The Mad Hatter: “Have I gone mad?”
Alice checks Hatter’s temperature
Alice Kingsley: “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

I think a lot of people were hoping for a drug infused neon wonderland filled with drug-lore, and 90’s alternative subculture. Instead, Burton conceived a portrayal of madness, imagination, dreams, and self acceptance and discovery. I mean what represents someone battling their demons better than Alice literally battling a demon?

Out of all of Burton’s films I found his interpretation of Alice In Wonderland to be his most daring, brilliant, and status quo challenging movie to date. With that said, I can easily see how it alienated a lot of his unoriginal pinstripe wearing studded belt core audience, but in doing so made his point that much sharper. Similar to Apple’s “Think Different” campaign it was a call to the few who truly haven’t lost touch with their dreams, childhood, and imagination.

To understand Burton’s interoperation of Alice in Wonderland, as well as Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Mad Hatter you have to look at Lewis Carroll the person (who’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). To understand Lewis Carroll the person you have to take into consideration that he suffered from some form of epilepsy, possibly frontal lobe seizures, and at the very least was bipolar. He also suffered from a condition deemed “Alice In Wonderland Syndrome” which has officially been named Micropsia and Macropsia, which alters one’s perception of the size of objects. In Victorian time’s they had little understanding of mental health and he was simply labeled as “mad.” Tim Burton himself know’s madness quite well, for he is in fact is bipolar, and even cast others in the film who are openly bipolar such as Stephen Fry who voiced the Cheshire Cat. Burton’s underlining message through the movie was the idea that all the best people in the world are simply mad, and in madness is something innately human that it is not only acceptable, it’s admirable.

I’ve also heard various complaints that Johnny Depp didn’t live up to their expectations as the Mad Hatter. For at times his character is manic, borderline, aggressive, and sometimes downright silly. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter appeared to have several different personalities, voices and tones, including one that sounded more like Captain Jack Sparrow. Most importantly he spoke with a stammer most of the time, which is a form of speech impediment that Lewis Carroll personally suffered from. Several other personality traits of Depp’s Mad Hatter also reflect Carroll himself, for Carroll was known for his wit, tendency to randomly break into song and dance, was known for playing mind games, and enjoyed playing charades. Depp clearly understood Burton’s vision for the film, and didn’t make the Mad Hatter anything that he shouldn’t have been, for this story was about Alice.

When you consider Burton took into account Lewis Carroll the person the movie’s motive is clear, clever, and well executed. So to all the naysares out there who didn’t understand the movie, you weren’t supposed to, and that was Burton’s point. For those who did understand the movie, well then you’re truly mad.

It was a big deal with the other kid getting to miss school to be in the movie, so I clearly remember when he got to leave. After just one day of filming a bunch of kids dropped out, and I got a surprise visit from my Mom about an hour after she dropped me off at school she came back and took me into the city. Next thing I knew I was on set. They sent me to wardrobe, gave me an impromptu 1940′s haircut, and put me in a maroon robe.

We were in a series of old warehouses where they had built the set. They literally had created a giant peach sitting on top of truck in what was supposedly the streets of New York City. The set had that distinct Tim Burton feel to it, as he produced the movie.

My Mom actually knew one of the assistants, and I was suddenly shoved right in front of the camera for several scenes at the end of the movie.

It was an interesting experience, I got to meet all the actors and actresses, and the director Henry Selick. I also got to eat a lot free food.

As for the other kid from my class, he sadly didn’t even make it into the final version of the film.

Eoban and I showed up the day before the keynote so we could pick up our passes, and make sure everything was set for the big day.

The morning of the Steve Jobs Keynote Eoban and I showed up at the Moscone center around 6:30am figuring we didn’t need to wait in line since we had press passes. We made sure all of staff had gotten their passes, and by 7am we were ready to go.

At first everything seemed fine, but soon we found out that Macworld had over booked the keynote, and had started putting little yellow circular dots on some press passes to guarantee that “VIP” members of the press would get access. Then around 7:25am they announced that ONLY those with yellow dots were getting access to the Steve Jobs Keynote, and everyone else had to go into an overflow room and watch the keynote on a screen instead.

My staff was completely devastated.

The idea that we had all assembled in person from everywhere from Wisconsin to Hawaii to come see Steve Jobs and we were now being told last minute that we weren’t good enough was simply unacceptable. Every single one of my writers was under 20 at the time (including myself), and a Mac user since birth. They had all poured their hearts and souls into our website for the chance to go see Steve Jobs at Macworld, and in my minds eye deserved to see Steve Jobs live and in person just as much anyone else.

Seeing as my Dad was a music producer and I grew up backstage, I was an experienced rock concert attendee at this point in my life. I knew that just like at concerts, lines, rules, and regulations at any event were all relative, subjective, and open to interruption.

The Stevenote was set to begin at 9am, and as I stated it was only 7:25am when we found out we were not getting in. It was then that I realized the only difference between us, and the members of the press that were getting into the Stevenote was due to our lack of little circular yellow stickers on our press passes. This is when it occurred to me that we were in San Francisco, one of the greatest cities in the world, and that there was a Rite Aid about 2-3 blocks from the Moscone center.

In a last ditch effort to get into the Steve Jobs Keynote some of my staff and I literally ran to Rite Aid. Our goal was simple: find little circular yellow stickers. Little did we know, finding yellow stickers was the easy part, the problem however was that we couldn’t find any stickers that were the same size as the tiny little circular ones Macworld was putting on the press passes. Most of my staff started to lose hope at this point, and it was now doubtful we would even get into the overflow room.

This is when I made the best purchase of my entire life: a shinny brand new single hole punch with a little catcher to store all the little donut holes.

All we had to do was use the hole punch on the yellow stickers we had found, and use the normally discarded “chads” from the hole punch as our stickers.

It was about 8:15am by the time we ran back to meet up with the rest of our staff, created a bunch of little yellow circular stickers, and put them on all of our press passes just outside the entrance to the entrance at Moscone. We decided it would be best we split into two groups to increase our chances of getting in.

I went first, and as I passed through the doors it seemingly appeared as if all the lights in the Moscone center had dimmed upon my entrance, and a spotlight was upon us. I pretended to own the freakin place, as I calmly and cooly walked up to the Macworld ushers, and flashed my press pass adorn with a little yellow circular sticker. Before we knew it we were all reunited and standing in the yellow dot VIP line about to go see Steve Jobs live and in person.

At 8:55am they pulled away the velvet ropes, as my staff and I plus about 60 others took off running for the Keynote hall. We got amazing seats, and spent the next 2-hours basking in Steve Jobs reality distortion field.

No one ever found out about my new hole punch, our yellow dots, or that we had basically just walked right into a Steve Jobs Keynote for free.

Best yet, I still have my lucky hole punch.

Rock on.

http://www.ocweekly.com/features/best-of-oc/trent-lapinski/26040/

I made the New York Times?