Today, thanks to one of my wonderful editors at work, I had the opportunity to see an IMAX preview of Happy Feet, a new kiddies animated movie about dancing penguins. It's an odd little film, but more on that later. First of all, I must relate some events from the journey uptown.
I was getting a lift from a friend/colleague, with whom I was intending to drive around in the afternoon, photographing areas of west London for use in filler ads on the website of one of the magazines (more on this later also). Traffic was roundly awful today, despite being a Sunday, and the poor weather - terrible rain overnight and in the early morning - lead to my friend being rather late in her arrival. We'd agreed to meet up much earlier than necessary, though, as the last time we attended an IMAX preview, the time on the email they sent out was wrong, so we arrived late - just as the film was starting.
On the drive uptown, I observed a comic scene the likes of which are rarely seen outside those TV shows made up of video clips of various misfortunes, interspersed with strained commentaries by leering anchors. It was as follows:
Man rides bike into tree. Man falls off bike.
And it really was - I'm sorry to say - quite funny. Not so much a belly laugh as in inner smirk, to be honest, but there you go. I mean, first of all, the guy was riding on the pavement, on the wrong side of the road (that is, against the flow of traffic on the road he should have been riding on), and clearly wasn't looking where he was going. He just peddled along merrily until he hit the tree, and then fell off his bike.
A woman passing by turned back to help him out when she heard him fall, which was a pleasant surprise to behold, but the whole scene was ridiculous in the true sense of the word. What an idiot...
So. Happy Feet.
Frankly, I was disappointed. It was a curious mish-mash of teenage mating rituals, religious fundamentalism, moralising, buddy movie, and a gross oversimplification of solving the world's troubles. If they'd stuck to dancing penquins all the way through, it might have been fun, but even then, the film was so full of stereotypes it was uncomfortable to watch.
It actually succeeded in annoying me from the very start because of the 'teenage mating rituals' angle... Penguins wandering around, singing their 'inner song' until they happen upon another penguin whose song they like, and who likes their song... it all reminded me far too well of the utterly shallow way most humans forge relationships these days. From this 'courtship' they would move straight on to making eggs and, when the main character hatches, he's shown to be 'different' (as in 'dropped as a baby') from the start, labelling him an outcast. He then fails to 'graduate', and becomes increasingly embarrassing to his father as he becomes increasingly aggravating to the fundamentalist religious leader of the emperor penguins. Curiously, even though he's born with the ability to dance, rather than having an 'inner song' (which, to me, seemed to equate to having no soul, given the religious motif), he finds his true love while still an infant, and the whole thing seems very mapped out. Of course, they reject each other at a crucial moment, only to find each other again later for the express purpose - or so it seemed - of having an awkward misunderstanding before returning to almost the exact point they were at in their relationship before they parted.
These sorts of film invariably have a 'message' but, frankly, I was lost as to what the message in Happy Feet was until the end, where it became clumsily obvious and very poorly handled.
All in all, it was largely cute for cute's sake, and had nothing to offer an adult viewer. Technically, it was very impressive - the animation is flawless (except certain aspects of the snow's behaviour, and all of the splashing water), but even that didn't rescue the film for me. I will say that it's obvious why this film wasn't presented in IMAX 3D - it would have been confusing, if not utterly nauseating, because much of it was so complicated, either in terms of camera movement, or the sheer number of penguins on screen.
Afterward, the plan was to drive out to Kingston to eat (or, more accurately, to visit Shakeaway and then possibly eat) before tripping around west London taking photos of interesting views and landmarks, to add to the 'royalty free' library of London photos at work. Sadly, while the weather held (that is, it was dry... but also windy and bitterly cold), the traffic getting to Kingston was diabolical and, by the time we got there, we had only about an hour of daylight left. While waiting to park, we bumped into one of the Salesmen from work, and his wife, who mentioned that the shopping centre had a German Marketplace operating. He recommended the pancakes but, when we got the post-milkshake nibbles, we headed to the bratwurst stall for some spicy sausage.
Not wishing to gloss over Shakeaway (see? It's a link again!), I should mention for the uninitiated that it is a wonderful shop which sells milkshakes made up of just about anything you can imagine. The website is a little crappy, but if it doesn't start you craving milkshake, there's something very wrong with you. Of course, the fact that the Kingston branch is just over the road from the Kingston branch of The Entertainer is neither here nor there. Especially not today, then The Entertainer was closed.
Although we didn't get to do any photography, I did solve one problem - I picked up a Secret Santa gift for the office party this coming Thursday.
I dozed for a good chunk of the drive home, but got to work on updating my website with pictures of my Memorabilia haul almost as soon as I got in... Right now, it's time for Torchwood again, so I must sign out...
Additional: Torchwood was OK this week... A little rushed, as usual, and with some rather suspect acting, but a decent follow-on from the pilot.
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