Movie Review/Dose of Disney: The Jungle Book

The other night, I finally got out to see Disney's The Jungle Book. It. Was. Amazing. I'm not even sure where to start! 
Let's start with the music. The original animated film got so many wonderful songs stuck in our heads, like "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You". These two were redone in a way respectful to the original, but in a new upbeat fashion. I was, however, disappointed that "Trust In Me" appeared only in the credits. In this movie, the talent was phenomenal. Of course Bagheera will always be my favorite character, but every other voice actor was perfect too, from Kaa to Baloo to King Louie (even though I'm not sure Christopher Walken's best role is a singer- yet still better than Iago). The actor who played Mowgli just blew me away, and I'm excited to see him in more movies hopefully soon. 

It was really nice that they expanded the story a bit. Very similar to how they gave Cinderella and Prince Charming more of a family history in the live action Cinderella, here Mowgli is shown how he comes to the jungle. There is also a larger focus on the wolf pack, which is only appropriate to the theme of family and friendship throughout the movie. Not only was it fairly accurate to the original animated movie, but it also included some references to other Disney darlings. As in The Lion King, there is a stampede in a gorge (Simba's down there!), an evil big cat villain with a physical scar, and said villain falls to a fiery death while trying to attack the hero. There's also a bit of Tarzan sprinkled in, especially with all of the Mowgli-runs-on-tree-branches scenes, and I can't help think Baloo's quest for honey is in homage to Winnie the Pooh.

Conservation-wise, the movie has a pretty obvious message: man destroys. But even deeper than that, man doesn't always destroy on purpose, it often happens from their carelessness. We can see the metaphor in Mowgli running through the forest with a torch and accidentally setting acres of woods ablaze. That's something we can all learn from. 

In conclusion, this is a great movie about love, family, and belonging, that keeps to the old story but adds in new ways. I think all Disney fans, young and old, will love this film. 


Thanks for reading everyone! 

Movie Review: "Racing Extinction"

Hey folks! Tonight I watched "Racing Extinction", an hour and a half television special. After seeing the previews, I was very excited to watch the show, and I have to say, it exceeded my expectations.

Within the first minute, my heart was racing. Images of elephant feet, jaguar heads- we're talking serious stuff here. Right off the bat, we're forced to face the facts:

"1 in a million species should expire each year, and right now, the rate of extinction is 1000 times faster than it should be. "

"It's like we're living in the age of dinosaurs, but we can do something about it."

"Humanity has become the asteroid"

The whole movie was just incredibly moving. I really enjoyed the fact that the animals they talked about are some of the lesser conservation topics- not that they are less important, but they are less popular. We always talk about pandas, rhinos, and tigers as poster children for conservation, but a lot of the issues are going on with oceanic animals. For example, they covered the story of how a sushi restaurant was shut down because it was serving endangered whale species. The biggest topic discussed explained the story of the manta ray, but, being that I have a hockey game to get to tonight, I'm going to save that for another blog entry. 


One of the other issues was about shark finning. Shark finning kills 250 thousand sharks every day, and we saw a heartbreaking film of a nurse shark with her fins cut off trying to swim, hanging on to her last moments of life. I almost broke my t.v. screen when, later on, a Chinese man said that video was made up by the "greenies". The good thing is that shark finning awareness has been improving, especially thanks to Mr. Yao Ming, whose WildAid commercial you can see here. 

The movie also talked a lot about climate change. There is a massive increase in CO2 going on right now, and the scary part?- that's a common factor in every single mass extinction in the history of the Earth. And we humans are not safe from that in any way. Right now, we are creating an acidic ocean- creatures simply dissolve in acid, and the movie proves that by putting shells in vinegar. Think about it. It's scary. This damage is caused by everyday activities- we're making our lives a lot better for us, but at the expense of everything else. A very interesting point was made: livestock is a huge problem. The methane released by livestock is arguable the biggest cause in this spike in CO2. So, the more dependent we are on meat, milk, and eggs, the greater the CO2. If everyone simply didn't eat meat for one day every week, it would be the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road. There's your New Years resolution, folks. 

On somewhat of a sidenote, it's also a very quotable movie. Try these on for size: 

"If we all lose hope, there is no hope...there's still a lot left that's worth fighting for."

"We need more people to understand it's worth doing, the small choices we make each day can lead to the kind of world we want for the future."

"We always think there's going to be somebody else to save these animals..." but "we're the only generation left to save these animals."

"Better light one candle than curse the darkness."

Ok, so here's the last paragraph of this blog, but don't think for a moment I'm done talking about this movie. All my coworkers will tell you, I still have a lot to say. I plan on writing more entries on some of the topics from the movie I didn't cover here, like the politics of conservation, and technology's role in public education. But long story short, this movie was phenomenal. The message: we have to keep fighting. Visit Startwith1thing.com  and commit to changing just one thing in your daily life to make a difference. Please, please, please watch this movie. It is so incredibly important to be aware of all these issues and battle them together. 

"Change starts in the heart."

Thanks for reading everybody! Stay tuned for more blogs soon, and visit A Voice For the Voiceless for a more in-depth look at the whale, shark, and manta issues in this movie. 

Movie Review: What We Can Learn from Jurassic World

So the other night I went and saw Jurassic World in IMAX 3D. My heart was racing the entire time, my palms were sweating, and no matter if they died or not, I am still super jealous of the kids at the triceratops petting zoo. Long story short: it was amazing. So for the rest of this blog post, I'd like to explore out a few concepts the movie hit on:

Intelligence

Impressive considering I don't know any humans who can bake underwater!  

Intelligence is not reserved exclusively for humans. Primates, dolphins, and even elephants all have very high functioning brains, and we still don't know everything about how animals think! Probably the most recent issue on this topic, or at least the most heated, pertains to the orcas in captivity, particularly at Seaworld. While it doesn't encompass the entire Blackfish debate, the intelligence of these animals certainly plays a huge part in it. 

Jurassic World makes the point that animals can be smart, and we often times underestimate their abilities. Like the raptors. Definitely the stars of the movie (Blue is my favorite!!). They have demonstrated their ability to work together in a team, communicate, and problem-solve. Who would've thought that dinosaurs could be smart? The reality is that we're learning more and more every day about the mental capacity of animals. Keeping that in mind, we shouldn't be surprised to find that many species are more intelligent than we previously thought. I mean, in fifty years, we could discover that seahorses are super smart- who knows! 

Any Nostalgia Critic fans out there? 

Wild Animals

No matter how much you train an individual animal, if they are wild, they will do what they want. Wild animals are, and will act like, wild animals. Just take a look at TIME's top 10 incidents. In my opinion, wild animals need to be treated with respect, understanding, and if you see one, distance. In no way am I saying animals are out to get us, but they can be dangerous if we aren't careful. (Of course, there are also many cases of domesticated animals going batpoop crazy, but we won't get into that.) 

I missed this scene because I was in the ladies room. True story. 

Technology


I can sit here at my desk and type out a novel of why we should be using technology for helping with poverty, or preventing suicide, or fighting terrorism. Or I could rant about how we should be using technology to innovate more ways to conserve our planet's natural resources, and help save the many endangered species of animals before they are lost to us forever. But instead, we're focused on using technology for something cool, but useless: bringing back dinosaurs. In this case, I'll just leave the rest of the talking to Ian Malcolm: 

Yeah, go tell this to the people trying to make dino-chickens (see link at end)

The Influence of Money

One of the concepts that really hit home with me was the emphasis on corporate sponsorship. It seems nowadays, advertisements are everywhere- billboards, tv commercials, and even roller coaster cars! Granted, some advertisements are really cool! Take the Science World ads, for example. Go ahead and Google it. Their facts are stunning, educational, and fun! I even picked a dinosaur one for you guys: 

The real question is who would sit on those chairs? 

But unfortunately, in today's day and age, we are overwhelmed with companies begging for our attention. In Jurassic World, the main lady (I'm not bothering to remember her name, sorry- she wasn't my favorite character) is so engulfed by the need to satisfy corporate sponsors that she forgets that the "assets" are actually living animals. This whole attitude keeps her from evacuating the park as soon as the can't-be-caught-asaurus gets out. A good lesson to learn, folks, money isn't as important as lives are. And with animals, they aren't objects, toys, or displays. They are living, breathing creatures, just like you and I, and should be treated as more than just money-makers. Besides, haven't we learned from Little Shop of Horrors that a lot of people will get eaten by giant mutant creatures if we grow them for money? 

Feed me Seymour!

That's all folks! Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and check back soon for more! I also included some funny related links you might like: 

Zookeepers Recreating the Raptor-Training Scene

Nostalgia Critic's Review (NSFW)

Dino Chickens?

Movie Review: The Rescuers Down Under

Howdy everyone! I'm writing my very first movie review and I hope you like it! My goal is to keep these reviews short, sweet, and entertaining, with clips and pictures, and four sections: Summary, Animals, Conservation, My Favorite Part. I might tweak this format a bit in the future, but I think it worked well for this movie. And without further adieu (wow, I never knew how to spell that word...) here is my movie review!  


The Rescuers Down Under is a Disney movie about two mice who travel to Australia in order to rescue a boy kidnapped by a poacher. Sounds a bit ridiculous, but I really enjoyed the story line and the stunning imagery. If you haven't watched it since you were little, it's definitely worth a re-watch, or at least watch this scene where I get extremely jealous of the main character because he gets to RIDE AN EAGLE: 

Animals

No Disney movie would be complete without talking animals! The confusing part of this film is that some animals talk and some don't, but hey, who questions details? I'm very happy that their animal characters were accurate with their origin- goannas, kangaroos, koalas, crocodiles, and even a kangaroo rat  all make appearances in their native Australia. I also found it cool that the mice used an albatross for travel across the sea, like an airplane, especially since, in real life, these birds can glide for hours above the ocean without beating their wings! It makes the whole international-travel-for-rodents concept slightly plausible! 

Conservation

The villain of The Rescuers Down Under is a poacher. Oh, and he is a mean poacher too! He has all sorts of animals locked away in chains, he drives a monstrous cage-truck, and even abuses his faithful lizard/pet/sidekick Joanna. Not to mention he tries to feed a poor little blonde boy to the crocodiles. While all this makes it easier to despise him for the sake of the story, I can't help but mention that poachers are not always evil. I know, I know- blasphemy! But sometimes poachers are people who have no other way to feed their families, or who don't know any better, or who are forced into it. I am definitely going to get back on this topic and expand on it in the near future, but regarding this film, we all love to hate McLeach the poacher. 

My Favorite Thing About the Movie

Joanna the goanna was definitely my favorite aspect of the entire movie! In my opinion, she is more comedic relief than Johnny Depp was in Into the Woods (sorry Mr. Wolf!). Her constant antics are entertaining no matter what age you are! For your enjoyment, to end this review, I have included a scene of her stealing eggs:

I hope you all enjoyed this post, and please feel free to leave me feedback! I know it's a bit different than my previous post styles, but if you like my movie reviews, and my posts on Disney, I'll be happy to continue with those topics! Thanks for reading everyone!