gathering places? And why would he leave with another man? I can’t for the life of me understand any of this. It seems completely unprecedented.

Horror Chick: Why the Heavens Should Crumble If ‘Inglourious Basterds’ Wins (Short Answer: Eli Roth)

I can’t stand Eli Roth. Everyone on the Internet has a strong opinion about him one way or the other, and the only difference between the two sides is that one is utterly fucking wrong. There are legions of horror fans who like him. There are oozy corners of the Web where he is worshiped and glorified. There are even fan clubs teeming with girls who think he’s the zenith of swoony hotness or whateverthehell fangirls think. They are all tragically mistaken. Don’t take it personally, fangirls-your mental slowness is part of the human condition. We’re all morons about something. I think Jeff Dunham’s kinda funny.

But Roth is indefensible. His persona, actions, and body of work stand for the victory of a wretched set of luck and circumstances that solidify the current septic tank state of the American Dream. There’s also the small matter of his blatant lady-issues-you can just picture him ranting about how women are all psychotic whores, as evidenced by the string of crazy wenches he’s banged since high school (I’m surmising here-thankfully I have no insider knowledge of Roth’s love life). He’s the horror movie version of a Portnoy-era Philip Roth-all the Jewish angst and thrashing lady-rage, with no self-awareness or insight. But putting aside all female indignation, he has committed a terrible act: single-handedly taking what some apparently think is an Oscar-worthy film and turning it into a fucking joke.

If you love horror, you can overlook his treatment of women as vaginas-that-bleed and his puerile humor and God-killing dialogue and the fact that he admits to taking his father’s life savings to fund a film filled with jokes about gay squirrels and the N-word, because his movies are semi-decent. Cabin Fever isn’t great, but it’s willing to go some interesting places. Hostel is bad, but the torture scenes are undeniably entertaining. Hostel 2 is lethargic and lame-but it has a great moment, that pre-torture-scene montage that belongs in a highlight reel. Taken solely as pseudo-crappy horror movies, these are enjoyable, and Roth gets props (though claims of his “reviving the genre” are BS-take one look at anything Ti West has done, it all makes Hostel look like a Chocolate Rain retread). Of course, most important to the Hollywood Overlords, Roth’s movies made money-Cabin Fever was Lionsgate’s highest grossing film of 2003, and Hostel pulled in a hefty $47 million domestic. (For the record, the sequel made $17 million.)

But any respect or admiration halts there, for the simple reason that the rest of Roth’s career-and even the success of Hostel-has rested on the unbelievably lucky move of becoming Quentin Tarantino’s shoulder monkey. His Holy Tarantino-ness sprinkled “Quentin Tarantino Presents” dust on Hostel, which subsequently lured scores of twenty-something Americans into sweating over the idea that they’d get sold to torture dungeons by slutty Eastern Europeans if they ever set foot in Slovakia. Which, for some of the frat boys I knew in college, doesn’t sound like such a bad scenario. Yet somewhere in the afterglow of Quentin’s pixie dust, Roth had a hallucination and got the idea that he was an ACTOR. Like Tarantino, Roth’s one of those directors that puts himself in every one of his movies. Which is perfectly fine if it’s a campy horror flick and you’re the stoner-douche whose entrails get gobbled by a flesh-eating virus. Even in Cabin Fever, his acting was bad-but that was the point. It was all in good fun.

Only after the syrupy joy of fame descended, a disconnect occurred in Roth’s brain. A delusion of grandeur so great that it topples acting empires. Specifically, the delusion that he had any Goddamn business being in a Nazi movie that expects to be taken seriously.

Which brings us to Inglourious Basterds. As a whole, it wasn’t good. Many people whose opinions I respect spilled adoration on it like the fucking Magi. I don’t get it. It was dull, and smug, and plodding. The title characters of the film were also irrelevant-the entire plot could have happened without the presence of the Basterds. They were a silly sideshow. Let’s be honest: The only thing that saved this movie from Death Proof levels of obscurity is the subject matter. We humans fucking love us some revenge fantasies, and killing Hitler is just about the Everest crest of those. Without the orgasmic joy of seeing the Führer blown to little Nazi pieces, this film would be a boring flop propped up by the institutional weight of a famous director and the presence of the biggest movie star on earth. It would make $15 mill on opening weekend, Harvey Weinstein would grumble through fistfuls of M&Ms; about how he’ll turn a profit in DVD sales, Nikki Finke would cackle at his failure and sacrifice another goat, and life would go on as normal.

But no, we’ve got bloody spattery Hitler-death on our hands, so instead Basterds is a massive blockbuster and everyone loves it and if you don’t love it you must be some Eichmann-worshiping fascist I mean it was sooooo awesome, everyone says, so and no I don’t really get that whole scene in the bar and why does the blond chick have to prattle on for 20 minutes about nothing but ITS THE BEST MOVIE EVER and if you don’t think so that means you love Hitler.

Does the film have redeeming value? Yes: The acting. The performances of every non-American cast member are astounding. It’s like the human condition is chewed to its raw elements and regurgitated directly into our souls by these actors-the airily dazzling Diane Kruger, the simmering Melanie Laurent, and of course Christoph Waltz, oozing a lizard-smooth quadlingual evilness that no villain has ever captured onscreen.

But transcendent acting or no, the Achilles tendon is sliced from this movie by the presence of Roth. He is laughable. Beyond laughable. He appears to be LAUGHING AT US DURING HIS SCENES! OH LOOK, I’M IN A NAZI MOVIE! FUCK ALL YOU AT NYU WHO SAID I WAS A TALENTLESS HACK! Meanwhile, we’re left thrashing in our seats, wondering, “What the fuck?? Did we miss something? Since when is this man an actor?? Like a REAL actor?? The kind of actor who can appear next to people who have spent careers making this shit into an art form?? And in a fucking NAZI movie no less?! Would you cast Pauly Shore in Sophie’s Choice? No, you fucking wouldn’t!”

As such, Roth destroys the film. He sucks you out of the Spell of Magical Movieland into the seeping craphole that is Hollywood reality. His acting-calling it “acting” is like calling two third-graders dry-humping on camera “porn,” as it’s so inept as to render it irrelevant-downgrades the movie from a plodding but well-acted fantasy into a giant inside joke. Haha oh look it’s the dude who directed the Thanksgiving trailer where the cheerleader on the trampoline gets a knife up the cooch! And he’s totally Jew-hot! Haha isn’t that just so funny!

And thus the spell is broken, and you’re back to being confronted by the fact that Hollywood is one big reach-around where your buddies stick your non-actor ass in Nazi movies next to shoo-in Oscar winners and then sit back and laugh at all the stupid slobs who buy it. Think of the potential alternatives for that role. Think of what they could have done with it. You couldn’t get Adrien Brody? What, his post-Darjeeling Limited paycheck is too high? This is the only time modern audiences have ever seen a big powerful Jewish man bash a Nazi’s skull, and it’s FUCKING ELI ROTH?!! MY RELATIVES ARE SCREECHING FROM THEIR BIRKENAU GRAVES! Okay, maybe they aren’t-but they would be if they’d seen Cabin Fever.

As such, Inglourious Basterds must be stricken from the record and removed from the Best Picture list. If you disagree, you clearly love Hitler.

Melissa Lafsky has really had it with Eli Roth.

Aww, Best Picture nominee cookies in Chelsea. I do not see one with a Jew beating someone’s head in?