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Hercules Says Syfy’s ALICE Mini Could Make Your Brain Smaller!!
I am – Hercules!!
A sci-fi-ish version of “Alice in Wonderland” written and directed by Nick Willing (who also directed a 1999 NBC “Alice in Wonderland” as well as Syfy’s “Tin Man”), “Alice” stars Caterina Scorsone as a brunette college-age karate girl trying to save her kidnapped boyfriend, who has been taken to an urban wonderland accessible via a big mirror.
I thought it silly without being funny, pokey, predictable and full of flat characters I could not bring myself to care about. Matt Frewer’s white knight character sounds alarmingly like neighborly necromancer Doctor Orpheus on “The Venture Bros.”
The reviews on Willing’s “Tin Man” two years ago were generally poor, yet that miniseries was a big hit. This may explain why a lot of critics couldn’t be bothered to review “Alice” this year.
TV Guide says:
… a tone-deaf mishmash that pays facile lip service to the iconic creatures from Lewis Carroll’s magical underworld but operates under the assumption that being strange and surreal is enough. The story is a chore …
USA Today says:
… For an hour or so, simple pleasures suffice, such as matching old characters to new and faces to names (Tim Curry, Colm Meaney, Harry Dean Stanton and Matt Frewer among them). And some of the literary translations are clever, led by Wonderland's adoption of flamingo-shaped flying scooters. But Alice soon bogs down in Willing's superimposed plot, with its shifting motives and dreary lectures. And while there are times Alice fends (or punches) for herself, too often Scorsone succumbs to a drab weepiness. …
The Washington Post says:
… in one of the last scenes, the new Alice picks up a copy of one of Carroll's books -- and then quickly puts it down again. Putting it down quickly, however, is a preferable alternative to spending four hours at the same joyless task.
The Boston Herald says:
… an odd, enchanting and surprisingly romantic retelling … Viewers who can set aside their preconceptions may find they’ll enjoy this trip down the rabbit hole.
The Chicago Sun-Times says:
… charming, but not perfect. The pacing dragged in some parts, and although this Alice is unmistakably empowered, she asked a lot fewer questions than I would. Like: Does the President know about Wonderland? And are there any bathrooms? …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… There's plenty of fantasy (flying mechanical flamingos) and horror (a roomful of eyes), but there's also too much running around without sweating and lines like "spin another roulette wheel and it'll be your last." What ultimately sinks "Alice" is that it is too normal. Carroll's nonsense, anarchy and druggy weirdness always turned the tale into a fevered dream. Here, Alice disappears instead into a tired missing-father subplot. …
Variety says:
… Willing has reshaped Wonderland into a kind of swinging psychedelic '60s, but it's all set design in search of a purpose. Despite a few surreal kicks, this headlong trip through the looking glass brews a rather weak tea party. …
9 p.m. Sunday & Monday. Syfy.
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Sy Fy reimagines the Wombles.
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Dec 06, 2009 6:04:32 AM CST
Why does everything have to be fucking reimagined?
by richard_gere_raped_my_gerbil
There's a reason stories like 'The Wizard Of Oz' and 'Alice In Wonderland' are considered classics. They don't need some idiot to come along and throw fucking zombies, robots and talking microwaves into the mix to make it 'cool'. If you're not going to do the original version, don't bother doing any version at all.
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the wonderful children in need single from peter kay. absolutely outstanding. Britiain had the best children´s programs in the world. That video brought a tear to my eye. superb.
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how itv has a all but abandoned chidrens television.
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how itv has a all but abandoned chidrens television. I think there should a petition against us tv networks getting there hands on UK childrens tv classics.
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Compare and contrast what used to be on in the magic hours between 4 and 6 on a weekday, back 20 years ago.
ITV adapted the Chocky series, didn't they? And co-funded (with Germany) the adaptation of The Littlest Vampire? They also used to have shows like Dramarama for non-serialised one off play pieces.
ITV was also the home of Rainbow, if I remember correctly. Though usually played at a lunch time for pre-schoolers.
Still, ITV is basically a commercial network. Which means they have to allow ratings to have a say in what gets commissioned. And unfortunately for the kids of todays generation, there isn't much money to be made in catering to intelligent childrens programming.
Shows like The Muppets, Jackanory, etc... would never be greenlit these days. -
That Rainbow episode(never aired) which is rife with double entdres is one of the funniest things I have ever seen .possibly on youtube. . very funny.
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Is that your opinion? Thanks for giving it!
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That single is brilliant, isnt it! :) Peter Kay has a real knack for doing these videos
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And Zooey Deschanel could not act in it.
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Actor, writer, director, singer. He clearly is very bright. If you tube that superb Two part series Raider of the pop charts tow things are evident. one is his love of pop music. and the extraordinary knowledge he has of popular culture. Third thing is the research. He had never been interviewed in dublin before on the late late show. and you can see the clip on youtube where he upstages Late late host ryan tubriddy. hob knob their the chuck norris of the biscuit world. classic. Tubbers just cant compete. I loved the way he stuck in the entendre, do you dunk your biscuit. tubridy had no clue and the jokes at the end. you wouldn´t get away with that on us television
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watch the youtube stuff with the late clancey bros and tommy Makem. Byrne was the best in ireland and we will never see his like again. We only had two channels but byrne was the best. no question.
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The words "SyFy Original" are synonomous with bad effects, awful acting and hack writing.
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...thank you very much.
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Why is shite like this being turned out while American McGee's Alice still hasn't been made? The bastids!
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In. Must watch!
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I have no idea what ya'll are talking about.
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Seriously, it's SyFy!!
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Another sign of Idiocracy at play. Hey Herc, How 'bout a talkback on the benefits of electrolytes?
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SyFy has a shitty original production. Have they had any good original programming besides BSG?
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Once upon a time many decades ago there was one dominant tv station. the BBC. or to give its full title British Broadcasting Corp. They had a monoploy in the UK. as they did with radio. the BBC is tied to the uk govt and they have a thing called the licence fee. one word above all others put the fear of god into the bbc and that was commericial tv. Ads were and are banned on the BBC. The commercial sector put huge pressur on the then govt to counter the BBC. The license fee they claimed and still do claim was unfair. and the commercial sector got thier way. Then the govt and we are talking here about the 1950s. produced a blueprint that would over time change the face of british tv forever. This bill provided for the setting up of small commercial tv companies in the uk. The most prominent of those was Granada Television. plus you had yorkshire tv, tyne tees, anglia for the border. and for london you had central television and thames tv. The big and dominant figures on the London Scene Bernard Delfont and his two cuosins the Grade bros. one of whose children is Sir Micheal Grade. There was one emerginv figure whose name alone caused sleepless nights to all tv execs. Rupert Murdoch. When Channel 4 was being set up Murdoch went in and pitched his idea and they were roundly thrown back in his face. Murdoch wether talkbackers like him or not is resilient. and 1984 Murdoch launched skysat. 5 years later as the berlin wall fell Murdoch launched Sky news. And setup BskyB. Later came Sky One. Murdochs hates the BBC with a passion. and his son James launched an assault on the BBC last year which was damming. ITV or independent television has been atrociously run for well over a decade. every programming decision they made was disastrous and ill thought out. Like separating the company by calling one station itv one, itv two etc. then they decided to have 24 hr sports channel. only problem was nobody watched that. why would they. Murdoch had sports in the UK all locked up. sky ports 1,2,3 etc. and then you could always watch a movie. sky movies 1,2,3 sky movies plus want to watch boxing or the oscars. If you are a sky customer, you can watch those but you have to pay for them. A few years ago ITV was in dire financial trouble. Murdoch who wanted to kill of the bbcs competition decided to buy a share in ITV. But he had a worthy adversary Sir Richard Branson. whose media group virgin also wanted to buy A huge stake itv. By the time of that Court battle companies like anglia, tyne tees, and havelock were decimated over night when meridian bought them up and carlton bought up everything else. Cartlon were then Swallowed by Granada under its then chief exec Irish born Multimillionaire Sir Gerry Robinson. Murdoch lost his battle to take on the BBC. but many say think that he has defeated. why? The bbc ran a story about Dr David Kelly. The reporter was andrew Gilligan and when he annoounced that Campbell had sexed up the dodgy dossier, Campbell went on the war path. there was an embargo in place when the media got thier hands on the hutton report. 11.55pm. 5 mins before the embargo was lifted, the sun newspaper put the story on the front page and printed. How they got their hands on the report to this day remains a mystery. one thing was correct campbell said heads would roll and they did. in spectacular fashion. shock hit the when the first hutton cannon ball hit tv center. Greg Dyke was sacked as Director General of the BBC. the chairman of the BBC also fell on his sword, If the BBc thought it was all over. it was just beginning and ITV would to be caught up in the storm over in the phone competition scandals.
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Dec 06, 2009 12:37:54 PM CST
Lost Room Lost Room Lost Room Lost Room Lost Room Lost Room Lost
by snowpuff
Bring back the Lost Room!!!!
Sigh. No one at Syfy listens. Mark Stern is the Antichrist. That is all. -
I'm with you, brother. It's almost as if they deliberately want these half-assed ideas to fail...
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Every time they work in an awkward reference to the original book/film that they attempt to put into a modern context, all the while seeming like they are overtly winking at the audience saying "Get it? Get it?" you drink. E.G. "The Tin man's family was all killed. Ever since then it's like he lost his ...heart..." drink. Also drink every time the usually talented Zooey Deschanel stops acting in mid take. Seriously, she runs out of steam mid line constantly in that series. Probably thinking about how much better the project looked on paper.
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I salute the person who put up the second trailer for end of time. I dont know who made it. it looks legit and it was posted up on the 4th december 2009. sigma OOd, the master and something called the immortality gate.
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Aparantly she doesn't work well with the green screen
Her eyes were always focused too near or too far also -
And Tim Burton's shit will fuck it up even more.
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Never crit a fellow for your versus you're and all that but... You typed "I thought it silly without being funny, pokey, predictable and full of flat characters I could not bring myself to care about."
Good wholly Bret Easton Édouard Samuel R. Dujardin Delany Ellis..man.
Ya gotsta feature some such mental edit.
..maybe less imagefap.com more englishgrammar101.com..
of course I've only heard 'your' a fan of imagefap...
what the hell is that place anyway?
..any one got an extra tissue? -
2nd best episode ever. I was wondering what alien race will be their arch enemy. Only to find out it will come from one of their own.
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Didn't deal with those fucking stones and any lame Earth drama, and the ending was quite a cliffhanger. I don't think it comes back on SyFy with new episodes till March, but Space might show a couple in January.
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Only good thing was the wicked witch's juicy cleavage.
What a shit miniseries, with the most abrupt throwaway ending since Dracula 3000. -
Next Christmas: Lost Room II. Trust me. You'll get both the critics and the auds back.
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Dear SyFy please stop making retarded crap ...If you haven't figured it out yet, your prime demographic actually has a higher than average IQ and prefers intelligent stories.
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Notice how they air Medium, Ghost Hunters, etc.
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My fiancee turned this off after the first hour with the statment, "This is just fucking stupid."
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makes it worth watching
Hopefully squeely voiced Matt Frewer gets his kicked too -
That sentence, by aintitcool standards, is as error free and clear as any you'll find. I mean, have you read any of Harry's reviews?why is that sentence so bad anyway? it's a little unclear and ending with a preposition is usually bad, but come on...there are way worse out there.
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... is on Lifetime. Or Oxygen. Or some women's channel Ghost Whisperer is on Syfy.
Besides Lost Room, Warehouse 13 was decent to above-average. More for Saul Rubinek and CCH Pounder than the young photogenic Secret Service agents, and a nice quiet story arc that didn't go overboard. McPherson was an evil bastard, but he wasn't trying to lead an alien invasion, or conquer the world, or become President. He just wanted revenge on Artie and the Regents. -
I watched some of it between flipping back and forth between watching Minnesota get whipped, and it was mediocre at best.
Definitely some interesting ideas and visuals, but I think whoever said it just seemed ordinary said it best. There should be a sense of wonder to a place called Wonderland and there simply wasn't.
Out of what I saw, the white knight was just about the best thing about it. -
i cant wait till mankind invents irony.
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Polly Holiday gotta eat! ... oh... sorry, wrong show. :-)
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Dec 07, 2009 1:46:11 AM CST
Scfy loves creating literal interpretations of Fairy Tales
by orionsangels
Is this the new trend for Scfy? Literal interpretations of Fairy Tales? We had Wizard of Oz. Now Alice in Wonderland. What's next? Literal scifi interpretations of Pinocchio? Cinderella perhaps?
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halifax decided to shut all of its irish branches. oh and a scifi interpretation of pinocchio? was done already. AI?
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I think the way American TV is run is less confusing. We went commercial pretty much right away.
SyFy does suck now. Their original movies are asinine and I haven't watched an original series on there in eons. They were best when they showed reruns of good old shows (all of which I now have on DVD though).
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I'm getting tired of all of these remakes and reimaginings. There is apparently a lack of creative people in Hollywood these days. Here's an idea: Instead remaking something great, remake something that sucked the first time and do it better. If you can't do that, make up your own stuff. If you can't do THAT, please find another line of work. I don't want to see another A-Team or any more garbage like Old Dogs and Wild Hogs.
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The badass mechanical rabbit is kind of scary. Wasn't there a production of the America McGee "Alice" video game that was supposed to have starred Sarah Michelle Gellar?
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But the misdirecting of the cast and editing is so loose that it just sucks the life from it. The cast may be talented, but they are handled VERY crapily. Shame for them. A bit more intensity in the right place and tighter cutting, and the thing may be **** instead of **.
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The reimagining of Strawberry Shortcake. It will be a much darker take set in a modern scene.
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