Sucker Punch Explained

This was a single article which got split into two. This is the spoilers section. The review of the movie Sucker Punch is here.
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SPOILER ALERT
By the truck loads. There is no way to explain how to see the movie Sucker Punch without giving it away entirely. Which makes it hard for word of mouth promotion or any promotion at all. So you end up with the focus on the action and the girls.
The best way to understand the movie is to accept that what you have seen most through the movie was the imagination of Baby Doll on two levels. This is like the Kaiser Sozey myth of the Usual Suspects. Whatever you watched, you saw, never really happened. Or happened in a different way.
In the beginning of the movie, as Baby-Doll was being brought into the asylum, she saw the elements she needed to escape. She knew she only 5 days to escape and went about getting those items quickly. She was also befriended other girls who were with her on the scheme. The asylum was run on the inside by the orderlies led by the orderly called Blue in the movie. The escape plan went wrong and the girls were hurt badly but in the end, Baby-Doll realized she had to sacrifice herself so that Sweet Pea could manage to escape. As she was about to be lobotomized, she imagines a dream world. In this world, she replaced the asylum with a brothel. Baby-Doll probably had been able to build dream worlds to replace reality during the times she was molested by her father. This is what she did and what we saw during the brothel sections of the movie was a mix of her reality in the asylum and her imagining it as a brothel. This was her final escape before being lobotomized. You could see the world of the asylum crept in her dream world like the visions of the kitchen, the dorm and the grimy hallways. Whatever was replaced by the brothel imagery (of lights and stages and costumes) were probably pushed out by Baby-Doll from her mind. When she began dancing and entering her dream sequences, she was basically replacing her experience of stealing the items with her fantastic imaginary worlds, only keeping the memory of the excitement and the rush of adrenalin pumping through her. So like a Russian doll, the movie begins with the real-world (asylum), goes into the dream world (brothel) with the imaginary worlds (action scenes) at the center. The movie re-enters the dream brothel world and ends in the real world.

The title of the movie is spot on. Even at the most basic level, the ending will leave you wondering whose story is the movie really about. Despite of what the movie narration alludes to, it is still Baby-Doll's story. Since Baby-Doll goes catatonic, she never really sees Sweet Pea get on a bus. That probably is part of her dream world, too. The return of the wise man, is probably an indication that the vision we see is hers, justifying her sacrifice in exchange for Sweet Pea's escape.
Although the structure of the story seems unique, it has been done before but better. In comparison, the sucker punch was truly delivered by the Sixth Sense.

Sketchy Animated Hilarity (or Funny Cartoons for the rest of us)

YouTube has brought a renaissance of short animated clips. I am not talking about the shorts like Pixar's great shorts that run before their movies. I am not talking about clips that used to be made by some studios on the side and later find themselves as bonus material on DVDs. Not those same short that later find themselves on the Internet being forwarded through millions of clogged dial-up links before reaching overstuffed e-mail in-boxes and becoming the source of headaches for numerous IT admins everywhere. While these later found the safe haven of YouTube, some do find themselves removed by their studio creators.
I am talking about really short animated clips that could have been done on a budget small enough for a month lunches but with a personality and a sense of wit worthy of notable authors. Well, now YouTube has moved beyond a place of refuge to a place where these clips debut or even live beyond their initial run.

A recentcomer is Birdbox Studios, a outfit in London who noble goal is to create short movies that are "talked about, remembered and enjoyed by everyone." Their first work I came across is this


The hilarity of the situation appealed to everybody and I found it popular to whomever I played it too. I didn't give it much thought until I came across their other works which were differently drawn but contained the same style of wit and flair for the impossible. Then came their best piece of work yet.