March of the Penguins
For 13 months, Jacquet and his crew braved Antarctic temperatures as low as 70 degrees below zero - and winds up to 150 mph - to capture astonishing images of thousands of emperor penguins engaging in a mating and child-rearing ritual that is nothing short of astonishing.
During the course of a brutal winter, an endless line of incredibly cute penguins shuffle - or, when they get tired, slide on the ice - for the 70-mile trek from the ocean to their ancestral breeding grounds.
After they get down to business and a single egg is laid, mom gingerly transfers it to the father, who carefully carries it on his feet and transfers it to a pouch - since a few seconds of exposure can kill the egg, the risk is considerable.
The male then huddles with a thousand or more other penguins - their backs against the winter's worst - while mom heads back to the ocean to catch a few fish.
This remarkable marathon - with the males and females trading off - takes place several times until the chicks hatch and endure blinding blizzards awaiting their mother's return and their first trip to the ocean.
Despite their remarkable teamwork, penguins mate for a single season and seek new partners the next year.
Morgan Freeman strikes a perfect note of bemusement reading the English-language narration written by Jordan Roberts, even as he notes that some penguins don't survive the difficult journey.
In France, where it was called "The Emperor's Journey," the film featured the voices of two French actors "playing" an anthropomorphic penguin couple.
I didn't see that version, which played at the Sundance Film Festival, but by most accounts, the American version is an improvement.
"March of the Penguins," which does for penguins what "Winged Migration" did for birds, should draw flocks of kids of all ages to the Lincoln Plaza and the Angelika for this G-rated delight.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 3538 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago