A Hot Tub and A Rabbit Hole

Last week I was hurtled backwards in time to 1986 via a hot tub where I shamelessly crimped my hair, wore scrunchies, and listened to cassette tapes on a Walkman.  Today, time stood still when I fell down a rabbit hole and learned that I was late for a very important date to battle a Jabberwocky. Curiouser and curiouser, I dare say!  

Ok, so maybe that didn't happen to me, but I did witness both methods of time travel in Hot Tub Time Machine and Alice in Wonderland.  I also noticed that these two seemingly uncommon movies actually have three things very much in common: Both have time travel portals that are just a little bit left of center (a hot tub and a rabbit hole, respectively), both star Crispin Glover (an actor who is quite practiced in the art of time travel, see Back to the Future), and both time traveling main characters have wacky sidekicks (a foul-mouthed, suicidal, alcoholic funnyman and a lovable, Bozo-esque, gap-toothed, Mad Hatter, respectively).

Hot Tub Time Machine.  This hilariously, crude movie is pretty much summed up in the title but here's a brief synopsis: Three long-lost best buddies (plus one cousin) reunite after a near fatal accident and decide to take a trip to a mountain ski resort to relive their 80's heydays. After a night of heavy drinking in a hot tub, they wake up the next morning, and to their hung-over shock and amazement, find themselves in 1986.  Hilarity ensues as they attempt to get back to 2010.  Notable 80's pop icons make cameos throughout the film such as Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson, Poison, ALF, JanSport, leg warmers, and Kid 'N Play hairstyles.

Alice in Wonderland.  Do I even need to outline a synopsis?  Who hasn't seen Disney's take on Lewis Carroll's classic novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or read the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass?  Even if you haven't (gasp!), you've at least heard the adventurous tale about the young English girl who falls into a rabbit hole and is met by peculiar creatures such as a consistently less-than-punctual white rabbit, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, a sassy, toothy Cheshire cat, two rotund, suspender-wearing, identical teenage boys, a cooky, tea party-loving Mad Hatter, and of course, Her Royal Ugliness, the Queen of Hearts.  In 1951, Disney gave us a colorful and cutesy 2-D, animated Alice and Co.  In 2010, they decided to bring Alice and her adventures in Wonderland back to life in 3-D, only this time the Mouse House wanted to tell a sinister, grittier version of Carroll's classic, so, naturally, they deferred to dark and twisty director Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) to tell his side of the story.

In Burton's tale, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) returns to a nightmarish "Underland" as a 19-year-old where she reunites with her old friends including the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp, brilliant as always!) and learns that it's her destiny to end the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) reign of terror and to restore the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) to her rightful throne by slaying the terrifying dragon-like Jabberwocky (taken from Carroll's short poem, Jabberwocky).  Burton's Alice in Wonderland delights with a no-nonsense, head-strong heroine who encounters (for her second time) the magic, enchantment, and, oh alright I'll say it, wonder of a land that is just beyond the possible impossibilities of her wildest dreams and gravest nightmares and tickles the childlike imagination of the audience.

Here are some of my favorite time traveling flicks: Back to the Future, Big, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Groundhog Day, Kate & Leopold, and 13 Going on 30.

Audiences love a good time travel story and Hollywood is more than happy to serve them up!  Let's face it, who, given the chance, wouldn't want to travel either back in time or forward into the future?  Who wouldn't want to be given the opportunity to alter an event in the past to change the outcome of one's future?  I think it's safe to say that while your life achievements and disappointments, past or present, shape you into the individual you are today and the one you will become tomorrow, everyone, at some point or another, would like at least one "do-over" in their lifetime.  Wouldn't you agree?  That's why time travel is such a winning (and moneymaking!) story for all ages.

You gotta admit, time travel is a pretty cool concept, or as Marty McFly would say, "Sounds pretty heavy."