Movie of the Month – March 2013

By Geeky Gem and Hmsbeefnuts

My goodness it appears to be March already, that was quick seems like last month took no time at all. Well back to the matter at hand Movie of the Month. As always I found this month hard to pick a movie I fancied seeing. Then a came across Oz the Great and Powerful and thought this is the movie for me.

Yes I know this another movie to do with the wonderful world of Oz, but this time its told from the point of view of the great and powerful man himself. Oz (James Franco) is a small-time magician with questionable ethics. One day he arrives in a magical land and must choose between becoming a good man or a great one. Sam Riami directs this little number from Disney and the screenplay is brought to you by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire. This is all based on the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz By L. Frank Baum. There aren’t many people who don’t know the story of Oz but this one looks like a good new take on a classic story. Here is the trailer for you to enjoy.

Geeky Gem

Oz looks good, but I have to go with The Rock. Dwayne Johnson never lets me down, yes even The Tooth Fairy was worth a look. GI Joe Retaliation is out this month, and as it stars The Great One, I have to choose it.

 

HMSBeefnuts

My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

For this week trivia I am taking back in time again to a movie I loved as a child and had for Christmas on Blu-Ray. Flight of the Navigator was just one movie that as a kid I watched over and over again.

When David’s parents pull up to their house in the beginning of the movie, the song playing on the car radio is “You’re The One That I Want” from “Grease”, also directed by Randal Kleiser.

In his room in Nasa base, David asks when “Starsky and Hutch” is broadcast. Director Randal Kleiser also directed Starsky and Hutch.

The ship used in the movie can be found in a boneyard at the Disney MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World in Florida. It can be seen on the studio tour.   (Which I have seen and have a picture of.)

The tee-shirt worn by the girl at the restroom is for EPCOT Center, the then-new Disney theme park in Florida. Her brother is wearing a Miami Vice tee-shirt.

When MAX, the ship computer, is describing the animals he has on board, he said “That is a Feenastarus from the Pixar Elliptic”. This was five years before Pixar, a fledgling special effects computer group at the time, teamed up with Disney, who produced this film.

The second film released under the Disney banner to contain profanities (the first being 1981’s The Devil and Max Devlin). The word “shit” is said twice.

When escaping the NASA facility, MAX and David travel “precisely 20 miles from point of origin” in approximately 35 seconds. This is equivalent to a speed of 2,057 miles per hour.

One of the prop hulls was refurbished and is now used as the topper to a drink station in Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.

The music video playing in the scene where David meets Carolyn McAdams is Blancmange’s “Lose Your Love.”

There we have it, Flight of Navigator was an awesome movie and has all the things I love in it, Aliens, adventure and a talking ship what more could you want.

My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

Hello there, yes it’s that time of the week again. I am back with my trivia and this week I thought I would delve into the world of Disney. They have made many people laugh out loud and cry tears of joy all the world fr years. I thought I would share with you some trivia on one of my all time favourite ones. I used to watch a lot of Disney movies with my Grampy when I was little and I know it was thanks to him that I still love them today, anyway back to the matter in hand, here I bring you 101 Dalmatians.

Someone counted all black spots in the movie, frame-by-frame, and reached the total of 6,469,952.

Cruella De Vil was designed as a manic take-off on the flamboyant actress Tallulah Bankhead, as well as some of her personality quirks.

Due to the commercial failure of Sleeping Beauty, production costs needed to be cut. As a result, this was the first Disney feature film to use photocopying technology (Xerography), which made an animated film with this much visual complexity possible. It also set the visual style of Disney animation (a scratchy, hard outline look) for years until the technology advanced enough (with the production of The Rescuers) to allow a softer look.

In the early 1990s merchandise tied-in with the video’s release was quickly pulled from shelves because the word Dalmatian had been spelled incorrectly as “Dalmation” on some of the product packaging. The merchandise was only available at Disneyland or the Disney Stores.

Walt Disney disliked the rough drawing style brought about by the Xerography process.

CASTLE THUNDER: Various versions are used during the storm while the puppies are born. The version used on Bambi is heard when Cruella enters, and again when she leaves and Pongo barks at her.

In the USA, this was the highest grossing movie of 1961.

There is a hidden Mickey on nearly all of the Dalmatians.

Clarence Nash (best known as the voice of Donald Duck) did the dog barks for this film.

The author of the book on which the film is based, Dodie Smith, was a successful playwright and novelist who had nine Dalmatians of her own, including one named Pongo. She got the idea for the book when a friend who was at her house saw all the dogs together and remarked, “Those dogs would make a lovely fur coat.”

And there we hae it join me next week for some trivia.

My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

Movie Pick by Hmsbeefnuts

This month’s trvia will be a little different from past months, seen as its December I have asked each member of the All Geek team to pick their favourite Christmas movie and I will do trivia about that movie. This week we start with Hmsbeefnuts’ pick.

When this screenplay first emerged in 1993, Jim Carrey was attached to star in the lead.

Terry Zwigoff was offered a chance to direct the film, but turned it down.

Near the end, when Santa is showing Michael his nice list, all of the people on Santa’s list worked on the movie

The scene where the fake Santa is chasing Buddy had to be done in one take because it was too hard to rebuild everything.

The elf Ming Ming, who appears briefly in the beginning of the film, is played by Peter Billingsley, who starred as Ralphie Parker in the classic holiday film A Christmas Story.

Buddy’s 12-second belch was supplied by voice actor Maurice LaMarche, best-known for his cartoon character, “The Brain”, from Pinky and the Brain, and who also did the operatic belching in Animaniacs as “The Great Wakarotti”. LaMarche also worked with Will Ferrell on the animated series, The Oblongs.

When Buddy goes to Gimbels to ask Jovie out on a date the song we hear playing over the loudspeaker is “Christmas Island” sung by Leon Redbone. Redbone also provided the voice of Leon the snowman at the North Pole.

The brief TV news clip showing Buddy walking in Central Park (just before Buddy’s dad and brother find him), and the still picture of Buddy in the news clip, closely mimic the famous 1967 film of an alleged Bigfoot (“Patty”) taken by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin.

The sound effect used by the jack-in-the-box is the same sound effect used by the laughing hyenas at the Magic Kingdom at Disney World in Orlando, Fl.

Will Ferrell caused several minor traffic accidents when walking through the Lincoln Tunnel in his costume because people were so surprised to see him wearing an elf outfit.

There we have it for Hmsbeefnuts pick, join me next week for another Christmas related trivia.

My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

Now as you all known here at All Geek to Me one of favourite movies of the year was The Avengers, so I thought as a treat as we are coming to end of the year that I would bring you some Avengers trivia. I wont go on too much at this point as we have spoken about this movies loads this year, so straight to the trivia it is then.

The first Marvel film to be distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

Before Mark Ruffalo was cast as The Hulk, Joaquin Phoenix was rumored for the part.

Lou Ferrigno voices the Hulk in this film. He has played the Hulk in almost every live-action version since 1978: he played the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk and its subsequent three TV specials, and he voiced the Hulk in the big-screen The Incredible Hulk (he was seen in Hulk but it was a cameo role as a security guard, which he repeated in The Incredible Hulk ). He also has voiced the Hulk in various animated productions.

Director Joss Whedon had earlier been considered to direct X-Men in the 1990s. A big fan of the X-Men, he even wrote a script, from which only two lines made it into the film.

The Science and Entertainment Exchange provided a science consultation for the film.

The cast became good friends while filming so if all the actors happened to be filming scenes together in the same place, they would go out together after.

The film was converted to 3D during post-production for the theatrical release.

Chris Evans once sent a text message to Clark Gregg simply saying “Assemble”, which is the tagline for the movie. Gregg stated that this was his favorite text message ever sent to him.

This is the second time that Bruce Banner/Hulk and Thor have appeared together in a movie. They previously appeared together in The Incredible Hulk Returns.

Tom Hiddleston revealed in an interview with the Guardian that the code name for the film early in its production was ‘Group Hug’.

Well that’s avenging trivia over with, what will I bring you next week in my birthday special. Come back and find out.

MONDAY MUSING

By @hmsbeefnuts

It happened a few weeks ago now, and which seems like ages. Millions of words have been written and spoken about it. Bitching, cheering, fear, hope, all seems to be in the mix when discussing the biggest news to hit the Geek community for, well, maybe ever. I am of course referring to Disney’s acquisition of George Lucas’ company, Lucasarts. It was about time that someone here at All Geek To Me wrote some thoughts on this huge story, so I elected myself to write it.

I don’t have a problem with Disney, in fact, I kind of love it, I think they do a great job with the franchises they control, from ones they created themselves, to the ones they have bought, such as The Muppets and of course Marvel Comics. They seem to show a great deal of respect for all of their individual fans and one just needs to look at The Avengers to see how Disney can treat a massive franchise, beloved of fans world wide, with a hands off attitude. Disney are obviously in the business of making loads of cash, and they don’t want to fuck up huge franchises like Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, in fact, a trip around Disneyland will reassure you that Disney is the exact place for these specific franchises. Star Tours and the Indiana Jones rides are some of my favourite attractions in Disney, you can tell they care about and realise the importance of these films and characters.

I’m sure that we can look forward to a Star Wars Land, or even a whole Star Wars Theme Park in the future, and I for one can’t wait. As for the movies, I look forward to Episodes VII, VIII, IX and all the future movies have the potential to be excellent. Of course, they ould be awful, but then without the direction of Lucas, Star Wars gets a chance to breathe. I don’t happen to hate the prequels, I think that Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars movie, but I don’t think you can deny that Lucas can not direct actors. He is however a great ideas man. Give new Star Wars movies to the likes of Brad Bird, Del Toro, Spielberg or Peter Jackson, and I can’t wait to see the results.

All in all this is a very exciting time for fans of Star Wars, and I’m sure we can look forward to more and more epic announcements from Disney in the coming months and years, I have but one request, no fucking Jar-Jar.

My Top 10 Movies: Part 2

By Caelrona

Hiya all! Caelrona here, to talk to you about movies once again! Last post I told you all about the first 5 of my Top 10 films. As a recap I have already covered The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, The Fifth Element, and The Aristocats. Now I am back to cover the other half of my list. On to the movies!

Mononoke Hime

Mononoke Hime, known as Princess Mononoke in the English adaptation, was made in 1997 by Studio Ghibli and released Toho in Japan, Miramax (a Disney company), and Disney. It is an Anime, and has a runtime of 134 minutes. The story follows our Hero, a young man named Ashitaka who, after being cursed and subsequently cast out of his village, embarks on an epic quest to cure his curse. Along the way he meets a traveling monk named Jigo, several mystical spirits including our Heroine San, and the many interesting and colorful individuals of Iron Town. In the end he winds up saving the townspeople, the mighty Forest Spirit and last but not least his love interest San. This is an excellent anime, a shining example of computer graphics married brilliantly with hand-drawn animation. Studio Ghibli created a gripping story, with a fantastic visual feast rivaled by few other anime. The violence and dark themes are not suited to very young children, so it is family friendly to a point. However, I watched this when I was young and I’ve loved it since.

Tremors

Tremors was made in 1990 by Universal Studios, who also handled the release. It is a Sci-fi Horror-esque comedy, and has a runtime of 96 minutes. The story starts out following two cowboy handymen named Val and Earl working as handymen in their hometown of Perfection. After yet another crappy job, they decide to pull stakes and move to the big city of Bixby. Unfortunately, there are other forces at work and the boys end up heading right back for Perfection after finding one of the town’s denizens dead from dehydration in the middle of nowhere – up a power pole. Things start to get weird as huge worm-like monsters named Graboids begin to make themselves known. People get killed and things get destroyed as the town bands together to escape the monsters. This movie, while not a huge hit at the box office, quickly became a cult classic. It is a hilarious movie with a great cast. It spawned two sequels, a prequel and a 13 episode television series. I have all of the movies on VHS (I know, it’s ancient) as well as the DVD Attack Pack. If you haven’t watched it, then you should.

Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy made in 2001-2003 by WingNut Films in conjunction with Middle-Earth Enterprises and released by New Line Cinema. They are epic fantasy-adventure films, with a combined runtime of 558 minutes (683 for Extended Edition and 726 for Special Blu-ray Extended.) The film trilogy follows the journey of nine companions, known as the Fellowship of the Ring, as they quest to the deadly land of Mordor to destroy the One Ring. Together, these films make one of the most breathtaking cinematic masterpieces I’ve ever watched. I could get into detailed plot descriptions, but unfortunately my summary would fall far short of the mastery of these films, not to mention it would be incredibly TL/DR. I love all three of the films (although I’ll admit freely, Two Towers is my favorite) and I recommend them if you’ve ever got roughly 9.5 hours to kill and want to watch something amazing. I was only 11 when the first film came out, and I saw all of them on release day in theaters, so they are child friendly. However they do contain vast amounts of violence and death, and thus should be viewed only by audiences mature enough to handle it. All in all, if you’ve not seen these films then you ought to hand in your geek card and go watch them.

The Swan Princess

The Swan Princess was made in 1994 by Nest Entertainment in conjunction with Rich Animation Studios It was released theatrically by New Line Cinema; and re-released by Turner Home Entertainment (VHS) and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (DVD.) It is an animated movie with a runtime of 90 minutes. The movie centers on the love developing between Princes Derek and Princess Odette, whom initially are forced together by their widowed, conniving parents but eventually fall for each other. During their journey back to their home country, Odette and her father are attacked by a ‘Great Animal’ and Odette is kidnapped by the evil enchanter Rothbart. Rothbart casts a spell on Odette which turns her into a swan by day, with the only way to regain human form being to be on the lake by his castle when the moon rises. Derek must journey to find and rescue her by breaking the spell with a Vow of Everlasting Love. This is one of the best animated Princess type movies not made by Disney I’ve ever found. It rivals the Disney Princess movies in almost every way, and is often mistaken for a Disney production. It was created for children, but is enjoyable at any age. If you enjoy Disney films, then you would definitely enjoy The Swan Princess.

The Pirates of the Caribbean

The Pirates of the Caribbean is a series made from 2003 to 2011 by Jerry Bruckheimer Films and released by Walt Disney Pictures. They are fantasy-adventure films with a pirate theme, and a combined runtime of roughly 600 minutes. The films follow a various assortment of characters, but center on the entwined tales of Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann. Although they are a chronological series each movie can be watched on its own and be enjoyed without too much confusion. However, I find that they are far more enjoyable together as a whole. I really love Johnny Depp as Captain Jack in these movies; it is my favorite of his many roles. His flamboyancy really brings something special to his character that adds to the film. By far they are my favorite pirate movies, although I will admit I loved the third one the best!

There you have it; the ending of my list of Top 10 Movies. I find that I really can’t convey how special these movies are to me. It isn’t just that they are awesome movies, although they are. They each have something in them that really grips me, no matter how many times I’ve seen them; and I’ve watched them all so much I can quote most of them word for word as they play. I also find that I really limited myself when I stuck to only 10 movies, because there are a lot of other really great movies that just didn’t quite make the cut onto this list; not because I don’t enjoy them just as much, but because I simply didn’t have room. I’ll have to see about getting around to them, because they really deserve a mention!

Until next time;

Caelrona – signing off! ❤

The Magical World of Miyazaki: Kiki’s Delivery Service

  By Geeky Gem

As you all know I have a thing for Studio Ghibli movies and have seen close to all of them, in these articles I have and will continue to tell you about them. This time I thought I would tell you about Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Kiki’s Delivery Service first came out in Japan in 1989, and was translated and released in the UK in 1997. It was the first release from the Disney/Ghibli partnership. The film was a success for Ghibli as are so many of their movies. It won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989, the movie is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Eiko Kadono. Again this movie was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

According to Miyazaki the movie touches on the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in Japanese teenage girls. Going beyond the coming of age themes, this movie deals with the nature of creativity and talent, and the central difficulty every person faces in becoming themselves, whether through luck, hard work or confidence: the inner movie explores the same questions that are later asked in Whisper of the Heart, which we will come to on this journey.

Kiki is a 13 year old witch-in-training, living in a village where her mother is local herbalist. It is traditional for witches to live for a year on their own when they reach 13 years of age. At the start of the story Kiki takes off for the big city with her best friends Jiji her cat. Kiki decides to live in the city of Koirko which is on the coast near a beautiful sea. After a hard start, Kiki finds herself some friends and a place to stay. But she only has one of her witch abilities which is she can fly a broomstick. Which at first she is not very good at. She decides in order to look after herself and earn some money that she will open a delivery service.

As you can imagine Kiki does have some set backs, and many are to do with her adolescent worries. She is also chased all over town by a boy called Tombo, the local crazy boy who is mad about aviation and is fascinated by Kiki’s ability to fly. Kiki eventually warms up to him and they become friends. After a nasty event involving some of Tombo’s friends Kiki is left very upset, so much so that her ability to talk to Jiji and fly disappears. She now has to figure out how to get these powers back. When Tombo’s ends up in some trouble, Kiki must try to save him, but she still has no powers. It is with this attempt to save him that she regains her powers and rescues her friend. The story carries on through the closing credits, you see Kiki settle into her new home, and she is somewhat of a local celebrity.

By now you should being seeing the themes that run through Miyazaki movies, he wants to portray the struggles of his characters but he makes them so you can relate to them in some way. Here for example we meet Kiki and her struggles to deal with adolescence, something I could relate to very easily, the awkwardness of being a teenager and finding you are now of an age where you have to start being responsible for your actions and choices. This is a hard thing for anyone to get used to. This again is one of Miyazaki’s life telling stories, I think this is the real reason why I like these movies so much.

Again the music is beautiful and always fits fantastically with the action on the screen. Its one thing that isn’t lost in the translation. I have seen this movie in both Japanese and English and as always the voice for both languages is brilliant. There is something about the way Miyazaki picked his actors and he does have a say on who is cats in the English dub version which I think is really important.

This is the part where I tell you if you haven’t seen it then you must, but if you have read the other pieces I have done on Miyazaki and you have liked them and have indeed liked the films if you have seen any of them, then I don’t need to tell you, this Is a must see. You’ll just know, and you’ll add it to the list of things you have to see.