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.

The Great Movie Review: Love Actually

I had planned for two choices for this evening. But after buying a Christmas tree, brewing a pot of wassail, and listening to Christmas music, I just couldn't get around not picking something Chrismasy. "But it's still November," blurts Kyle. Indeed, but Thanksgiving is over, and that means fair game.

I've always wanted to see this movie (mostly to get Netflix off my back, after recommending it to me over and over.)

EVERYONE, is in the movie. We literally spent the first five minutes going, "That's the guy from ______. Oh and she's from ______."

The movie opens and ends with shots of real people greeting each other at the airport as if they had not seen their loved one in a long time. I'll admit, I had trouble keeping the tears in my eyes for that bit.

What did I learn? Don't buy gifts for women that are not your wife. Don't ever start making out center stage behind a closed curtain. And NEVER be left alone in a room with the president of the United States. (especially if his name is Billy Bob.)

All in all, we enjoyed it! It's charming; it's funny. And, everybody has an English accent. What's not to like. Any good sensible guy should and would enjoy this movie.

If I may quote myself a second time, "What is this, Crash?"

Love Actually

Stevox: 4
Val: 5
Kyle: 3
Micah: 4

Averages to 4 whiny but cute English children out of 5.

It shares this rating with Rope, Seven Samurai, Casablanca, Children of Men, Tootsie, Network and Contact.

The Great Movie Review: V for Vendetta

This past week we watched “V for Vendetta” directed by James McTeigue. Set in near-future London, “V for Vendetta” depicts a power hungry British government utilizing the weapon of fear in order to control and dominate its people. Emerging from out of this oppressive environment is our protagonist named “V.”

V is determined to bring clarity and liberation to the British people while simultaneously seeking vengeance for cruel things done to him in the past. In the midst of his journey, circumstances bring Evey (a girl working at the nationalized TV station) into V’s path, and he decides to make her his ‘project.’ As life experiences have allowed him to be free of fear, he desires to do the same for Evey by putting her through physical and psychological challenges she never thought she could face.

At the same time, an inspector is attempting to identify and capture V before he can continue to carry out his acts of rebellion and revenge. Throughout the inspector’s investigation, hidden truths about the government begin to surface shedding light upon the deep-rooted corruption of the government. In the end, V succeeds in uniting the British people while also sparking a revolution that will inevitably change the face of Britain.

Though a few of us had seen the movie before, it was enjoyable to watch it again. Often when people speak of this movie, they tend to either love it or hate it. We came to the conclusion that if you came into the movie with the expectation of suspense, fast action, and intense fighting scenes – you’d be sorely disappointed since the movie takes more of a philosophical approach in somewhat of a “Shakespearen” style. However, if you came into the movie with no expectations, you tend to enjoy the movie more. Your opinion of this movie will likely be influenced by your views of government and politics as well.

Bottom line: It’s a thought-provoking movie with some unexpected twists making it a very intriguing and entertaining film. We gave it 3.2 Guy Fawkes masks out of 5.

Waking Ned Devine

Group Rating (out of 5):

Stevox: 3
Val: 3
Kyle: 2
Micah: 2
Jenny: 3

Averages to 2.6 breezy motorcycle rides back to the house out of 5.

Shares this rating with All The Presidents Men.

So if you haven't heard I have a habit of bringing movies that bomb...Or they just make you wish someone would drop a bomb on the house to stop the depressing film from continuing. In light of this information the film I brought this week was Waking Ned Devine.

As the movie goes on you can't help but ask yourself "where the Hell are the kids?" this film has one child the whole movie and he is giving advice to the interim priest. Something is wrong with this picture. The last film I saw with a cast like this was Cocoon or Grumpy Old Men. You would think its pretty risky to cast your in tire crew with people who could have a heart attack at any moment. But any way enough with the old people.

The film has to do with Money, Death, Money, Love (in a way), Friendship, loyalty and naked motor cycle driving!

Notes on a Theme: Indiana Jones

So we've been talking about Indiana Jones a lot here at The Great Society of Movie Watchers. Micah's been walking around our house (Micah and I are roommate's) waiting for me to pick up things so he can belt them out of my hand. It's starting to get annoying.

References to these movies are everywhere. Here are two examples:

Scrubs (Awesome Show BTW)



Family Guy



There are tons more examples but I'm feeling lazy and don't want to look for more.

So yeah, Raiders is pretty good. It's probably the most well known of the three in the trilogy. This movie lays the base work for the other two. It sets up his character, the style of the films, and the tendency for poor female leads. Poor as in bad characters, not poor as in financially lacking.

So i know that Raiders sets up every thing for the movies, but Tod still takes a wide divergence from the first film. It's incredibly dark. Short Round is annoying. The female lead is even more terrible than the first, and it just sucks by comparison.

I love Last Crusade! They took all the good stuff from Raiders and added more greatness to it. Sean Connery for one. A good female lead for two. And character development for Indy. For the first two films he doesn't grow as a character. They tried to in Tod by trying to make you care about Short Round, but it just doesn't work. The relationship that they create between Indy and his Father is wonderful. It is an incredibly satisfying way to end the trilogy.

If you want to see more Indiana Jones movies the pickings are slim.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)























They tried really hard with this movie. They stayed true to the style and tone of the old film, but ultimately they failed. I have to recommend against seeing it. You're not missing much.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1992)






















Now I haven't seen all of these. But I remember one where he was trying to find out something about a cult that was mummifying people alive. There were dudes in black hoods shooting people with psychotropic poison darts and they would hallucinate themselves to death. For example this old guy sees this small stone dragon statue comes to live and crawl into into his coat sleeve. So he freaks out and starts stabbing himself to death. I was around twelve at the time and it was intense.

Thus ends our adventure with the man with the hat. Tune in next week when Micah* kicks off our new theme. Which should be an adventure in and of itself.

* I have to tell this story. Micah doesn't have a strong track record for bringing stuff. When we were still doing Oscar winners he brought The Conversation one week. Which was a great movie, but was only nominated for an Oscar, it didn't actually win. That same semester he also brought us the choice between Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. Which are both shoot me in the face type movies. So that was strike two. We're not mad at him, it's just really funny to us.