Phoebe in Wonderland (2009, Image)
purchase from Amazon: DVD
Elle Fanning gives one of the most touching and heart breaking performances you will see this year in writer/director Daniel Barnz’s Phoebe in Wonderland. This little seen gem that received a limited theatrical release is now available on DVD. With a thought provoking story, exemplary performances by Fanning, Felicity Huffman and Patricia Clarkson, and imaginative, beautiful cinematography by Bobby Bukowski, Phoebe in Wonderland is a movie you’ll be thinking about weeks after watching it for the first time.
Fanning is Phoebe Lichten, the precocious daughter of two writers, Hillary (Huffman) and Peter (an understated Bill Pullman). Hillary is struggling to complete a book on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, while Peter has just learned that his new book is going to be published. This family of four also includes little sister, Olivia (Bailee Madison). As the film opens, Phoebe, a social outcast with seemingly one friend, has begun showing signs of obsessive compulsive disorder, in particular washing her hands until they’re raw, and having occasional outbursts in class. Rules bug Phoebe and she isn’t afraid to let her teachers know it. However, Barnz implies early on that there is something deeper going on with Phoebe and that this isn’t just some pre-teen rebelliousness. Thankfully, he takes his time in getting us to the answer, allowing the characters time to grow and the story to unfold at a pleasant pace. When an unconventional theater teacher (Clarkson) casts Phoebe as the lead in a production of Alice in Wonderland, Phoebe discovers that performing on stage allows her to calm down and escape her lonely childhood life. (more…)
The summer vacation. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the Basement Songs, during my childhood, when school let out for the summer, my parents would pack up the family and take us on long voyages around the country. We’d explore the great tourist attractions each state had to offer, camp in an Apache pop-up trailer at KOAs, and spend endless hours on the open road. While my dad drove and my mom worked on her current latch hook rug in the front of the van, my siblings and I would go off into our own worlds. As a young boy I invested hours in the lives of the Hardy Boys or Henry Huggins, then moved on to the supernatural tales of Poe and Stephen King as I got older.
Saving Grace: Season Two (2009, Fox)
I’m running through the streets of industrial Los Angeles cursing to myself. My eyes are searching, desperately scanning the sidewalk and disintegrating asphalt for a coat hanger. The sun beats down on me, I’m sweating profusely, and behind me my car is parked with the engine running and the keys locked inside it. Welcome to L.A., baby.
Nobel Son (2009, Fox)
Everwood: The Complete Second Season (2009, Warner)
I awoke with a knee in my back and a song in my head. Crammed into a bed with Julie and Jacob, I teetered on the edge hanging over a gap between the mattress and the wall. I never expected to have Roger Daltrey screaming in my skull at 9:00 on a Saturday morning. Alas, there he was and there he has stayed all week singing 
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Complete Series (2009, E1)
Who could have imagined that sunny California would be overcast and chilly the entire week my family traveled to Ohio without me? The gloomy weather seems to fuel the grayness of my spirit this week. I miss my family terribly; I don’t do well on my own. Luckily I’ll be joining them by week’s end. The last I saw them, curbside at LAX, Julie and I kissed as she collected the multiple bags she had to wheel inside. Sophie gave me the grandest hug, not wanting to say goodbye. With mixed emotions she let go. Jacob, wearing his crushed and crooked Dodgers cap, asked, “Daddy, will you tell me if the Indians won?” I replied, “Jake, you’ll be in Cleveland. You can tell me if the Indians won.” Earlier that morning he asked me to wear my baseball hat when I flew into Northeast Ohio. “My Indians hat?” “No, Daddy, your Dodgers hat.”
S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (2009, Fox)
