Imaginarium

This weekend has been a confused mass of fantasy viewing that, along with the sadistic habit of seasonal clock changing left me dazed and confused and tired. Friday gave us LOST, a nose dive into the predictable and bizarre; Saturday meant Tim Burton's 3D Alice in Wonderland at movies, almost wonderful; this was followed by Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on DVD; Sunday was the Australian Grand Prix on the TV and latterly on the way to the football in the car via the radio. It may be odd to lump movies in with sporting events but it's all shadows and colours running across glass in one form or another.

Apart from the expected experience of not scoring enough points in the Ozzy GP, Gilliam's opus was the most disturbing encounter. I want to love his stuff quite badly, I really do, it's weird, ingenious, mad and artistically unique but the constant barrage of dwarfs, rickety constructions, face slaps, mumbled lines and convoluted plots are hard to take in and follow. It's like reading a battered paperback novel whilst riding on a 1950s Leyland Tiger bus down a bumpy farm road at twilight - and every film of his is a bit like that. Maybe I need to watch it again and write down the amount of sad souls being culled so I can maintain a proper count. Here comes the chicken pie...