Baby Doll (1956)

Yesterday the big news in entertainment was the death of Eli Wallach. As much as I enjoy old movies, I didn't know the name off hand so I went looking and that lead me to his first movie, Baby Doll. Eli Wallach is known for The Magnificent Seven and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly among other things and was never considered a heartthrob, possibly because he was primarily a character actor.

Based on a Tennesse Williams' play, Baby Doll is about a 19 year old girl who was married off to an older husband because her dying father wanted her taken care of. A deal was struck with the husband that the marriage will not be consummated till Baby Doll's 20th birthday which is just a few days away. Baby Doll actually sleeps in a crib (much like a current toddler bed) and behaves rather childishly. I personally interpret all of this as mechanisms to keep her husband, Archie Lee, away as she finds him unattractive and old and seems to look for reasons to break the deal. Her husband, frustrated with his wife and his failing business, burns down a neighboring cotton gin. The owner vows revenge and visits the next day obstinately to have Archie Lee gin his cotton but really to find proof that he committed the arson. After meeting Baby Doll, he begins a seduction of her in effort to get her to admit Archie Lee's guilt.

Baby Doll is a movie known for being denounced and banned for its sexual themes. I read a few things yesterday that dealt with the theme of adultery but mostly it was the idea of feminine sexuality that upsets its critics. That a girl might want to have sex for her own pleasure was a radical idea at the time. But there is no actual sex shown in the movie rather it is implied and the scene that so upset people, albeit slightly creepy and outdated by today's standards, actually had little to do with sex. But there is something about the way Wallach's character, Vacarro, speaks to Baby Doll and the way he carcasses her that is sexy as hell. The touching and the whispering and the way the camera closes in on them makes it one of the most intimate moments I've seen. And this is, I believe, where Baby Doll begins to experience a sexual awakening. Her experience thus far as been boys and men trying to force themselves on her and now there is a man telling her she is delicate and soft and caressing her. The scene alone comes off creepy but somehow arousing on its own. Viewed in context of the whole movie, it really brings together that this is the moment that Baby Doll first experiences the idea of sex for pleasure.


I've seen it mentioned in several comments that Baby Doll is just a pawn for these two men and that is despicable. And yes it is but the thing is even once she knows that Vacarro is just using her to find out Archie Lee's guilt, she still asks him to stay and take a "nap." Now the nap can be taken as an actual nap or it can be seen as a "nap." It's claimed by Vacarro himself to just be a nap but certainly something has changed in Baby Doll. She exhibits a more grown up style afterwards and, in fact, dresses to mimic Vacarro's dark clothing. She also somehow becomes a bit more sensible though still prone to immaturity.



 The crib itself can be taken as a symbol of her growth. In the beginning she is clinging to her virginity more out of disgust for her husband and as a weapon to get what she wants. She uses the nursery as a means to that end. But suddenly, with Vaccaro, she is offering it to him as a place to lay down and she cares for him in a tender fashion. Afterwards, he seems more caring of her than before. Before he was ruthless in his seduction and treating her like a child in order to gain proof of Archie Lee's crime. After he tries to save her from her increasingly unhinged husband as well as maintain some semblance of normalcy in face of an angry man. The characters are all once sympathetic and gross as most people are, but Archie Lee seems to be the foulest of them all. And while Baby Doll is saved from consummating the marriage she is ultimately also left alone by the two men who wanted to use her for their own separate gains.
(Interestingly the ending of the movie came out of the idea that an adulteress must be punished in some fashion as was dictated by the Motion Picture Production Code of the time. Since a case could be made that Baby Doll did not commit adultery, she was allowed to survive as it were but not with a completely happy ending. The play ends more happily for the lovers than the movie.)



* Though I've included key scenes it really is a movie worth watching but be warned that racism is pretty prevalent throughout the film.

The Lorax

Ted is a boy who likes the girl across the street and they live in a town made of plastic where nothing is natural and the air quality is so horrible people buy bottled air. When the girl, Audrey, says she wants to see a real live tree, Ted seeks out the Once-ler and learns his story and why all the trees have disappeared.

I didn't get a chance to see this in the theater but it's on Netflix now and I've watched it 3 times in the last 4 days thanks to my son. The Lorax was always one of my favorite Seuss stories despite the fact that is kind of sad. And I liked the tv special growing up. So I was definitely interested to see this come up on instant streaming. It expands the story quite a bit but I liked it. I find the animated movies of Seuss stories are better than the live action. This is true of the Lorax. The music is catchy and the animation is well done. It is very round and curvy, keeping in lines with the illustrations. You actually see the Once-ler which you never do in the book or the TV show. I liked the relationship that develops between him and the Lorax. And I enjoyed the backstory they made up with Thneedville and Ted. It was a funny movie and I really didn't mind watching it so many times. I'm sure it will be watched again sometime again this week.

Almost forgot...

I almost forgot to blog.  We went to church this morning and then came home to have a lazy day together.  BT made pretzels and cookies and I watched "Ramona and Beezus" which was cute.  The little girl who played Ramona looks like Rory Gilmore (I can't think of her name and I'm too lazy to look it up right now).  It's a little eerie how much that little girl could be her sister.  But they did a great job casting that movie with people who look like they could be related.  I wasn't fond of making Beezus 15 years old but it was fine.  It was a cute movie.  So that is about it for today.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part I

I actually had the good fortune to see Deathly Hallows on Wednesday night.  This is the first time in my life I've ever had the opportunity to see a movie before it is released and what a great movie for such an opportunity.

Anyway, I loved Deathly Hallows.  When I first heard it was being broken up into two movies, I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  But having seen Part I,  I"m glad they did.  It enabled to keep so much more in line with the books which has always been a problem in the other movies.  So many details tend to lost.  But Deathly Hallows kept quite in line with the book, though some details that got taken out of the other movies were inserted, like Bill and Fleur, to make it make a little more sense.  I think the movie did a great job of building the tension of the book  The sense of waiting and waiting for something to happen was definitely there.  And the bang!  There it was.  The group dynamic was really great between the trio and they did a nice job with the Hermione and Ron relationship. I can't say I'd really change anything about it.  I can't wait for the next movie though!

cross posted with The Little Bookworm

The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking

I noticed this movie the other day on Netflix and it had been a long time since I have seen it so I added it to the queue.  Now I've never read the original book or if I have I don't remember, but I remember the movie.  It was very cute and sweet.  Pippi's father is lost at sea and so she returns to their family home named Villa Villekulla to live and wait for me.  There she befriends the two bored next door neighbor children, Tommy and Annika, and they have adventures together.  Pippi is very fun and sensible though she does like to tell stories and is often cheeky to adults, but usually adults who deserve it by treating her like she is dumb.  Anyway, some villains want to buy her house to tear down and make into a development so Pippi thwarts them at every turn.  She also tries to cheer up the orphan children who have a mean caretaker.

This version of Pippi has held up reasonably well and I enjoyed watching it again.  My 3 year old watched it with me and it seemed to enjoy it as well.  He liked when Pippi lifted up the horse and he liked the monkey and when they threw ice cream to the orphans.

Cross posted with The Little Bookworm

Hannah Montana: The Movie

Last night I found myself watching Hannah Montana: The Movie.  No one knows why and I'll admit that I've already seen it.  It's a cute movie, a bit more serious than the show which loves slapstick humor.  But I had a few thoughts.  Through the whole movie everyone complains about how much Miley uses Hannah to do all kinds of rockstar stuff and Miley as Hannah does a few shady things but nothing overwhelmingly bad.  It's like her family and friends make no effect to understand where she is coming from although Miley is fairly selfish to begin with.  So her dad brings her to Tennessee to get back to her roots and slow down a little.  This might be fair because otherwise Miley will become even more of a selfish monster.  So the whole movie everyone is like Hannah is stupid, be Miley, blah blah and of course Miley still tries to be both and it ends in disaster each time.  She pisses off her dad, and the whole town, and her new boyfriend.  Then at the climatic moment Miley rips off her wig and says she can't do it anymore, sings "The Climb" (a song I like) and walks away.  Suddenly the whole town is yelling at her to be Hannah again!  It's like the whole lesson they tried to teach the entire movie is gone!  And I refuse to believe that a whole town is going to keep this secret plus there had to be some out-of-towners there.  I mean, honestly there is just no way.  But Disney has a season left of Hannah Montana and so there ya go.  I'm still not sure what Miley was walking away from, Hannah completely or the rockstar life or what.  Plus all of that over a boy who never comes up again, ever.

I actually like Miley Cyrus to a certain degree.  I'm not fond of her new Taylor Momsen attitude but that is par on course for a Disney girl trying to outgrow their franchise.  And Hannah Montana was a HUGE hit for Disney so it casts a long shadow.  I don't think though she is the best actress.  She is surrounded by good actors and that makes it a little more obvious.  To be fair I've only seen most of the cast in the sitcom so I have nothing to go on otherwise.  But Emily Osment and Jason Earles are clearly much better actors.  And so it is a shame that they have very little do in the movie, although it is a lot more than Mitchel Musso.  But still both the Cyruses, Miley and Billy Ray, are not the best of the cast.

Tin Man (mini-series)

Since I read the Wizard of Oz recently I found this mini-series from 2007 that tied in with it.  It is a alternate retelling of that book mixed with a few elements from the movie.  DG is a waitress living on a farm with her parents when she is whisked away one night during a tornado.  She winds up in the O.Z. (Outer Zone) where she meets Glich, a man with half a brain (Scarecrow), Raw, a lion-like telepath (Lion), and Cain, who was imprisoned in a literal tin man, and is now looking for the man who put him there (Tin Man).  Together they work their way around the O.Z. with DG trying to find her way home and finding a lot more about herself than she knew existed.

This was a darker, more cynical re-imagining.  The characters are heavily flawed and can be downright scary at times.  Zooey Deschanel plays GD and I like her in general.  She has this deadpan way of speaking and she is so pretty.  Alan Cumming plays Glich in a wonderful performance.  The only one that seemed a little over the top was Kathleen Robinson who plays Azkadellia, the evil sorceress.  Or maybe that was just her costumes because some of them bothered me.

But it was good movie, if a little uneven, especially in the visuals department.  Sometimes they had beautiful effects and the other times the special effects were meh.  The story was very cool and I like the whole idea of it.  If you are a Wizard fan or a fan of sci-fi, I would check it out.

Going to the movies

Today I am going to see Eclipse with my friends and I fully anticipate a lol worthy time.  I hope.  I hear it is good and better than New Moon but then it really can't get worse.  Cleolinda liked it so that's something.  I think it will be a fun time.  But this might be my last Twilight movie.  I just don't know if I want to see Breaking Dawn given how much I hated that book.  Though it is because of it that I discovered Cleolinda at all so I'll give it credit for that.

Howl's Moving Castle (Movie)

I also love Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.  And I love the anime of the book.  The story is almost completely different which normally would bother me, but it is a great movie on its own.  Sophie is still cursed by the Witch, but for a different reason.  The Howl/Calcifer relationship is mostly the same, but Sophie's sisters and their subplot are almost eliminated as are several other characters.  Some characters and plot elements from the book are combined or eliminated to create a much simpler and more streamline story.  I realized this had to be done because there is a lot going on in the book that would be too busy for a movie.  Still it is a lovely movie, both in plot and in looks.  The voice acting for the dubbed version is great.  Billy Crystal plays Calcifer and that gives him more of a comedic tone so that was an interesting choice.  It's not as successful as Phil Hartman in Kiki's Delivery Service, but it still works.  The only problem I had with it (*spoiler for the book*) is the removal of Sophie's magical powers.  I love that part of the book and I wished they could have included it.

Nancy Drew: Troubleshoot and The Hidden Staircase (1939)

There were two more movies starring Bonita Granville as Nancy Drew from 1939.  I liked the first one, Detective, ok but the rest quickly got on my nerves.  Nancy is an idiot, Carson Drew is overbearing and mean, the police chief is a condescending ass, and there is no Hannah or Bess or George.  Though I really like the Ted Nickerson character for some reason.  The resemblance to the books is negligible.  Normally, I like old movies and can make allowances for certain eccentricities of the time period, but not these.  While not the worst movies ever, I found myself saying Nancy Drew you are an idiot over and over and I'm not happy about that.


Nancy Drew: Troubleshooter
Nancy goes with her father to help out an old friend who has been accused of murder.  She meets up with Ted who is down at the lake with his family.  Of course, she ropes him into helping her solve the mystery and clear her family friend's name.  Of all the movies, this was my least favorite.  Nancy is most annoying and she is mean to Ted and there is the casual racism of this era on display in the character of Apollo, the handyman on the farm.  I hate seeing African-American characters like this.  It is one of the main reason I didn't like this movie.

Nancy Drew: The Hidden Staircase
While you would think that this would have some relation to the book it is titled after, you would be wrong.  There are two sisters named Turnbull and that's about where the similarities end.  Because of some weird stipulation in their father's will, at least one of the sisters has to spend every night in the house for 20 years before they own it.  Nancy sticks her nose where it doesn't belong when a man is murdered at the Turnbull's place.  She blatantly meddles in a police "investigation" when she makes Ted write a suicide note so the sisters will stay in their mansion and not give up their eligibility to outright own it and then give it up for a children's hospital.  She gets Ted in trouble a whole lot and, in the end, he is the one who rescues them both with his cleverness.

cross posted The Little Bookworm

Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging

Based on the Georgia Nicholson books by Louise Rennison, specifically Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging and It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers (On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God in the U.S., this was an adorable movie.  The girl who plays Georgia (Georgia Groome) is so dead-on and Jaz (Eleanor Tomlinson) is really great too though with no fringe and very skinny, not quite how I pictured her.  But anyway, everyone does a fantastic job.

Georgia is planning her fifteen birthday party with her friends, the Ace Gang.  They are very silly girls who like to randomly dance and have the most awesome slang.  Georgia and Jaz are both taken with the new twins, Robbie and Tom, and set out to get their attention.  Robbie starts dating Georgia's rival, but seems to take an interest in Georgia as well.  So she resorts to trickery to make Robbie jealous and like her, but then it backfires and Georgia must try to fix it.

ATPS (for short) is co-written and directed by Gurinder Chadha. who did Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice, two of my favorite movies.  And she does an excellent job with this movie.  It does a great job of tying the two books together and the plot and characters changes are minor, Robbie and Tom are twins instead of just brother, for example.  But the story stays intact.  The only thing was the ending, which was great, but since I've read all the books I really wanted to see a little of that.  But the ending of the movie is similar to the end of the books so I can't really say anything bad about it.  This is definitely going to be one of my go to movies when I need a pick me up.

Nancy Drew: Detective and Reporter

I discovered that there are some old Nancy Drew movies from the late 1930's and I thought it would be fun to watch them since I am working my way through the original books.

Nancy Drew: Detective
Based on the Password to Larkspur Lane,  there are significant changes to Nancy's personality and the personality of Ned, now Ted, and her father.  She is given a hard time by all the men, a lot more so than in the books and they treat her like a little girl most of the time.  That bothered me because Mr. Drew always supported Nancy and encouraged her to sleuth, but in the movies he doesn't do that.  Ted is more of a foible and talks back to her and goes along reluctantly.  He is also her next door neighbor.  I know that these movies would have to be based on the orginal text of the books, but I doubt Ted (Ned) would have ever been so mean to Nancy.  He is rather good looking though and they obviously like each other.  Nancy tends to use her feminine wiles and "women's intuition" a lot and it usually backfires, but she would never behave that way in the books.

The plot similar to the book but there is no Bess or George or Helen so Ted is her companion.  Mrs. Eldrigde promised Nancy's school some money and then she disappears so Nancy sets out to find her despite the protests of her father and the police chief.  She, of course, finds out what happened and there is much excitement in the meantime.  It's a fun movie though not the greatest portrayal of Nancy Drew.


Nancy Drew: Reporter

Nancy goes on an internship to a newspaper and goes to court where she hears about a murder case.  An old lady was poisoned by a photography chemical.  A young lady named Eula Denning is accused though she says she didn't do it.  Nancy notices a man with cauliflower ear at the inquest who later hits Nancy's car and drives away.  Nancy chases him down and gets money for repairs, but notices that he is acting suspicious.  She later hunts down the can of poison that would have the real killer's fingerprints on it, but it is stolen from her.  Nancy puts Ted in the boxing ring with the man to find out more and then sets up the man and his girlfriend and so the mystery gets solved.
Same changes as with the above movie, but fun.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Yesterday afternoon I saw Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton.  I must say that I enjoyed it.  The visuals are beautiful and the story is pretty good.  Alice the book is very hard because it isn't really a story, just a girl wandering from one weird situation to another.  But this movie isn't a straight telling of the book.  It is a reimagining where Alice is grown up and is facing a big decision in her life.  I won't go into too much detail about the plot but there is an attempt to make the plot elements more cohesive with the upward time movement of the story.  It works as much as any attempt to make Alice in Wonderland cohesive and it was nice to see more of two of my favorite characters, The Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter.  Johnny Depp does a great job as that character as does Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen.

I would have like a little more back story for a lot of the plot.  I would have like to understand what the Hatter was saying a lot of the time too, but we don't always get what we want.  Anyway, it is a beautiful movie, sweet and moving and the costumes were amazing.  So thumbs up from me.


cross posted with The Little Bookworm

Harriet the Spy (movie)

In 1996, Nickoledeon made a movie starring Michelle Trachtenberg as Harriet and Rosie O'Donnell as Ole Golly.  And I sat down to watch it after listening to the book. This is a fairly accurate and a good representation of the book.  There are a few chances here and there, the biggest being that after Harriet's friends start their club and spill paint on her (instead of ink) she gets back at them in various ways like posting an embarrassing picture of Sport and messing up one of Janie's experiments.  She does some mean stuff in the book, but not quite like in the movie.  And Golly comes back instead of just writing to her.  But the tone is right and Michelle Trachtenberg does such an excellent job of portraying Harriet.

Side note: I've heard that Disney is doing a new version with Jennifer Stone from Wizards of Waverly Place and I just cannot fathom that.  She is way too old to play Harriet and I think it is going to be awful.

Gidget (movie)

Gidget is irrepressible tomboy who sees no reasons to hunt down boys and go on dates... until the day she is saved by Moondoggie, the gorgeous surfer.  Gidget is determined to learn how to surf and snag Moondoggie while she is at it.  But he only sees her as a little girl so Gidget sets out to change his mind.

First, I'm a HUGE fan of old movies.  I love them.  And Gidget is one of my favorites.  I love Sandra Dee and how cute is she.  I love the clothes they wear and  James Darren is so very good looking.  He is the only one of the original cast to play his character through three movies.  There are two other movies from around this time, Gidget Goes Hawaiian with Deborah Walley (who is in one of my other favorite movies, Summer Magic with Hayley Mills)  and Gidget Goes to Rome with Cindy Carol who is my least favorite Gidget.  Gidget is very excitable and funny and innocent but only annoying in the Rome movie and that has a lot to do with the way Carol plays her. 

Anyway, this was the first movie and one of the first "beach movies."  There are only two songs, both sung by Darren, so it doesn't really count as a musical.  It does always surprise me how much innuendo there is in old movies, but the humor is so clean compared to what we watch now, that it is just funny and cute.  The close ups during surfing scenes are laughable.  But it is a very fun movie.

The Princess and the Frog

I've seen The Princess and the Frog twice now.  Once I bought the little man to see it and my mom came and then the second time, we went with my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law.  I enjoyed it both times though I think Bub got tired halfway through the second time.  Of course, it was naptime.
I thought it was really well done and I enjoyed all the characters.  I know there was controversy about her being the first black princess and all that it entailed, but I'm not going to comment on that.  Although I will say that instead of the princess being saved, she was the one doing the saving.  But it wasn't so overt and in your face like some movies try to do.
It is a shame that she spends so much time as a frog though.  I enjoyed her character and I liked that both main characters needed to learn lessons before they could get out of their predicement.
And since I'm from South Louisiana, I will say that the Cajun characters were extremely awesome.  I liked Ray the firefly a lot.  Some of the stuff he says is so dead on and most of the accents were perfect.  It is so rare to find a movie with good Louisiana accents (with the exception of Charlotte.  I loved her character, but her accent ... not so much).  There are a couple of jokes that I don't think people will find funny though outside of Louisiana and some things that are very regional.  New Orleans and the bayou are amazingly drawn and dead-on.  My MIL, who is from New Orleans, said it looked like NO she grew up in, not how it looks now.  And the music was so great.  It's not classic like Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid, but it fit the tone of the movie really well.  The zyedco number was wonderful.  So all in all, a great movie.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

The Muppets take on Charles Dickens' classic tale "A Christmas Carol" with their own special twist of course.  Starring Michael Caine as Ebeneezer Scrooge and the cast of the Muppets in various role, this is a fun take on the old story. It follows the Dickens story fairly faithfully and most of Scrooge's dialogue is straight on.  The addition of Charles Dickens (Gonzo) as the narrator is funny.

It is a musical as Muppet movies usually are, though the songs are less memorable.  I like particulary "It feels like Christmas," a jauntly little tune.  The special effects are well done for 1992 and the Muppets are so great.  Michael Caine makes an excellent Scrooge and I love Miss Piggy's Mrs. Cratchit.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (movie)

So Sunday, we went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  It wasn't showing in 3D at our local theater but that was fine.  I liked it.  It was very cute and funny.  If you think it's going to be like the book, then think again.  Flint Lockwood is a failed inventor until he invents a machine that can change water into food.  When his invention is shot in the sky and it starts to rain food, everyone is excited until giant food starts to fall from the sky. The movie does include some of the iconic images from the book including the jello "sunset," pancakes on the school, and the roofless restaurant.  The animation was very curvy and fluid.
The little man seemed to like it especially the giant gummy bears.  And the little kids sitting next to me enjoyed it as well.  There were some very funny parts that made the whole audience laugh and I really liked Sam Sparks, the TV weatherperson sent to cover the phenomenon.

Wings (movie)

So I finished Wings (Pike) last night. And I was thinking about the upcoming movie that will star Miley Cyrus as Laurel, the girl who suddenly sprouts a flower about of her back and learns she is a fairy. I won't go into how inaccurate the title Wings is for that book now, but, sufficient to say, it is.
Anyway, I like Miley Cyrus and I think she is very pretty, but she is so not right for Laurel.  Laurel is suppose to be slight and ethereal looking, and Miley is not any of those things.  That's the thing about Disney girls, they are always very pretty but in a relateable way.  They have to be so the tween girls will love them and assume they are approachable and just like them.  But Laurel isn't pretty in that way.  She is fashion model pretty.  So I was thinking Taylor Momsen for Laurel, but she is too edgy.  And then last night before I went to sleep I thought that Taylor Swift would be perfect.  She is so beautiful that she has always kind of freak me out.  She just looks Laurel.  I know my opinion doesn't mean much and that Miley is confirmed for the movie.  But I doubt I'll go see the movie.  I mean, I doubt I would have gone anyway given my opinion that the book is eh so no real loss there.
So what do you think?

 (ETA)

Miley Cyrus, right/Taylor Swift, left

Alice in Wonderland (Disney 1951)

One of my favorite movies growing up, I was happy to revisit Alice in Wonderland for the challenge.  It has held up pretty well.  The songs are lively and it still makes me sad when Alice cries in the forest.  Not a true adaption of Alice in Wonderland, but a combination of elements from both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. 

Alice is bored with her tutor and decides that a world of nonsense would be fun.  When she sees the White Rabbit, she follows him and falls down a rabbit hole.  There she encounters the locked door, a cake labeled "Eat Me," and a big problem.  After drinking she grows to a large size and cannot fit through the door. So she cries huge tears and then spies a bottle labeled "Drink Me" and she shrinks right into the bottle!  Alice is carried away through the doorknob and meets many crazy creatures including Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter and March Hare, the Cheshire Cat (my favorite), and the Queen of Hearts.  After almost losing her head to the Queen of Hearts, Alice is awoken by her tutor and goes off to have tea.

Actually a good portion of the movie is from Through the Looking Glass, but Disney picked the parts that are least terrifying.  There's no Jabberwocky in this movie, though the Cheshire Cat sings the Jabberwocky poem.  My favorite parts are the flower garden and the Walrus and the Carpenter.  I always like the white rose since she is so beautiful and I felt sorry for the little oysters even though they are stupid.  So it was nice revisiting Disney's Alice in Wonderland.  I watched it with my little boy, but he was bored by most of it so it's not quite up to 2 year old standards. Maybe one day...