Making Memories; Movie Memories - Alice in Wonderland (cartoon), Aliens and Avatar

We love movies and we're having a blast going through all the movies in order. It's just as much fun as I hoped it would be!

Alice in WonderlandRelease Date- July 28, 1951 (We're 11 days away from it's 60th Anniversary)
Directed by-Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske
Produced by- Walt Disney
Written by-Winston Hibler, Ted Sears, and Bill Peet
Staring-Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway,
and Jerry Colonna
Gross Revenue- $7,789,000

Summary- Disney version of Lewis Carroll's Children's story. Alice becomes bored and her mind starts to wander. She sees a white rabbit who appears to be in a hurry. She chases it into its burrow and then a most bizarre series of adventures begins.

Kia's Review- Kia likes this movie! True, it's not the same as it was when I was little but it's still a lot of fun...it actually made me wish that the new live-action version were as crazy!!! I love the old, non-computer animated art, it is classic and amazing, and I really miss seeing that. I LOVE the Cheshire cat; he's the best for sure! One thing this movie had that I don't miss in newer movies is the old Disney chorus. Why they thought it was necessary to have ridiculous singing happening through the movie, I'll never know, but I'm glad they've done away with it. My favorite thing about this movie is the name Alice! :-) I like it but I don’t love it. Sure am glad we have it though, Isabelle will really enjoy it! ***-- 3 out of 5

Eric's Review- I like this classic Disney because it is the most bonkers. It never fails to give strange dreams when you watch it on a late Sunday afternoon and fall asleep during it. Fun literal interpretation of the book in places. Stand outs for me are the voice of Winnie the Pooh playing the Cheshire Car and the entire Mad-Hatter sequence. I LOL every time. However, I feel like once the scene with the Mad-Hatter is over it's kinda downhill from there, for me anyway. Cool show though, one of my favorite Disney classics. **** 4 out of 5 stars.

AliensRelease Date- July 18, 1986 (Yesterday was it's 25th Anniversary)
Directed by- James Cameron
Produced by-Gale Anne Hurd, Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill
Written by- James Cameron
Staring-Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen,
William Hope, and Paul Reiser
Gross Revenue- $131,060,248
Awards- Academy Awards: Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.
Also won 8 Saturn awards

Summary- Fifty-odd years after Ellen Ripley survived her disastrous ordeal, her escape vessel is recovered after drifting across the galaxy as she slept in cryogenic stasis. Back on earth, nobody believed her story about the "Aliens" on the planet LV-426. After the "Company" orders the colony on LV-426 to investigate, however, all communication with the colony is lost. The Company enlists Ripley to aid a team of tough, rugged space marines on a rescue mission to the now partially terraformed planet to find out if there are aliens or survivors. As the mission unfolds, Ripley will be forced to come to grips with her worst nightmare, but even as she does, she finds that the worst is yet to come.

Eric's Review- Aliens is a classic action film that was way ahead of its time, over shadowed by great films like Empire strikes back and Return of the Jedi in the 80's Sci-Fi genre. Love him or hate him, James Cameron makes a mean movie! The plot is solid, the character work is good and the action and suspense are top notch. The first film 'Alien' was a snoozer to me, but this film keeps you on the edge of your seat and takes you for a wild ride. Even Bill Paxton's whining didn't ruin this show for me, in fact it made me LOL this time around. I love this film and would put it in my top ten action films of all time. Great show! ***** 5 out of 5

Kia's Review- This movie is actually really cool! I saw "Alien" a few years ago and that movie was balls! Since when are Alien, sci-fi, action type movies boring? Sure, some of them are lame but boring?? I didn't think it was possible, till I saw that movie. UGH! Anyway, this is not a review of that movie; this is, in fact, a review of the sequel, which is, in every way, better than the first one. I think Sigourney does a great job. It's nice that she found her niche in sci-fi cuz she's talented just not super attractive and that's not usually good in Hollywood. I think the little kid that played Newt also did a good job...her scream was piercing!! I loved the robot guy, I think his name was Bishop; he was a good character and him lying on the ground, sliced in half, saving Newt so PRECIOUS!!! That was probably my favorite part of the whole movie! Sci-Fi not totally my thing but I liked this movie a lot. 4 out of 5 from Kia! ****-

AvatarRelease Date- December 18, 2009
Directed by- James Cameron
Produced by- James Cameron and Jon Landau
Written by-James Cameron
Staring-Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriquez,
Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, and Sigourney Weaver
Gross Revenue- $2,782,275,172
Awards- I can't list all the awards this won, click here for the page of accolades.

Summary- When his brother is killed in a robbery, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully decides to take his place in a mission on the distant world of Pandora. There he learns of greedy corporate figurehead Parker Selfridge's intentions of driving off the native humanoid "Na'vi" in order to mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland. In exchange for the spinal surgery that will fix his legs, Jake gathers information for the cooperating military unit spearheaded by gung-ho Colonel Quaritch, while simultaneously attempting to infiltrate the Na'vi people with the use of an "avatar" identity. While Jake begins to bond with the native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri, the restless Colonel moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand - and fight back in an epic battle for the fate of Pandora.

Kia's Review- I'm so hopelessly in love with this movie, it's one of my favorites of all time. Extremely well written, directed, and acted...everything was perfect! And what a beautiful movie it is! The colors are so vibrant (watching it on Blu-ray on our 42' HD TV probably helped) and there is so much attention to detail. Everything from the avatars themselves to the bugs and the way the grass moves is breathtaking! The only bad thing I can say about this movie is that I saw it the first time in 3-D, which means they released it in 3-D, which means they suck a little. :-) Other than that, flawless, in my opinion! *****

Eric's Review- Speaking of James Cameron, WOW! I know it's trendy to hate things that are popular but I'm sorry, if you don't like Avatar, you are not a person. The film is amazing, it has everything an epic film should have. There is a reason this is the top grossing film of all time according to IMDB:

Worldwide Box Office
1.	Avatar (2009)	$2,781,505,847

http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide

Um... That's 2.7 BILLION DOLLARS world wide. BILLION! As in if our government was in the movie business and made a bunch of films as good as Avatar, we could be out of debt! Ok maybe that was an exaggeration, but the point is this move made more money than any other movie in history because it is one of the greatest films ever made. Period. It was fun watching these two films back to back as they both come from Mr. Cameron. There are many similarities between the films and I loved the continuity of his vision of the future. ***** 5 out of 5 stars and it almost broke the star scale just so you know.