Movie Review 20: Mr. Popper's Penguins

It would be hard to find a movie more different from Norwegian Wood than Mr. Popper's Penguins.

In this Jim Carey, family friendly movie, Carey plays a real estate developer (said in my best movie preview voice) who learns an important less about being human from a flock of silly birds.

Mr. Popper's Penguins

The movie is good for what it is. I had fun watching it.  Don't go to it expecting fine cinema; go to it expecting to see some fun hijinks, featuring the adventures of Captain, Stinky, Loudy, Bitey, Lovey, and Nimrod. They are the 6 adorable CG penguins that are tailor made of merchandising.

There are very few surprises in the movie; it's fairly cliched.  It starts wacky, becomes touching, moves to sad and tragic, and finally becomes happy and redeeming. There are some scary moments, and some really sad moments, but it's pretty easy to see what's coming next.

The CG is pretty good.  The penguins look realistic enough doing things that only vaguely penguin-related; it's not the graphics that give them away as fake birds.  If you can suspend disbelief over the penguins actions, then the computer effects will cause no problem.

If you like anthropomorphising penguins and want a cute, fun movie, Mr. Poppers Penguins is worth the hour and a half.  It has things for kids and things for adults.  Know what you're in for and enjoy the movie.

Tickling a Penguin

This may be the cutest thing I've seen all year. The Penguin is named Cookie.

Here's the short version that's been all over the 'net they past couple days:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6479500/penguin-getting-tickled

Here's a slightly longer version that's higher quality on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/3wTWWjYTe1I

Woodland Park Zoo Wins Award for Penguin Exhibit

Apparently, Seattle is a good home for Humboldt penguins.  According to the Seattle Times:

The penguin exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo has won one of the most prestigious awards in the zoo and aquarium industry.

The Association of Zoos & Aquariums honored the zoo with the Exhibit Achievement Award, according to a news release from the zoo.

"We are honored that our peers at AZA have recognized our goal of encouraging our zoo guests to explore and discover more about the Humboldt penguins' natural history and their plight in the wild, the birds' connection to people and the collaborative work underway to help this endangered species," Woodland Park Zoo President and CEO Dr. Deborah Jensen said in the release.
...More

I'm not surprised.  It's a nice exhibit.  The GF and I visited it last August.  It's outdoors, but it let's you see the penguins both on dry land and swimming under water.  Unlike the more traditional and mechanized displays at Seaworld, this one is filled with twists and turns. It has round windows and Plexiglas barriers. The top is open, so while the penguins can't fly or jump out, other birds can visit.  The penguins don't seem to mind.  I guess they're friendly hosts.

Here are some pictures I took during that visit in August, 2009.

There aren't an penguins in this picture, but it is from the penguin habitat.  The sun shined through the windows to cast this refraction.

It's easy to pass an hour or more at the penguin exhibit, watching those critters go about their business.

You can see more penguin pictures from this exhibit here.

A Penguin Puzzle

The GF and I decided to work on a puzzle last year.  Somehow or other I ended up taking over the project.  I'm not sure whose idea that was.  Regardless, by the time it was finished, we had nowhere to hang it and it was taking up space on the table.  Sadly, it was time to disassemble it, which is something I don't think I've ever done with a puzzle that had more than 25 pieces.

It was a painful prospect.

But as with with any project, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.  Or in this case, if it's worth undoing, it's worth over-undoing.  Or is that under-undoing?

So all those hours assembling the 1000 piece puzzle, meant one thing to keep it all worthwhile -- hours spent applying a technological experience to the dis-assembly.  Which is how the self-assembling puzzle came about.




Now maybe I'll make it take itself apart again.

Another Vice Presidential candidate

While people around the world express their glee at the new President- and Vice President-Elect, it's important to take a moment and remember another Vice Presidential candidate who went on to his final reward over the weekend.

During the tumultuous years of the eighties a third party candidate made headlines and T-Shirts throughout the nation. With daily coverage in hundreds of newspapers, millions of Americans followed the unfolding story of his campaign. Despite running valiant campaigns in 1984 and 1988, the third party would not meet with success. Saddled with a small party structure, less charisma than Walter Mondale, controversy over the San Francisco convention, getting slapped with the Liberal label, allegations of an affair with Jean Kirkpatrick, and a presidential candidate who was mostly dead, the Meadow Party just couldn't pull in the votes.

The Vice Presidential candidate with Southern roots lived a full life. His early jobs included writing personal ads for the local newspaper before he began work as an assistant to the only lawyer in town. He toured with renounced heavy metal band Deathtongue, until the lead singer was caught up in a biblical scandal. He briefly married a sculptor, before the wedding was annulled over concern about children and noses. There were rumors of an affair with Diane Sawyer, but those rumors may have been started by the candidate himself. Always the Star Trek fan, he owned his own Spock uniform.

He valued diversity, and was close, personal friends with a fascinating group of people -- nerdy and cool, black and white, liberal and conservative, wheel-chair bound and runner, young and old, and in later years, gay and straight.

Throughout the years, he tried to bring out the best in human nature. But the one thing he sought for over twenty five years is the one thing he finally got -- a mother and a home.

Opus passed away this past weekend after several weeks in an animal shelter.

He ended up there after a run in with Homeland Security due to his immigration status. His last act was to surrender a chance at freedom to his cell mate who likely made it to Tahiti.

Opus passed on from the pages of the comic strips to the pages of Good Night Moon, where he will spend eternity cozy in the warmth of a loving family and story.



No matter what happens in the next four years, remember:

Don't blame me. I voted for Bill and Opus.


For more details about the final weeks of Opus's life, see this Wikipedia article.

Happy Birthday, Dave

I've been a fan since I first watched the show in a Florida hotel room a couple decades ago.

From cbs.com/lateshow

Top Ten Things I, Dave Letterman, Have Learned In 60 Years

Top Ten


10) You save a lot of money by making your own hairpieces

09) I owe my success to two groups of viewers: prisoners and shut-ins

08) "Lather" and "rinse" are fine, but "repeat" is just a scam to sell more shampoo

07) Them redneck jokes never get old

06) At staff parties, I always get stuck talking to a guy named "Shecky"

05) For some reason, "Dancing with the Stars" keeps sending my audition tape back

04) Can't think of anything funny? How about this: (video of monkey getting a root canal)

03) If you're missing "The Rachel Ray Show," you're missing out

02) Cookies is tasty

01) If I stay healthy, maybe I can make it to 100 -- like Regis

Movie Reviews 01: Happy Feet

If the idea of cute, animated, dancing penguins seems way too cute for you, skip this movie. If that appeals to you, you might like Happy Feet.

It's an okay film that has gotten mixed reviews. The graphics are amazing. The critters are life-like. And the toe-tapping soundtrack may have you dancing in the aisle.

Mumble, a baby Penguin is born without the ability to sing. He is the only Penguin that can't sing and has no place in Emperor Penguin society. And without a heartsong, he can't expect to find love. He can, however, dance, and that is unacceptable to the Penguin elders.

As with all such stories, Mumble heads out to find his own way in the wilderness.

There is a heavy handed environmental message and story line that I expected. There is also a story line that attacks the Christian Fundamentalists. There is a family-acceptance story line. And, of course, there is the inevitable love story.

The main failing of the movie is that it tries to do too much in 109 minutes.

The primary story line probably should have been the love story or the tale of acceptance. Instead, it was the environmental story line that drove the action and was resolved in an exceedingly cheese-y manor. The story line itself built slowly and well. It started with subtle hints early on, without being overly pedantic. And it drove the heroe's epic quest of self discovery.

But I think the writers built the story and got about two thirds of the way through writing it but then hit the wall. They thought, "Damn. How do we end this?" And then they struggled with the rest of the script.

The Christian fundamentalist story line was well written. It wasn't a major plot, but was well integrated. It had a bit of a Footloose feel to it.

By choosing to focus on the environmental story line, though, they cut short the questing hero story line and the love story. Mumble goes from task to task and does the "right" thing to help the people who rejected him. But we don't see him grow. We don't really see the personal stuggle as he goes from being a child to being a hero. Mumble is always sympathetic and likable, but as a character, he is shallow. The story line needed more time to develop, but probably got cut for time.

We worry about Mumble and the other Penguins. And we care about them because they are cute, heroic, and funny. They face death frequently and struggle to survive. They build the tension and suspense.

In the end, though, I don't feel for Mumble. I don't get to be part of his growth and personal transformation from misfit, downtrodden kid to great Penguin saviour.

Maybe I'm looking for too much from a kids' movie. It's an enjoyable film that's worth seeing on the big screen. And if you can handle the sweetness, it's a good way to spend an hour and a half.

Real Southerners become Popular

It should come as no surprise to most people that Penguins are cool these days. In fact, they seem to be at the top of the cute animal pile, recently out pacing puppies, kittens, and koalas. Last fall, the meteoric Penguin rise was briefly challenged by the two Panda births in the US, but Penguins maintained their death grip on one the cute list lead.

If you visit the video site youtube.com and search for Penguin, it will return more than 230 short Penguin movies. More importantly, when you search for "play cole" you will find a series of brilliant and hilarious films uploaded by "playcole".

Naturally, the popular March of the Penguins movie had a lot to do with this. It a lovely story about struggling against adversity to simply live and do your part for your society and...well, I haven't actually seen it, but I do have the DVD sitting on shelf, and I hear it's very good.

This isn't the first time Penguins have tried to ascend. Burgess Meredith brought The Penguin into living rooms at the Same Bat Time and Same Bat Channel several times, but it didn't quite stick in the pop culture.

Interestingly, the Penguins (the birds) come across more tenderly in the Batman Returns, featuring a decidedly more interesting Penguin (the bad guy) played by Danny DeVito. It's been years since I've seen it, but as I recall the birds actually carry away the dead or dying DeVito, and take him back to the sewers. It was one of the more touching moments I remember from the series of movies. I'm sure Jon will correct me if I misstate my Batman lore.

And in the 1980's the genius of Berkeley Breathed gave us Bloom County and Opus the Penguin. Of course later in the strip Binkley announces that Opus looks much more like a puffin than a penguin, but no matter. I proudly wore my "Don't Blame Me. I Voted for Bill 'n' Opu shirt," and anxiously awaited the release of the Deathtongue CD. I hoped someone in Antarctica would find that damned step stool. But while Bloom County may have given us Opus fever, it didn't really give us Penguin fever.

My girlfriend actually was a big Penguin fan before they became popular. Actually, she often does that with new trends. She becomes a big fan before any of them become trendy. This happened with Penguins, flip flops, toe rings, Coach bags, iPods, and a number of other items. She tends to get into these things 6 to 12 months before the explode into the pop culture. Now, I just need to figure out how to make money off of this phenomenon, but that's another story.

Regardless, she doesn't abandon things once they get trendy, which is fortunate. People who abandon something simply because it's become popular are annoying. I'm sure we all know someone who says things like, "I used to like that band, but then the got too popular." Why should popularity make something somehow less worthy or likable? But that's a rant for another day. Regardless, my girlfriend doesn't stop liking things once they become popular.

So now your thinking, "OK Cromely, this is mildly interesting and would have been relevant 6 months ago. Why are you writing this now?" Well there are two reasons. First, of all, I didn't have this blog 6 month ago.

The second reason, however, is advertising.

Within the past few months, there has been an increase in the Penguin advertising. John O'Hurley of Seinfeld fame is now doing car insurance commercials featuring penguins. There's also an Jeep commercial featuring a Penguin that wants to go to Florida.

So finally, here is my point. I predict at least 4 commercials will air during the Superbowl next week that will feature Penguins. There. Now, it was worth reading the entire post for that, wasn't it?