Archive for Nature

DisneyNature, The Walt Disney Company,

Tina Fey (Narrator)

Disney has now established a tradition of bringing us a new nature feature on Earth Day every year. This is the new one for this year, Monkey Kingdom. This follows a group of monkeys through a season, losing their home to a meaner tribe and attempting to win it back along with all their other trials and tribulations. Tina Fey is the narrator telling us the story of the action in this exciting nature film.

Walt Disney was one of the cleverest movie producers of his time. He was the first to recognize the power of Television and rushed to create content (and cut and reuse existing content) to fill up a Sunday evening time slot for the newly formed ABC network that was hurting for content. Walt’s biggest dream was Disneyland, and the Disneyland show was born advertising Walt’s new destination, helping ABC, and making Disney very popular in the process and raising funds to pay for the new park. One of the lands was “Adventureland” and Walt and the crew came up with the idea of creating stories of a wild animal of some sort and giving it human qualities and emotions and making it a “good show”. Films like “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar” came about and brought down some harsh criticism for making up a story about a wild animal and dissing Mother Nature in the process, so Walt set out some of his best photographers and the brought us the “Tru Life Adventures” that were actually very well done and tried to show nature in its natural glory without humanizing the animals. Now I am not naive enough to believe that these photographers did not stage some of these scenes to make a better story, but for the most part they did film hours and hours of footage to put together a one hour program. DisneyNature was to be the natural followup to these films. With the success of some of the IMAX films and the Penguin stories that we all came to know and love, it seemed like a good marriage for Disney. With better technology for not only getting the shots, but also displaying the stunning scenery on the huge screens in today’s theaters, it seems like a spectacular grand idea for the always “green” Disney Company to bring out on Earth Day, and it was pretty well received for the big splash in the first year or so. Lately it seems it’s been languishing in obscurity, and I’m not sure they’re faring well in the box office. I think this whole bit is about this one point. I think they are missing the point and bringing back the old Human animals idea which is sort of, in my humble opinion, against the very essence of what DisneyNature was supposed to be. This is a classic example of how far it has slipped back into the fiction category. Don’t get me wrong, this film is very, very beautiful and the photography is spectacular and well worth the 4 stars I am giving this film. My problem though is with the narration. They have really gone off the deep end with explaining in the “storytelling” what the monkeys are thinking, how they are feeling, emotions they may or may not be showing and the plans and war strategies that they are contemplating. I look at my dogs, and I want to say “Oh look how bored he is, or look how sad he is, or look how he wants us to forgive him. I WANT to think my dog has a whole strategy in his head, but he probably doesn’t think like a human. When I think he is showing remorse or guilt, perhaps he is just aware that I’m not in a good mood and somehow he’s involved in my mood and the likelihood of me giving him a nice treat is very slim, so he’s trying to do what has worked before in changing my mood so he can get something to eat. Maybe he can’t even reason to that level but is just doing what dogs do. I really think a group of monkeys do have a way of life that works for them, and I do think the make choices to some degree, but I don’t think the plan strategy for all this stuff. They proceed to have Tina Fey tell us how the royal born monkeys get the best seats and due to their lack of experience in the streets, they have no experiences dealing with the dangers like the street monkeys do. There are a host of examples all the way through where the monkeys have cute names and human-like personalities, and I think this detracts from the beauty and hard work of the cinematographers to bring such stunning images to the screen. You might want to consider turning down the sound and watching the movie in silence. Still, it’s a must see story for the images if not the hokey narration.

P.S. This review has to have had the highest number of spelling corrections of any I’ve done so far. It seems I cannot spell monkeys without spelling it Monkees. I guess I am a child of the 60’s after all.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate this movie:
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Author: EdG

There are currently No Comments »on this post.

Fox Searchlight Pictures, Pacific Standard,

Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Gaby Hoffmann, Brian Van Holt, W. Earl Brown, Thomas Sadoski, Kevin Rankin, Michiel Huisman, Mo McRae

Cheryl (Reese Witherspoon) has lost her mother and took it very badly. She turned her life inside out and shut out her husband and began sleeping around in mindless game of destruction. Her husband has pulled out of the marriage and she’s by herself. She sets out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail with no preparations, over 1000 extremely harsh and unforgiving miles trying to find some meaning in her life.

This was a surprisingly good movie. I had never heard of it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Reese really did a great job. She had to carry a one woman show and was very much in command. The story was touching, and the suspense in the dangers of the trail were very accurately presented. I was really impressed with the script. The California scenery was stunningly filmed. Basically I found myself caught up in this film and really enjoyed it. No doubt about it, it’s pretty dark in a way. Cheryl is in a really bad place, and her life is really screwed up, and she makes some bad choices. Her journey is not enjoying the beauty of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it’s more fighting herself every step of the way. I wanted to reach out and help her so many times, but you just have to suffer through it with her. She probably chose to walk the trail to have a lot of time alone to face the loss of everything and to cleanse her mind and soul. This movie is told in many small flashbacks so that you pick up why Cheryl is where she is. It’s not a story told chronologically, but the artistic way it shows her reminiscing on what has happened to bring her down lets us feel it bit by bit as she remembers it. This is intense for younger kids, and has an R rating for a good reason. Nothing is gratuitous, and the sexual scenes are short but a bit graphic, and definitely not for the under 16 crowd. Otherwise, this is a very well done film and I recommend it for adult viewers. Who knows, you may end up reevaluating your own life.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate this movie:
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Author: EdG

There are currently No Comments »on this post.

Safran Company, The, PalmStar Media, Hours Capital,

Paul Walker, Genesis Rodriguez, Kerry Cahill, Yohance Myles, Christopher Matthew Cook, Nick Gomez, Judd Lormand, Michelle Torres, Tony Bentley, Lena Clark

Nolan Hayes (Paul Walker) is having an awful day. First a storm is coming, and his wife who is not due yet for several months has gone into labor. Rushing to the hospital to get her taken care of Nolan has no idea that he’s going to end the day with a baby girl. As the storm gets closer, it appears a terrible hurricane is about to hit New Orleans, and yes, this was the big one, Katrina. The doctor comes out to let Nolan know that his daughter is alive and doing well, but will need to be in a respirator (incubator) for at least 48 hours, but the terrible news is that his wife has died of complications during the birth. Nolan goes through a wide range of emotions as the injuries and bodies from the storm start to arrive overwhelming the hospital. Then the news that Lake Pontchartrain has pushed through the levee and the city is beginning to flood, and soon it’s clear that the hospital has to be evacuated. But since the incubator is not mobile, the doctor assures Nolan that he will stay throughout and that he must stay too and care for his baby girl. Later he finds that the doctor went out to assist some patient transfers, and the floods make it impossible for him to return and Nolan is all alone in the flooded hospital doing everything he can to keep his daughter alive by himself. The power is out, and the battery backup has failed and will only take a charge for a couple minutes at a time, and the only generator he can find is hand cranked, so for the next 2 days he must stay awake, keep the generator cranked every few minutes, and try to survive the chaos that is unfolding around him in this extreme suspense film of courageous grit and determination to stay awake and keep the baby safe.

This is a film that is really a Hidden Gem. I was enthralled with this story and didn’t want to take my eyes away, and even though it’s based on the lonely survivor trying to beat the odds story that is relatively common, it’s based on real history and real stories of the horrors of hurricane Katrina. So this is historical fiction, much like Titanic, and a similar story in a way, although comparisons to Tom Hanks in Castaway and of course James Franco in 127 Hours. Anyone who has heard of this film probably only is interested because it was of Paul Walker’s last films. This should have gotten a lot more attention, because it is a stunning performance by him in basically a one man show. Through most of the movie Paul is stuck talking to himself all alone in a dark flooded hospital while the world around him is crumbling. But long before the flood and the power outage, Paul takes us through many emotions dealing with a daughter he no longer wants at first due to the crushing loss of his true love. It comes on so unexpectedly, and that’s something I could relate to. I remember more than 30 years ago, taking my wife to the hospital with stomach pains, only to have a tiny little preemie baby that was totally unexpected. Fortunately there were no problems other than three weeks of infant NICU, but it was such an unexpected shock. Paul plays that really well and goes through a whole range of emotions. Then the hard times arrive, and his character sets out to save his daughter at any cost, and with all the crime and lack of help, a story of Katrina couldn’t be told any better in a documentary than it is in this piece of historical fiction. I was really impressed with his performance, and though the script is not top notch, his performance pulled it out perfectly and this is the kind of role we never saw Paul Walker in before with all kinds of drama. He was stuck in those fast car action chase movies for too long, and people hardly got to see his real talent. I highly recommend this film as one of the most suspenseful films I’ve seen in a long time, so well played, and very, very worthwhile. Find this one! It’s available on streaming all over the place and will no doubt find a home on premium TV as well. Catch it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate this movie:
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Author: EdG

There are currently No Comments »on this post.

Dreamfly Productions, Escape Pictures, Lavender Pictures,

Ben Kingsley, Kodi Smit-McPhee, James Le Gros, Alex Wolff, Katie Chang, Briana Marin, Stephen Kunken, Daniela Lavender, Ethan Cohn, Ira Hawkins, Adam Barrie, Andy Prosky, Michael Chen

David Portnoy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a teen who is hooked to the hobby of birding. His father Donald (James LeGros) is about to get remarried, which is really messing with David’s head when he suddenly sees a rare bird that is supposed to be extinct. After trying to verify the find, he and a bunch of friends head off on an epic road trip to find the bird again to prove his discovery on the eve of his father’s wedding, and he’s supposed to be the best man.

This is a rather interesting film about birding. It’s actually the second film I’ve watched on the subject recently, and that’s disturbing as birding is supposed to be a really boring hobby for nerds. Well, I guess David does pass as a nerd, but the movie really isn’t about birding. It’s a story about the pain a young man feels at the loss of his mother, and the added stress of seeing his Dad appear to forget her for his hot new young girlfriend. It’s about who his friends really are, and there’s a lot of self assessment in this film. Each of the characters has to look at themselves to see who they really are. Not a big blockbuster movie, this is a small independent type film, but not a bad one. It’s got a decent amount of heart, and the road trip really has it’s excitement as they chase this elusive goose. This was a relatively interesting film to watch and it’s not a bad story, and as a bonus, it’s got Ben Kingsley!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate this movie:
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Author: EdG

There are currently No Comments »on this post.

IMAX, MacGillivray Freeman Films, Warner Bros.,

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep narrates this IMAX film taking us to the Arctic Circle to follow a mother polar bear and her two seven month old cubs and their struggle to survive in a horrific environment. They suffer dangers at every turn, and it will take all her wit and strength to survive. This was originally shown in IMAX 3D.

This film is short. It’s barely 40 minutes long, but the beauty and charm is very stunning. Looking at the glaciers and ice flows of Norway, this is a very nice nature film. Of course they have to waste a lot of the little time reminding us how horrible humans are, especially Americans as we strive to kill the polar bears as quickly as possible with our gasoline cars and nice homes and furnishings. They basically remind us that anyone who doesn’t believe in global warming is just plain stupid. Well, I believe in global warming, and I also believe in global cooling. It’s cyclic, just like most else of nature, and mother nature has a habit of balancing things herself. My poor son is married now, has a beautiful daughter, but I remember the horror he came home from school with about the imminent disaster of the hole in the ozone layer. By 2010 we will never again be able to go to the beach, and when we go outside, it will only be with umbrellas and heavy protective clothing because a mere 10 or 15 minutes in the sun would kill a person. This is not some far distant future, but merely 5 to 10 years down the road. He shook with fear when he talked about how life as we know it is going to end. Sad to do this to an elementary school child. But there were no apologies at all when they realized that it was a cycle, and the hole was closing. Now no one mentions the hole in the ozone. When Mount Pinatubo blew it’s top it put more pollution into the atmosphere in one week than all the humans on earth since the beginning of time. What really chaps me about the global warming argument is that humans can actually have any effect on the globe in such a huge manner. Do we think we’re so important that we can really make that much impact? How proud of ourselves we are. Will we, or the polar bears die because of global warming? Well, that’s up to nature, I guess, as many species aren’t here anymore without the humans harming them, and if it keeps getting warmer, that could happen. But to think that we can stop it is like thinking we can stop the earth from spinning. (If everyone starting running west to east at the same time, perhaps we could slow the earth down and get it spinning the other direction, eh?) Anyway, I will step down off my soap box and get back to the movie. Regardless of the obvious political leanings, I still enjoyed the beauty of this film, even though it was so short. I felt like it could go on and on, but it ended much too soon. But the film was beautiful and very interesting, and quite exciting at times. Very well done from the technical standpoint and the cinematography is awesome. I respect those who go through such hardships to allow us to see something as beautiful as us. Oh, and the polar bears are not from the arctic. They are black bears that migrated up there and gradually adapted to the environment, including changing their color to white to blend in. Just thought I’d mention that. 🙂

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate this movie:
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Author: EdG

There are currently No Comments »on this post.