The Great Movie Review: Treasure Planet

"Treasure Planet" is one of those movies that tends to not get a fair shake, but I've always thought it was an extremely well-made Disney film that deserves a little bit more credit.

"Treasure Planet" lifts the traditional plot and characters from the book "Treasure Island" and inserts them into a futuristic world, where ships are traversing the universe, not the ocean. But the creators didn't want it to turn into just another metal/steam/computers/dark spaceships type of a sci-fi movie (thankfully!), so they really went a long way to create a different kind of space movie than audiences are used to seeing. For example, "Sound designer Dane Davis mentioned that he and his team "scoured hobby shops and junk stores for antique windup toys and old spinning mechanisms" in order to create the sound effects for John Silver to "avoid sounding slick or sci-fi"."

The voice cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emma Thompson (two weeks of Emma in a row! Score!), Martin Short, and David Hyde Pierce, all giving fun and inspiring performances. It helps that they are working from an incredibly witty, clever, and moving script.

Another brilliant aspect of the film is the gorgeous animation, particularly the starry backgrounds and other-worldly visuals. I think Disney really did some fantastic work on the artwork of this film, as only they can do. There's a scene in Wall-E where the title character runs his "hand" through some... stardust, I don't know- that always reminded me of Jim Hawkins flying through similar space... sparkles. Both iterations of the astrological glitter are beautiful.

Speaking of Jim, I just love his character, and all I want to do is give that kid a hug. I think there is something so Ryan Atwood about him, the way he is so lonely and brooding but also compassionate and good-natured. I want to take them both home with me and take care of them.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of written-especially-for-the-movie songs, and heaven knows I'm no GooGoo Dolls fan, but I've never been able to resist the song they wrote that appears in the film. Here's the song as it was included in the movie, because the music video for it is absolutely awful. Just trust me.

I think everyone really enjoyed it, once they gave it a chance. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the more intense films and mix it up with a little Disney! So if you enjoy good story-telling, lush visuals, and movies based (loosely) on books, which incidentally is our next theme, I'd recommend you check this one out!

Treasure Planet (2002)

Group Rating (out of 5):

Stevox: 3
Valerie: 4
Kyle: 4
Micah: 3

Averages 3.5 pink amorphous blobs out of 5.

Shares this rating with The Maltese Falcon, Lawrence of Arabia, Juno, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Makes us want to see a cyborg/magical eye-off between Long John Silver, Mad Eye Moody, and the Terminator.

Notes on a Theme: SciFi

This past Sunday we brought the theme of Science Fiction to a close. Minority Report, Contact and Terminator 2 were out choices. Within these three movies, there are multiple common sub-genres and themes of scifi that were covered. This included but was not limited to:

Futuristic Technology
Aliens
Future Dystopia
Time Travel
Robots
Complex Moral/Ethical/Social Issues

In Minority Report we saw a great deal of futuristic technology. Eye scanners, self driving cars, and that cool interactive hologram screen. Which is real by the way.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

More important to the plot we took a close look at the Ethical implications of arresting and judging people for crimes that they are supposed to commit in the future.

Contact was our alien movie. The bigger theme of the film is the exploration of the social issues that would arise from actual contact with extraterrestrials. *Spoiler Alert. On a side note, the first machine deserved to get blown up. NASA must have the crappiest security if bleach blond preacher guy can get onto the base, into a suit, out on the launchpad, up the structure, wander about for a couple minutes, get coffee, talk about the weather, go the bathroom, pretend to work to avoid getting actual work, smile like a creeper, and then stand around looking evil for five minutes before someone notices he's not supposed to be there.

Moving on, Terminator 2 had a our biggest collection of sub-themes. Time Travel, Dystopian Future, Robots and as a bonus, the very same ethical dilemma of judging someone for "crimes" they haven't yet committed. That particular theme is an undertone of the turning point in the story. Where they go from defense to offense.

I feel pretty good about the movies choices for this theme. The movies were old enough that they weren't fresh in our minds. Except Val with Contact, apparently she watches it all the time. If you are looking for other good Science Fiction movies here are a couple recommendations:

Primer (2004)



















A great indie film about time travel. The story telling is wonderful and the tech isn't over top, it's actually pretty 'realistic.' For as realistic as time travel can be.

Alien (1979)



















A dark, gritty space movie about average people, but they live in space. I think space was the biggest, most common scifi theme we didn't cover. In Canada the scifi channel is named Space. Space is the final frontier. It's also big, i mean really big. I mean massively, mind-bogglingly big. And so on, you get the idea. Anyways, the suspense is fantastic, and if you like scifi you need to see this movie. It's relatively violent though, so screen it for the kiddies.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)



















If you are looking for something a little lighter then you should consult the Guide. Based on a series novels, the first of which starts with the same name, this movie provides a light-hearted romp through the galaxy in a search for the ultimate question to life, universe, and everything. It is important to note that the Guide series is British. Which will explain a lot. Also, it's awesome.

I'm a big fan of Science Fiction, and I know Stevox enjoys it as well. So if you have any suggestions for scifi movies we should watch, not necessarily at movie club, that aren't your normal 2001 a Space Odyssey or Blade Runner, let us know.

Next Sunday we actually won't be having movie club. And I know, I'm disappointed too. But get over it, because you don't own us. Also, we are going to the beach. So there's that.

The Great Movie Review: T2: Judgment Day

Wait! What about Terminator, the first one? This one has better ratings according to other people. IMDB, AFI, and so on. And the first one terrified me as kid so you can forget about it. I Was 9ish and over a neighbor-kids' house and they had HBO. I didn't sleep well for about a week. Also, I was banned from going over there again. However, this movie has a completely different tone to it and I'm no longer 9. By the way this is easily the most violent movie we've watched at movie to date. That includes The Godfather.

Assuming you watched the trailer, if not SPOILER ALERT, there are two Terminators in this movie; one good, one bad. There is this wonderful element of suspense featured through out the first twenty minutes of the film where you are unsure which is good and which is bad. Both are looking for John Connor, son of Sarah Connor who is the protagonist from the first Terminator. Tension mounts and you don't find out who is what until it all goes down a hallway, replete with shotgun blasts.

Ah-nolds' wooden acting lends itself very well to playing a machine with a penchant for popping a cap in people's knees. A stiff, expressionless muscle head is just what the doctor ordered. *Insert joke about Jingle All The Way. **It should also be noted I have seen Jingle All The Way ... more than once. ***Hangs head in shame. ****Googles correct grammatical usage of the * symbol.

The visual effects, for which it won an Oscar, have sadly not held up over the last 19 years. It's hard to CG reflective surfaces to start with, but try doing it two decades ago. Rest assured that those effects were ground breaking back in the day. Of course now they look like something that came out of Dave's School of Computer Animation.

I didn't realize I'd picked up an extended edition until I made it home from the store. This particular version, dubbed the Extreme DVD edition, had an extra 16 minutes of film not seen in the theatrical release. Which makes it a very long, literally, two and half hours!

Overall, it's a great "dog movie", where john finds his own Terminator, befriends it and then tragedy strikes as old age sets in and you have to put it down. It's pretty much just like Marley and Me. But with guns ... and stabbing people in the face. I've never seen Marley and Me, but i've been told that's what happens. There are several wonderful examples of cinematography to be found and enjoyed in this movie. Which gets nod to Cameron and his crew. As a side challenge, see if you can spot the scene where they used mercury instead of CG. It's a great action movie, with a good plot, decent acting and above all, killer robots from a dystopian future. This movie is a Watch. It is however also a screener, where you screen it before you let kids watch it. This movie earns 3.2 blow off knee caps, out of 5.

T2: Judgment Day

Group Ratings (out of 5):

Stevox: 3
Val: 3
Kyle: 4
Micah: 3
Jenny: 3

Average of: 3.2

Shares this rating with: "With my by myself."*

High School Yearbook Award: Most Likely to Shoot Someone in the Leg.

*Rating is to be sung in a lilting, yet nasally manner.

The Great Movie Review: Contact

I have always been fascinated by Contact. And I have no idea why.

By all accounts, I should not enjoy this movie as much as I do. Science Fiction? Satellites listening to outer space? Science fiction? Yet every time it's on television, I can't help but watch it. And I don't know why, but I sometimes stare at my DVD shelves looking for something to watch and decide, "I think I'd like to watch Contact!"

Contact is a 1997 science fiction film starring Jodi Foster as a scientist who has dedicated her career to the search for extra-terrestrial life. Her preferred method of search is listening to the sounds of distant galaxies on her headphones; this movie tells the story of what happens when she finally hears something.

Far more "science" than "fiction" (see how I slid that past the boys?), Contact is based on the only novel astronomer/astrophysicist/cosmologist Carl Sagan ever wrote. That book is his account of what it might actually look like if we ever did make contact with, as Jodi Foster's Ellie Arroway puts it, "little green men."

Influenced by Close Encounters of the Third Kind and, another GSMW classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact pushes the intellectual level a step further by showing us the details and equipment up close that making this kind of breakthrough would actually require. Things are never dumbed down for the audience, and the moment of discovery sees the scientists and astronomers speaking in terms that we couldn't hope to understand and utilizing programs and satellites that would intimidate even the most technical layman. Even further than that, the movie begins to slowly center itself in an intellectual debate on faith vs. science, pitting some of the main characters and allowing them to eloquently and logically converse on the topic without getting ugly.

Jodi Foster is predictably amazing in the lead role, bringing depth and passion to a character that never becomes tiresome, despite the fact that she is in nearly every scene of the film. Tom Skerritt is perfectly icky as the oily scientist rival, and James Woods (one of my favorite actors) steals every scene he's in as the skeptical bureaucrat who functions as the audience's mouth piece in early scenes of the movie, asking the "what does that mean?" questions that allow Dr. Arroway to explain to us what exactly is going on and why it's significant.

Even more than a decade later, the special effects still hold up wonderfully, and it's easy to forget that these graphics were created in an era before CG was a foregone conclusion of nearly every theatrically released movie. The musical score is also brilliant, and both highlights the action and underscores the emotional tones perfectly. The film received a nomination for an Academy Award for Sound, but lost out to Titanic.

My personal feeling is that a movie like Contact truly rises above many of the tired old tropes that most sci-fi films often suffer from, and I find it refreshing to see a movie in a genre typically filled with far-fletched plot lines and unbelievable heroes to be so well-anchored in reality. What would happen if we made contact? What would Congress do? What would the president say? How would the general public feel?

Indeed, in this vein of thought, Roger Ebert said in his 1997 review of the film, "It's surprising to find a science fiction film exploring issues like love, death and the existence of God; science fiction as a literary form has of course explored those subjects for years, but sci-fi movies generally tend toward titles such as ``Independence Day,'' and are about actors being attacked by gooey special effects."

Not everyone will like this movie- it's definitely not perfect. But it's worth a watch if you've never seen it, or if (like Micah) you haven't seen it in years and a second viewing might help your opinion of it!

Contact is a fascinating movie that will hold your interest, make you think, and maybe have you laughing over Matthew McConaughey's hair (did I not mention he was in this?). Do yourself a favor and go check this one out!

The Great Movie Review: Minority Report

I'll be honest, Tom Cruise is not one of my favorite actors. But as of late he's been gaining points, however slow. I enjoyed The Last Samurai, and Rain Man was excellent, but somewhere in between I forgot about Minority Report. It's helpful that Spielberg directed, but for the life of me I don't know how I could see this movie, think to myself, that was pretty good and then forget about it until about three days ago.

We start in a utopian future, localized around DC. We get introduced to the experimental Pre-Crime Unit, who arrest people for murders they commit in the future. Cruise plays the main character, John Anderton, who is "framed" for a murder he will commit in the future. Just watch it, it'll all make sense. Maybe. If your lucky and you pay attention.

I don't think i could handle living in DC with this going on. Sure murder is nonexistent, but in the back of my mind i would be paranoid the entire time that i will be arrested at any moment. It'd be terrible. Don't talk to anyone, don't interact, don't even look at people! Just yell you're sorry and that no one is going to get hurt! Or is that the opposite of what you should do?

Anyhow, the acting is solid. Cruise and Colin Farrell (hereafter referred to as Bullseye) both give very good performances. I also enjoyed the performance by Peter Stormare as the eye doctor. Your not sure if he's good or bad. And Lois Smith was great as the creepy plant lady.

The special effects haven't aged too badly. The jet packs needed work from the start though. They achieved flight through the magic of the camera. Which means it wobbled around they yanked people around on wires. Bleech.

Story telling. This was the best part of the film. The movie itself was based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. From the intro of the pre-crime unit, the explanation of the tech, to the unveiling of the murder that Anderson is being framed for, the chase and through the solving of the mystery, it grips you and moves you forward.

In the movie they discuss the ethics of arresting people for future crimes they have yet to commit. Obviously there is a great big Jabba the Hut sized problem with that. They haven't actually killed anyone. The justification is that even though it happens in the future, and they haven't done it, it would happen anyways. But by them stopping that chain of events that time line no longer exists. Meaning that the future crime they are supposed to commit no longer even happens. It's like getting arrested for nothing. But on the other hand, were they allowed to continue they would in fact murder said person. But they didn't, soooooo ... yeah the movie didn't do a good job defending this point of view either.

There's not a ton of funny in this movie. It's definitely a mystery/thriller. Even if you aren't into Sci-Fi, you should see this movie.

This movie is a Watch. Watch is good.

Spoiler alert!




Bullseye dies! How did i forget that!

Children of Men

There are very few movies in this world that I will even consider watching more than once. There are even fewer movies in which I recommend, and even fewer that I, yes, cry in. Children of Men breaks all three of those barriers.

It is a movie of “what if?” Set in the year 2027, all women have ceased to give birth. The world is plunged into a state of chaos leaving all governments in ruin along with any glimmer of hope for the future. The British Isles stand alone as the only remaining intact government. With everyone in the world attempting to find a safe place, Britain is forced to forcibly remove any immigrants for fear of losing control to overpopulation.

In all of this, we see Clive Owen trying to live his life with machine gun police lining the streets and terrorist bombings an everyday occurrence. While attempting to live out his seemingly meaningless life, he gets caught up in the discovery of the first birth in 18 years and attempts to aid her in her journey to a boat safe haven in the Atlantic.

I love this movie. Indeed I love What If? films, and yes, I love Clive Owen, but what I love about this film is its willingness to not parade the future around you nor leave you asking questions about technology or history. It simply leaves you with humanity, people and their actions. We see people acting out of fear for their lives; we see people wallowing in the demise of their nationalities and even see a young spoiled generation who simply don’t care. The horror of all these people and their choices is what stuns viewers and makes them question themselves and their own priorities.

Not only were the performances of the film chilling, art direction and cinematography were worth study. Kyle noticed that there were cats in safe places while Jesse was annoyed at all the barking dogs. The most noticeable element of the film was the long takes, there were several. At one point there is a powerful war scene in which there was a six and a half minute take. You don’t even notice as you can’t take your eyes off Clive and the horror of his surroundings.

The club’s reception to this movie was warm, granted, as warm as a grotesque societal looking glass can be. Jesse was worried before watching the movie because he had read the book and found it even more horrifying and hopeless. Valerie spent the last five minutes of the movie and into the credits with her hand over her mouth.

All in all, this movie is fantastic, just one possible picture of a world without hope. Glad I don’t have to worry about that. Ten out of ten stars for me.