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March of the Penguins Tops Box Offices
Zinside writes "Yahoo News is running a story stating that March of the Penguins may become the No. 2 documentary of all time at U.S. box offices." From the article: "The film, which follows a pack of Emperor Penguins during an arduous mating season, had grossed $18.4 million by Wednesday and was poised to surpass the $21.6 million for Michael Moore's anti-gun documentary Bowling For Columbine. 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. The Penguins are a miraculous species, capable of extreme heroism, self-sacrifice, sorrow and unshakable love."
Now you know why the Penguin is Linux's mascot. It is reliable, unshakable, self-sacrificing (think of all those selfless developers working night and day around the world), extreme heroism (ok, that might be taking it a little too far...)
[1] It is G rated. I guess some people are sick of car chases, boobies and scary monsters - go figure! The "naughtiest" part is penguins doing "it" to make more penguins. I actually saw a parent take their child out of the theatre for this one. Felt sorry for the poor kid...
[2] Penguins are somewhat similar to humans in the way they walk and behave. They walk upright but wobble and thus they look like "cute", "fat", "fuzzy" people. You couldn't pull this one off with snakes or, tigers. They are social creatures. In the movie ( I hope I don't spoil it for anyone ;) a mother penguin who lost her egg, tries to steal the chick from another penguin. The other females in the group would not "approve" of such behavior and came to protect the chick and the mother from the "thief".
Also penguins are monogamous (emperor penguins are monogamous at least for duration of one year) - which often is not the case with many humans nowadays - not that there is anything wrong with it... So that also anthropomorphosizes them even more.
[3] The bravery and determination of the people who shot the movie is impressive. Very cold weather, very dangerous, all just to film the cute little birds. And, of course, as some post mentioned, some like Morgan Freeman.
[4] It spread mostly by word of mouth. This is similar to the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". A small movie that made big $ because everyone told their friends to go see and how great it was. I heard about the movie from my parents then after I saw it, I recommended it to all my friends and they saw it. If everyone who see it does it - it is quite a few people..
You obviously have never studied any film theory, for if you had, you would have realized that documentaries are not objective. Not one bit. Sure, some might have strive for balance, but at the end of the day, documentaries are arguments using both moving images and narration to back up their "truths". Some, like Moore's documentaries, are very obvious about it. Others, like this Penguin one, are subtle. But at the end of the day, both are making arguments.
As a viewer, you are being shown a very small piece of "reality". You don't know what happened before or after the event. You don't what a subject said before or after the presented clip. Think about it - the mere acting of editing a conversation shows that the documentary filmmaker is being subjective. What makes him use the first part of the clip, instead of the middle part. Or even the last part? He's using it to back his argument.
By saying you wish to preserve the "legitimacy" of the documentary is saying you want to put critical thinking aside. There is no legitimacy. Whether it appears to be subjective or not, liberal or conservative, about animals on the Savannah or men on the moon, documentaries are all arguments proporting a certain world view.