Treasure Planet : Hot Take

-


Treasure Planet (2002 US) Obviously based on the Robert Lewis Stevenson novel Treasure Island. Disney brings to life (sort of) this adventure story about finding hidden treasure in space. I really feel like this film is one of Disney's underappreciated animated films. I'm a space opera fan and its hard to find stories in that genre that haven't been so "done". Don't get me wrong I like franchises like Star trek and Stargate but its fun to find a new story. This is your standard Disney fare so don't expect something that is groundbreaking. Except it has a steampunk vibe to it. It's not steampunk but there are a few similarities. Disney was not big on taking risks back then. Michael "stay the course" Eisner was CEO at the time. He was all about satisfying stories. Bob "if it aint broke" Iger was president so between the two output was pretty standard. Having said that it's just fun to watch. Joseph Gordon-Levitt leads an all-star cast as teenager Jim Hawkins. He was a lot younger then. The film was not well received at the time and lost money. Speculation is varied but two theories are that the protagonist was too old or the timing was bad. Nevertheless, Disney was put off by old fashion 2D hand drawn animation after that and went to 3D computer animation moving forward. CEO's are oddly superstitious. I am not especially fond of CGI animation so going old school with this was a delight. This would be a fun Live action remake IMHO. But what do I know. Find it on Disney plus or VHS or for rent on most streaming. 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bound- Noir Hot Take

-
Image
  Bound (1996 US) Todays second entry for #FemaleFilmmakerFriday is this Wachowski sisters neo-noir masterpiece. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon concoct a scheme to steal money from Tilly's mob boyfriend. Tilly rocks as the femme fatale. It just felt like she was loving this role. Gershon plays the sap and she knocks it out if the park. It’s really hard to shoot noir style in color. The Wachowskis pulled it off with muted color production design and black to get the proper contrast and shadow. I'm not a big fan of the current trend of having bright colors and crushed blacks to get the contrast. Happy colors don't scream noir. It screams Teletubbies. Wikipedia says the budget was 6 million but I heard 3. Why is that important? Lower budgets are really going to cut down on so many things including locations. There was limited locations in this. Either way audiences liked it and it made money at the Box Office. It’s on Tubi and Pluto for free and rentable on other streaming pl
Read more

Shrek-Hot Take

-
Image
 Shrek (2001 US) Its #FemaleFimmakerFriday and today's entry is this now classic animated kids film directed by Vicky Jenson and Andrew Adamson. An Ogre sets upon rescuing the princess from a tower guarded by a dragon. If you are interested in going to see Dungeons and Dragons you will find there is a similarity to Shrek with D&D being just a bit more mature and live action. Jenson was not the first choice of director in charge of story. Kelly Asbury was first choice but departed to work on another film. Jenson and Adamson had their work cut out for them as a lot was going wrong including their star Chris Farley had passed away. Jenson was in charge of story and she was tasked with finding the right tone and story for the film. She did great and the film won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. You can clearly see her influence on the film: for instance the princess does not really need rescuing. When I first saw that I was like, "wow! I didn't know they could do that?&
Read more

Brick-Noir Hot Take

-
Image
  Brick (2005) This Neo-noir stars Joseph Gordon Levitt and was written and directed by then first time feature filmmaker Rian Johnson (Star Wars, Knives Out) and had a whopping budget of 450k (I have also heard 800k). This film was basically a Chandler story... in high school and Levitt was Marlowe. If you think that sounds weird. Well it is kind of but Johnson and Levitt made it work. Getting traditionally noir shots is hard and audiences and fans know their stuff. What I loved about this gem is that Johnson adds to the vocabulary of noir or neo-noir. How? New ways to get high contrast, deep shadow and the incongruent lines of German Expressionism. Johnson did his absolute best to get those lovely noir shots and he did quite often and with a budget of 450k. That's really hard. Johnson is one of my favorite directors. He just keeps surprising me. Like many low budget films this was all about natural light and locations. worth a watch. Rentable on most streaming.
Read more