Penguins and Owls

My friends all know that I'm terrible about movies; there are scores of Really Important Films that I haven't seen, and in truth, I may never see. I feel bad about it in the same way I feel bad about not reading Really Important Books, because great movies are as much a part of the beauty of human creation as literature, but I just don't often feel inspired to sit on my couch staring at a screen for two hours. Going OUT to the movies is something that we didn't do often before we had kids, and now, it's even rarer. So, when you see me review two movies here (and in one post!), you know that they must be pretty special.

This weekend, I saw two movies that I would not have thought to put together, but they work really well as a pair. On Friday, I took Doodlebug on a "date" to see the new kids' movie "Happy Feet". This was one of my favorite kids movies so far, though to be fair, it's not hard to compete with "Cinderella" or "Strawberry Shortcake and the Friendship Parade" (or whatever that drivel is called). I recommend this movie for anyone, with or without kids, and I loved talking with Doodlebug about it afterward. The story of an Emporer penguin teaches so many of the lessons that I want her to learn, and in such a cute and accessible way.

In Happy Feet, little Mumble is born to a community of penguins who express all their joy and love in song. They are encouraged to dig deep into their souls to find their "heartsongs," the song that expresses each penguin perfectly. Mumble, however, is born not with a singing voice and a song, but with dancing feet and incredible tapping talent. In the midst of his trouble growing up and finding his way within a community that does not value his talent, he comes to learn about "aliens" who interfere with his seemingly pristine natural surroundings. A bird has a mysterious yellow tag around his ankle; a neighboring penguin group has a leader with a plastic six-pack ring around his neck; and the fish supply is dwindling. His elders are convinced the fish are going away because of Mumble's dancing "abomination," but he just knows there's something more to it. The tale of his brave journey to the "aliens," his success in changing his environment in an unconventional way -- this is a story I can really get behind!

Doodlebug and I talked on the way home about why the aliens (humans) took the fish from Mumble and his family, and what we can do about it. On her own, she connected our vegetarianism with saving the penguins, and celebrated all the vegetarians she knows as "world-savers!" We talked about other things we could do, like snipping the six-pack rings and not leaving our garbage where animals live. We also talked about whether we had "heartsongs" -- and apparently hers changes daily. It was a great date with my daughter!

Then, all four of us went for the rest of the weekend to visit my parents, and when the kids went to sleep, we watched An Inconvenient Truth. I'd been meaning to see it forever, and feeling reaaly guilty that I hadn't. It was a phenomenal film, and gave me a whole new perspective on Al Gore and his committment to the environment. I'm probably one of the few people here on Zaadz who hasn't seen it until now, but for those browsing in from the web or friends who didn't know, this is a documentary partially about Gore's fight against global warming, and mostly about global warming itself. Gore spends the movie and the lectures filmed for the movie explaining, patiently and carefully, the science behind global warming. He methodically disects arguments against its existence, explains the research and its origins, and uses simple but elegant visual aids to illustrate his points.

I have a friend who has taught me to be sceptical of any documentary with an agenda, and so I wanted to be sure that this was not just Gore choosing the science that supported his claims and ignoring whatever didn't -- but it seems that he only got a few small things wrong, and there are some really positive reviews out there from sources I like. I was moved by this film, and it's changing the way I want to plan my future...or at least firming in my mind the softer committments I'd made.

The subject of this post is from the little stars of Happy Feet, and a George H.W. Bush quote in Gore's film, which was something like "These environmentalists would have us up to our necks in owls and unemployed!!!," to which True and I snorted and shouted:

"Bring on the owls!"