Alice

CAST: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska and Helena Bonham Carter. Directed by Tim Burton. BACK STORY: There's no mistaking the singular surrealism of Lewis Carroll, but despite the familiar faces on the movie posters it would be a mistake to call Burton's vision a pure adaptation of the author's 19th century writings or even a live-action remake of Walt Disney's 1951 animated film. "It's a completely different and new story, but it has a lot of the same characters in it," said Wasikowska, the 20-year-old Aussie who portrays Burton's older Alice.

A star-studded screening of "The Raven" wouldn't be quite complete without a few dark, mood-setting touches - including a real raven. Yes, there was a large, black bird on the carpet at the film's special screening downtown Monday. Many celebrities kept their distance as they neared the bird, but not John Cusack, who braved allowing the raven to perch on his arm. At the event, the ornate auditorium of the Los Angeles Theatre was decked out with candles, red lighting, lanterns for the ushers and some fog machine magic.

Are you ready for a trip down the rabbit hole? We caught up with Mia Wasikowska, the 20-year-old Aussie newcomer who plays the title role in "Alice in Wonderland," out March 5. The film is called "Alice in Wonderland," but really this is neither a pure adaptation of Lewis Carroll's writings nor a remake of previous films. Mia Wasikowska: It's a completely different and new story, but it has a lot of the same characters in it. It has the same feel of the original stories, but it's really fun to explore a story that goes further and imagine what all these characters would be like several years down the tracks.

Little bistro, huge impact. Like a different sort of miracle of the five loaves and two fishes, Chez Panisse, the landmark Berkeley restaurant, and its founder and guiding spirit, Alice Waters, have leveraged a small temple of slow, local and organic food into a massive force in the culinary world. Now that appetite for a new/old food culture has begun to register on the public's consciousness, if not always on its plate. Waters is clearing her table of most everything but the Edible Schoolyard Project : If we are what we eat, she wants children in class, on the playground and in the cafeteria kitchen to change their identities by the forkful.

Alice in Wonderland Walt Disney, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99/$44.99 Give Tim Burton credit: When asked by Disney to make a live-action, 3-D version of "Alice in Wonderland," he didn't take the safe route. With the help of screenwriter Linda Woolverton and skilled computer-animators, Burton reinvents Lewis Carroll's creation as the story of a young woman (played by Mia Wasikowska) who returns to the surreal land she dreamed of as a girl and gets involved in an epic battle between queens.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Disney's March 5 release of "Alice in Wonderland" may have helped trigger a dramatic tipping point in film history. The movie's 3-D ticket sales have been astounding, which has helped spur even more momentum for Hollywood's rush to turn nearly every movie imaginable into a 3-D release. The film provided a much-needed hit for Disney, even though the executives who put it into production -- Dick Cook and Oren Aviv -- weren't around to enjoy its success, having lost their jobs long before the film arrived in theaters.

Former Alice in Chains bassist and "Celebrity Rehab" alumnus Mike Starr has been found dead at age 44. ( Los Angeles Times ) Yes, Charlie Sheen is still ranting. ( Los Angeles Times ) And he has challenged Dr. Drew to a boxing match. ( Radar Online ) Could Rob Lowe replace Sheen on "Two and a Half Men"? ( TMZ ) How did MTV's "The Real World" go from an earnest look at contemporary social issues to drunken hot tub threesomes? ( Los Angeles Times )

Disney ended up picking just the right moment to jump down the 3-D rabbit hole. As "Avatar" comes to the end of a historic three-month run, Walt Disney Studios' "Alice in Wonderland" took most of the 3-D screens and opened to an eye-popping $210.3 million worldwide. Much like director James Cameron's mega-hit, Tim Burton's adaptation of the classic tale, starring Johnny Depp, generated about 70% of its opening weekend business from theaters with 3-D screens. It easily beat the premiere of "Avatar" and set a record for the biggest winter opening, even accounting for ticket price inflation, selling a studio-estimated $116.

Executives throughout Hollywood are undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief that they have no more dramas dealing with the Iraq war in the works, as "Green Zone" this weekend became the latest film on the topic to flop at the box office. It was blown away by "Alice in Wonderland," which dropped a relatively modest 47% in the U.S. and Canada from its huge opening last week. Even more impressive was the performance of director Tim Burton's 3-D movie overseas, where it is now significantly outpacing its domestic receipts.

SERIES Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: When a boy is set on fire, detectives Stabler and Munch (Christopher Meloni, Richard Belzer) end up at a private school, where their student escort (Jesse McCartney) introduces them to a chastity circle. Dann Florek co-stars (8 p.m. NBC). Accidentally on Purpose: Scheduling issues force Billie and Zack (Jenna Elfman, Jon Foster) to take parenting classes separately, she attends with her sister Abby and her friend (Lennon Parham, Ashley Jensen)

Here is a nightmare assignment for a restaurateur: Cook for 250 people using all-organic ingredients procured locally in a country infamous for its tainted food supply. Create a romantic setting in a latter-day fortress, the fluorescent-lighted U.S. Embassy. Alice Waters' celebrated Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, was transported to Beijing last week as part of a four-day U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture. Berkeley and Beijing don't have much in common except as food writer Michael Pollan, another delegate, sarcastically put it, "both are socialist paradises.

BOOKS Alice Bag, the pioneering lead singer of the late '70s Hollywood punk band the Bags, will be reading from her new memoir, "Violence Girl," and performing two songs on acoustic guitar, accompanied by Dionysus Records honcho Lee Joseph on acoustic bass. Dawn Wirth will also be signing her new photo collection, "The Bags: Hollywood Forever. " La Luz de Jesus Gallery, 4633 Hollywood Blvd., Los Feliz. 7 to 10 p.m. Sat. Free. (323) 666-7667. http://www.laluzdejesus.com

Boa constrictor snakes, black widowspiders, guillotine decapitations, electrifying electrocutions, sadistic insane asylums. Welcome toAlice Cooper's walk-through nightmare. The "Alice Cooper: Welcome to my Nightmare" maze at Halloween Horror Nights 2011 turns the shock-rocker's songs, characters and theatrical concerts into a walk-through haunted attraction. I took a tour of the Alice Cooper maze this week in the Jurassic Park ride queue at Universal Studios Hollywood with Horror Nights creative director John Murdy.

Writer-director Jeanne Labrune affords Isabelle Huppert, arguably the finest French screen actress of her generation, yet another splendid role in the complex, compassionate and endlessly illuminating "Special Treatment. " Huppert plays Alice, an art history major who years ago became a high-priced Paris prostitute specializing in kinky clients who require elaborate role-playing on her part. She is a coolly proud, fearless woman, confident of her looks and abilities even as she approaches 50, though she finds it increasingly difficult to deny that her soul is withering away.

Halloween Horror Nights 2011 at Universal Studios Hollywood will veer from its traditional horror movie theme with an Alice Cooper haunted maze that will draw on elements from the shock rocker's theatrical concerts and feature music from his 1975 concept album, "Welcome to My Nightmare. " > Photos: Concept art of the Alice Cooper maze at Universal's Halloween Horror Nights Just like one of the singer's rock concerts, visitors to the Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare maze at Halloween Horror Nights 2011 will encounter boa constrictor snakes, black widow spiders, guillotine decapitations, hangman's gallows and electrocutions inside a sadistic insane asylum.

The Todds "When we were trying to sell 'Austin Powers,' we got a lot of pushback," Suzanne Todd recalls. "A studio head at the time [took] the point to call himself to say to me, 'Passing on this project, and I also want to tell you as your friend that I think this material is disgusting and you're a nice girl and you shouldn't sully you career by taking on this kind of material.' And I remember thinking, not only was that a pretty aggressive pass, but I was sort of insulted by the idea that he needed to look out for me. " The Todd sisters have produced some big hits, including all three of the "Austin Powers" movies, "Memento" and "Alice in Wonderland.

The financial and economic landscape has come to look like something from Alice's Wonderland. American consumers now have less confidence in the economy than at any time since at least 1980, according to the latest monthly survey from Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan. You heard that right: People are more depressed than they were even at the depths of the 2008-2009 recession. But just as in Wonderland, things aren't necessarily what they seem. Confidence has been plummeting for three straight months, but that didn't stop many consumers from spending in July.

Rock icon Alice Cooper will help design a theme park maze for Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights as area theme parks battle to lure more fall visitors. In recent years, Halloween has represented a new opportunity for huge revenues for theme parks such as Universal Studios, Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park and Disneyland in Anaheim. Nationwide, more than 300 amusement parks operate extra Halloween attractions, generating $150 million to $200 million in revenue annually, according to the Haunted House Assn., a national group based in North Carolina that promotes businesses with "haunted" or Halloween themes.