Posts Tagged ‘Disney’

Lives of wild felines exposed in ‘Cats’

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
Sita the cheetah from "African Cats" Sita the cheetah watches over her cubs in Walt Disney’s amazing new nature documentary “African Cats.”

I sat in awe of what my eyes beheld.

There on the river bank stood a mighty male lion defending his pride from an aggressive crocodile attempting to interrupt their dinner.

With inches between their noses, the lion and crocodile play a deadly game of chicken. The lion cuts loose with bloodcurdling bellows. The reptile hisses.

The lion advances. The crocodile slowly backs off. Then, with one final snap! of its jaws in protest, the reptile retreats into the water.

The mighty lion stands down, and I started breathing again.

“African Cats” is filled with scenes like this one. Incredible, wonderful, frightening, tense and insightful scenes that drop us into the lives of the wild cats that roam the hostile and unforgiving land of Kenya.

This doc, co-directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill, assembles some of the most moving and educational animal kingdom footage since “March of the Penguins.”

It took his crew more than two and a half years of filming in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve to get what we see here, and their patience and persistence pay off handsome entertainment dividends for us. (Read more…)

Breathtaking ‘Oceans’ skims the surface

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Mommy and baby walrus in "Oceans" A mother and baby walrus bond in Walt Disney’s new, phenomenally photographed nature documentary “Oceans.”

If you’ve seen the TV commercials or theater trailers for “Oceans,” you already know what you’re in for.

Lots and lots of breathtaking footage of the strange and fascinating creatures that inhabit the world’s five oceans.

• Giant whales shoot to the surface, captured in magnificent, awe-inspiring slow-motion.

• Crabs comically climb into their shells to create instant mobile homes.

• A leopard seal tenderly plays with her offspring below thick slabs of white ice.

Like Walt Disney’s earlier nonfiction feature “Earth,” “Oceans” operates like a “Hooked on Classics” version of nature documentaries. It’s not really one movie. It’s a greatest hits of a zillion nature films all compressed into a single work.

“Oceans” skips around from one subject to the next, from one ocean to the next, with nimble alacrity. This has both positive and negative consequences.

Directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud (with editors Catherine Mauchain and Vincent Schmitt) move the film briskly along so nobody can possibly be bored.

Yet, many times the sharks and cuttlefish and other creatures prove to be so fascinating, it becomes frustrating to be yanked away to meet the next guest sea critter. (Read more…)