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joined: 1-3-2006
Worst movie ever? Okay, this one takes a little explaining...
My friend Sean has a netflix account, and he loves stop-motion animation. While perusing some stop-motion netflix stuff, he came across Alice in Wonderland. Apparently a... I believe it was Norwegian film group, decided to make Alice in Wonderland wherein the Wonder part (talking animals, cards, etc.) was all done in stop-motion. Sounds interesting, right?
Well, another thing to keep in mind is that all the stop-motion creatures were taxidermied animals. That's right, we watched Scary Dead Animal Alice in Wonderland. And that's not even the worst part; the pacing was horrible. All the dialogue was done by a voice-over from the little girl playing Alice. Like, say, the White Rabbit (who was literally a taxidermied rabbit, even in the context of the movie. The opening scene was him unnailing himself from the case he was displayed in) said "I'm late for a very important date!" Well, instead of hiring an actor for the rabbit, they just had the girl say it, then did a quick cut to an extreme closeup of her mouth, then she would say, "Said the White Rabbit." Which wouldn't be so bad, but they did it Every Goddamn Time one of the freaky monster-puppets said anything.
Oh, and to make things more interesting, she ate a doorknob.
Let me repeat that. She, being Alice, ate, as in ingested, a Fucking Doorknob.
The scene with the caterpillar was altered, since they couldn't very well get a taxidermied caterpillar to animate. So instead it was a sock. And it was in a room full of socks that tried to steal Alice's socks.
Anyway, apparently they don't have mushrooms in Norway (or whatever God-forsaken country produced this film), so the "caterpillar" sat on top of a doorknob. If you recall, the mushroom was key to Alice changing size in the original story, and she just had to eat some of it. The movie, however, being retarded and all, didn't bother to change that detail and she just ate the damn doorknob.
Now, here's what worries me about stories like this. First of all, this wasn't a bunch of kids screwing around with a camcorder; this was a movie with a crew and a budget. A crew of animators spent weeks; maybe months, animating dead animals in funny outfits. Surely they weren't looking at this and saying, "Well, this is some fine cinematography we're creating. I'm so glad we have a chance to work on Scary Foreign Alice in Wonderland." Then, after producing this movie, someone thought it was a good idea to release it. Then, after releasing it, another group thought it would be a good idea to translate it into English, then to offer it on Netflix.
It's just a horrible trail of madness that leads to a small Norwegian girl eating a doorknob.
Oh, and just as an aside, I loved Fifth Element.