![]() ![]() Possessed Tree – Evil Dead It's one of the most horrendous images of the video nasty era in the UK: The demonically possessed branches of a tree invading the body of Ellen Sandweiss to the sounds of her screaming. Night Shyamalan was onto something with The Happening. Planted in 1971, it hides a secret passage between the school grounds and the Shrieking Shack, and if anyone tries to pass, they get a bloody great branch thwipped to the face – legend has it one Hogwarts student almost lost an eye trying to touch its trunk. Not the Whomping Willow of Hogwarts – this perennial plant has attitude. The Whomping Willow – Harry Potter Trees are idiots, for the most part – they just sit there sulking while you carve your initials into them and climb all over them. Rule of thumb: If you find any tree in the woods that you can climb inside or scurry beneath, or that contains a portal to a world of mystery, give it a miss. No, the tree in Pan's Labyrinth is a twisted oak that's home to all manner of disgusting bugs and insects, not to mention an over-amorous toad with a key to immortality in its belly. And yet we love him so! Toad Tree – Pan's Labyrinth This being a tree designed by Guillermo del Toro, you won't be surprised to discover it's not the kind of tree you gather your friends beneath to have tea parties. Despite the fact that he and his Ent brothers played their part in the eventual downfall of Saruman and the Orc armies, he sounds like the tree equivalent of the kind of person you get stuck behind walking through the London Underground. Or perhaps not: Treebeard speaks in a deliberately slow manner, is careful not to rush anything (motto: "Do not be hasty") and almost bores Pippin and Merry to tears during their lengthy encounter. 2, followed by Teen Groot! Treebeard – The Lord of the Rings: The TwoTowers He's the big daddy in the Forest of Fangorn, the eldest of the Ents – and a hoot at parties. Of course, we still mourn the original Groot, but Baby Groot took his place in Guardians Vol. Also, he's quite nice to sit under when it's sunny out. You see, Groot is actually super-intelligent and something of an expert in quasi-dimensional super-positional engineering – it's just that Groot's wooden larynx renders the subtleties of his speech void to human ears. Capable of saying just three words – "I am Groot" – he's not the most chatty of trees, but he puts more inflection into those three words than you might think. Seuss' The Lorax.Groot – Guardians Of The Galaxy Actually, Groot isn't a tree at all – he's a sentient, tree-like creature from outer space who is (in the comics) the monarch of Planet X, and not just somewhere for dogs to wee up in the park. Visually, the movie has a wistful, candy-coloured look that's quite striking (the real trees in this fairy-tale setting resemble pink feather dusters covered in bark), and there is some lively voice work provided by the likes of Danny DeVito and Betty White.īut mostly there's the unmistakable magic of Dr. But even at 94 minutes, The Lorax avoids that cumbersome padded feeling associated with most Seuss-inspired longer features. Seuss works best in half-hour increments or less. To do so, he has to listen to a tale told by the Once-ler, a cranky old hermit who holds the secret to granting Ted his wish. Naturally, he's afraid the oxygen that real trees produce will kill his business.Įnter 12-year-old Ted (voiced by Zac Efron), a love-struck kid who wants to plant a real tree to impress the fetching Audrey (voiced by Taylor Swift). The true villain of the piece is a stubby little man who manufactures bottled oxygen, which the townspeople huff like glue. Codirectors Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda give us a look at a world where real trees have been replaced by the ecological equivalent of plastic blow-up dolls. And yet, for all its basic sweetness, The Lorax has a surprising amount to say about corporate greed. The message behind this cleverly animated feature revolves around the gentle notion that someone has to “speak for the trees”. Now it's back as a 3-D movie that Fox News Grinch Lou Dobbs considers part of a liberal conspiracy to “indoctrinate our children”. ![]() The story's openly pro-environment theme-the title character is a mythical forest creature who attempts to stop a money-hungry entrepreneur from chopping down all the trees-still hits a nerve with grumpy conservatives. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) wrote The Lorax 41 years ago. Opens Friday, March 2, at the Park Theatreĭr. Featuring the voices of Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Danny DeVito, and Ed Helms. ![]()
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