Happy Feet

[Sonic Youth]

For the record, I've heard Neil Cavuto interviewed twice, once on television and once on a talk radio station. He's a big time right wing Bush supporter, and he made it crystal clear. Plus, he used to write columns for townhall.com. So blather off.

[OscarGuy]

Kids movies have for years been putting for messages of tolerance (Look at Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast). It's ludicrous to bitch because one suddenly takes an pro-naturalist stance. That's ridiculous. Kids movies are meant for two things: to entertain and to inform. Kids need to learn from a young age to understand tolerance and awareness of issues that their parents are too stupid or, in some cases, too biased, to share with kids. Now, Happy Feet is too heavy handed, I'll agree with that but it's no reason to chastise the film. Get over yourselves right-wing nutters (and, Criddic, those are the ones who voice their objections to media influences. there are hardly any liberal parents that would come out against a film unless it promoted bigotry or views that were antithetical to their own. To say liberal families would throw a fit over Happy Feet is ridiculous, because this issue's right up their alley and if they have a problem with it, they must not be too liberal after all.)

[Sonic Youth]

And just what makes this "right-wing"? Just because it appears on FOX News doesn't make it right-wing.

I stopped reading right here.

[The Original BJ]

And for all you international posters, here's a window into our world. Right-wing television commentators discuss 'Happy Feet'.

No donations, please. Just your sympathy. Thank you.

JEEY-ZUS CHRIST! If I begin discussing that nightmare I won't be able to sleep tonight. So I won't.

But I think that chick is going to get booted from FOX News. She said the one GOOD thing about the movie was that it might get boys interested in tap dancing.

Boys . . . tap dancing . . . what kind of message could she POSSIBLY be promoting?

What kind of world do we live in when FOX News doesn't want America's boys acting macho?!!!

[criddic3]

And just what makes this "right-wing"? Just because it appears on FOX News doesn't make it right-wing. But that's not even an issue. I haven't seen the movie, and I only saw the headline of Sonic's link, to be honest. (the link's video didn't play). I suspect that it will talk about it's hidden messages of tolerance towards gays and/or immigrants. Neither message would surprise me, nor would I be particularly against those issues. I respond to this because I seem to be the resident gay conservative here.

I haven't heard Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson rushing to tell people that the movie is propaganda, but if they do, then go ahead and criticize them for it. But Neil Cavuto has never come across to me as being a hard-core right-winger. I could be wrong, of course.

So I'm not bothered by that part of your post. I object to this "look into our world and sympathize" line. Why is the rest of world so much more appealing to you if you live here? Why not move to some other country where your views match theirs? We don't have a perfect country, but I do not believe that such perfection exists. Certainly not elsewhere. And the idea that you are somehow trapped into some unforgiving world where right-wingers rule, I think that is misleading for many international onlookers. We are a diverse country that welcomes, and should welcome, all different points of view. I disagree with people on issues, while agreeing on others. But if someone points out that they feel there's a hidden agenda in a movie (and sometimes there is, as some filmmakers either consciously or subconsciously add underlying sentiments into their screenplays and visuals to reach out and portray their beliefs on screen), perhaps it should open a discussion rather than an expression of disgust.

There are some people in this country who, for instance, believe what Michael Medved states in the posted review that Hollywood has been trying to inject a "gay tolerance" message into films like "Chicken Little." While I think that kids should able to try to sort out personal differences for themselves to some extent, some parents will be offended by the idea that their kids are exposed to these concepts early in life in forms of entertainment where they aren't expecting them. Granted, most kids will merely see these characters as being funny or won't even notice them, but some parents will pick up on these things or the underlying message may subconsciously play into the child's awareness around their peers. Whether this should be of concern I can't say, but I also can understand the idea behind the concern.

But to suggest that this is an issue exclusive to right-wing conservatives is simply false. There are liberal-minded people who are not too thrilled with the idea of their kids being exposed to some ideas, too. I think the issue here is that some of these themes are being slipped into mainstream fare under their noses. Again, what amount of concern there should be about this I can't say. Only that this kind of filmmaking technique has been going on for years, both subtly and not. Since many Hollywood filmmakers are self-described liberals, it is not far-fetched for conservatives to take issue with it. Still, based on the gay-theme reference in Medved's review, I don't think the concern would be exclusive to them.

The other reference I've read about from the film is the Spanish/Mexican-speaking/accented penguins. Some have seen this as a plea for immigrant-tolerance, although it diminishes the point of the illegal-immigrant debate. I suppose this falls more into the conservative vs. liberal divide, but I have thought it a pointless thing to find controversy over illegal immigration (ie, it's illegal for a reason).

I could just be talking gibberish here, and maybe I am, but maybe the offense is simply with the whole "look at our poor country that has some traditionalists and conservatives. poor us, we have to live with people who don't think the same as we do." I thought liberals/progressives were supposed to embrace diversity? Besides it's a few peoples' opinions. I have not been hearing any uproar about the film at all. It's not going to be a huge controversy. And it won't prevent the film from being a hit, as it's already grossed quite a bit since opening.

[Sonic Youth]

And for all you international posters, here's a window into our world. Right-wing television commentators discuss 'Happy Feet'.

No donations, please. Just your sympathy. Thank you.

[Sonic Youth]

The brilliant Michael Medved reviews Happy Feet.

(For the benefit of the duller posters here, this is my sarcastic mode. So when I call Medved "brilliant", it really means very, very stupid.)

Friday, November 17, 2006
Don't Be Misled by "Crappy Feet"!
Posted by: Michael Medved at 2:16 AM

Hollywood produces plenty of lousy movies but the releases that bother me most are those that feature false and misleading advertising. The new animated extravaganza “Happy Feet” features some of the most dishonest marketing of 2006, and deserves special condemnation for it mendacious mediocrity.

The film features the voices of A-list Hollywood stars --- Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Elijah Wood, Robin Williams—and the trailers and TV ads suggest a fun-for-the-whole-family romp with some of the awe-inspiring, wonder-of-creation views of penguin peculiarities that made “March of the Penguins” one of the top grossing documentaries in history.

While the computer-generated animation often fills the screen with visually spectacular Antarctic vistas, the story and characters will irritate most potential viewers for several reasons:

1) This may be the darkest, most disturbing feature length animated film ever offered by a major studio. At least 80% of the film’s running time shows its penguin characters in pain or danger. Scenes of terrifying leopard seals and killer whales trying to devour the protagonist and his friends are so intense as to guarantee nightmares; the PG rating is a joke since the film is wildly inappropriate for young viewers under seven (and their parents). Rather than sending you out of the theatre with a song in your heart (there’s a big focus in the script on “heart songs”) the movie produces feelings of fright, discomfort, even guilt. The title “Happy Feet,” suggesting a feel-good frolic, could hardly be more deceptive for a deeply ill-considered project that will make most audience members feel gloomier and more depressed than they did when they entered the theatre.

2) The propagandistic theme suggests that the biggest menace for the lovable penguins is the human race --- stealing the fish on which the birds depend, or ruining planet earth through pollution and global warming. There’s also scenes of a penguin captured for a zoo and tormented to the point of mental incapacity by unfeeling people Many classic animated films (even “Bambi”, or the recent “Open Season” and “Over the Hedge)” featured the equation animals=good/humans=bad but no movie for kids has gone so far in trying to induce guilt for membership in species homo sapiens.

3) There’s also a bizarre anti-religious bias operating unmistakably and gratuitously in the film. The penguin protagonist (known as “Mumbles Happy Feet”) finds himself harshly treated by the aged leaders of the flock, who worship a false God called “the Great Wind” and decry and persecute anyone who dares to challenge their “sacred” traditions. The voice of Robin Williams (in one of his two parts) also portrays a great religious guru and sage who turns out to be a complete phony, with no special knowledge of any kind. When intrepid penguins finally make contact with the “aliens” (otherwise known as humans) the first menacing structure they see is a church.

4) As in so many other recent films, there’s a subtext that appears to plead for endorsement of gay identity. Mumbles (the voice of Elijah Wood) displeases his parents and the leaders of his community because he’s born different, and makes an impassioned plea that he can’t possibly change – and they should accept him as he is.

Aside from all the politically correct messages, the movie remains singularly depressing, frustrating, scary and disturbing. An ardent love affair is frustrated for no apparent reason, with the main character’s inamorata choosing a crude, fat penguin she cares nothing about and producing many progeny. The movie’s conclusion – with tap=dancing penguins somehow persuading humankind to go to the U.N. (the United Nations Building even makes an appearance) to protect the Antarctic food chain-- makes no sense at either the emotional or plot-coherence level.

In short, “Happy Feet” comprises a strikingly downbeat evening (or afternoon) at the multiplex – an appalling waste of both time and money for patrons who will expect a far more cheerful, cold-climate-but-warm-hearted experience. The last time a major studio launched a comparably misleading ad campaign, they tried to sell Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” as a Rocky-in-sports-bra/noble underdog boxing movie--- deliberately hiding its intense assisted suicide theme. For “Happy Feet,” they seem to hide the movie’s darker, dysfunctional messages and to ignore its questionable elements for innocent kids.

With this posting, consider yourself warned: “Happy Feet” deserves designation as “Crappy Feet” and counts as one of the biggest disappointment of the onrushing holiday season.

[anonymous1980]

I liked it.

But I'm not as enthusiastic as some reviewers. But it is, for the most part, visually stunning and absolutely charming. I, too, disliked the heavy handed moralizing in the third act.

Monster House is a better film but, alas, I think this one's winning. George Miller directed and he's a veteran filmmaker (previously nominated for Babe and Lorenzo's Oil)

[The Original BJ]

Thank you, OscarGuy! I hated this movie, too. Some of the penguins are cute, but the story is so blatantly ripped off from Dumbo -- even down to the group of racialized sidekick birds who help our hero appreciate his difference -- I was shocked that this received such favorable reviews. The pop music is annoying and out of place, and the last act's narrative clumsiness/sledgehammer moralizing/introduction of live action (!) is bizarre beyond belief.

The animation is indeed beautiful, and the tap dancing rocks, but the narrative is too weak, the drama too hackneyed, and the jokes too dull for this to really work.

This is clearly not a great year for animated films, but I'd place Scanner Darkly, Cars, and Monster House far above this. I wonder if those proclaiming Happy Feet the Oscar front-runner haven't seen it, because it doesn't really stand out in the quality department. I think this race is going to be very close.

[OscarGuy]

Has anyone actually watched this movie? How anyone could consider this a significant narrative work is daft. The story is ludicrous, the concept dreadfully inept and the performances way beyond hammy. The ONLY saving grace of the entire film is that it's amazingly animated. The quality of production is fantastic, though the constant swirling of the "camera" was irritating.

I didn't like this movie and think it's one of the year's worst overall productions. If the story hadn't been so laughably stupid, it might have worked but as it stands, I was not captivated, I was just annoyed.

[Sonic Youth]

Happy Feet


Steven Rosen in Los Angeles
Screendaily

Dir: George Miller. US. 2006. 98mins.

Happy Feet is one strange bird of an animated movie. Directed by George Miller, who was behind Babe (1995) and its badly-received sequel, it is by turns giddy, maudlin, swinging, narratively overstuffed and artistically magnificent as it makes the case - not always in jest - that penguins would have a better chance of survival if they learnt to tap dance.

It would seem primed to do massive business because of its sense of spectacle, environmental message and all those cute penguins. But Happy Feet has a couple of Achilles' heels that may keep it more grounded than its selling points suggest. In particular its lead character Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), an outcast young penguin who needs to prove his courage, feels somewhat bland and not really the master of his storyline.

As a result, children may not be able to relate to Mumble as they did similarly-motivated animal characters like Simba in The Lion King (1994), [Simba wasn't bland???] which took $784m worldwide, $329 from the US. Happy Feet also struggles to maintain a similar comic tone and warmth to this year’s Ice Age 2 ($646m worldwide, $195m from US), despite the presence of big-name comic talent like Robin Williams. But the snowy cartoon should still play well in the run-up to Christmas both domestically – it opens in the US on Nov 17 - and overseas.

Certainly Happy Feet will be boosted by the fact it is about penguins, currently the animal kingdom’s biggest stars, as witnessed by two of last year’s strongest family films: documentary March Of The Penguins, which took $122m worldwide; and Madagascar, which earned $194m of its $529m global box-office from the US. Ancillary, as with similar animated fare, will likely earn more than theatrical....


....George Miller here seems inspired by Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge: at every opportunity, penguins - sometimes thousands at once - break into wild song-and-dance medleys of pop hits like Queen's Somebody To Love, Prince's Kiss, The Steve Miller Band's The Joker and Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five’s The Message. Sometimes the film's voice talent does the singing – Nicole Kidman tackles Kiss - on other occasions the soundtrack features guest singers like Chrissie Hynde.

The tap dancing is exuberantly choreographed by Savion Glover, whose own steps were recorded via motion capture, then digitalised. Overall, the gotta-see-it-to-believe-it scenes of dancing birds are infectiously ecstatic, but they occasionally feel bizarre and the uneven tone may throw some audiences.

In other escapades Mumble runs into an elephant seal (voiced by the late Steve Irwin), an encounter that has shades of a Ray Harryhausen-orchestrated monster-movie confrontation. There is also an abandoned human settlement – which features a church on a cliff, a stranded tanker and trash and debris everywhere – that proves somewhat haunting.

The digitalised animation is often breathtaking, especially considering that penguins, by their very nature, are not that colorful. Sydney-based visual effects house Animal Logic, working with production designer Mark Sexton and layout/camera director David Peers, has given the birds a detailed, sculptural roundness, although Mumble sometimes feels somewhat emotionless.

Antarctic backgrounds feature ice shelves, glaciers, icebergs, valleys and mountain ranges and are stunningly panoramic.

[Sonic Youth]

We have our winnah!

Happy Feet
(Animated)
By TODD MCCARTHY
Variety

Viewers weary of the increasing similarity of most animated films have a tonic at hand in "Happy Feet." Likely to be affectionately dubbed "March of the Penguins: The Musical," George Miller's long-in-the-works dive into full-blown computer animation drapes a relatively conventional story, about a young penguin's struggles over being "different," in striking visuals, invigorating songs and lively characterizations. Although the film might prove a bit too different for a minority of parents, general reaction is likely figures to be one of jaw-dropping amazement, sparking merry B.O. through the holidays and further abundance in home entertainment incarnations. Extensive simultaneous Imax engagements will be particularly popular.

There is no mistaking "Happy Feet" as anything but the work of a real filmmaker; in terms of composition, camera movement and editing, the pic is conceived as a "real" movie, and emerges as one of the very best directed animated films on record. Not surprisingly from the force behind the "Babe" movies, the attention to detail is phenomenal, the humor ample.

But the story is inescapably serious on both personal and societal levels. While countless moppet-targeted films have taught the lesson that the oddball shall prevail and that everyone is gifted in a particular way, looming over everything here is the specter of aliens -- human beings, that is -- who leave ominous traces of their comings and goings on the icy wastes of Antarctica and impinge upon the penguins' supply of fish. The environmental themes are familiar, but Miller superbly manifests the threat in a manner both tactile and hauntingly poetic.

Fine while up and flying, pic has trouble with both takeoff and landing. Intro of emperor penguin society consists of a virtual assault of mostly soulful R&B tunes. Initial seg, in fact, reps a recapitulation of "March of the Penguins," as the moms lay eggs, hand them off to the dads and head off for distant feeding waters while the males face the bitter, months-long night of incubation.

Conformity reigns as this community's highest value, with strict compliance enforced by wizened elders, wonderfully craggy figures who look like they were chiseled by Rodin. It's expected emperor penguins will have beautiful voices. Newborn tyke Mumble can't put two notes together, but the little bugger sure can dance; he's born tapping, with speed and moves the equal of tapmaster Savion Glover, who provided the motion-capture terpsing for the furry bird.

Mumble's mom (voiced by Nicole Kidman) doesn't mind her son's eccentricity, but his dad (Hugh Jackman) complains that "it just ain't penguin." Despite the great song-and-dance potential exhibited by Mumble (voiced after infancy by Elijah Wood) and his dazzlingly voiced pal Gloria (Brittany Murphy), Mumble is eventually exiled by the high priest (Hugo Weaving).

And so begin Mumble's wanderings, riddled with unknown dangers. In the first and most child-frightening of three big-action set pieces, each more dazzling than the last, Mumble is attacked by an unusually toothsome seal, only to be taken under the wing of a bunch of small, Mexican-accented penguins fronted by Ramon (Robin Williams).

Mumble is embraced as "Big Guy," and begins to see there's more to the world than the rigid realm of Emperor Land. In another fantastic action scene, Mumble and his five buddies go careening like so many live toboggans down a vast run of slopes and bowls and cliffs at breathtaking speed until they are caught up short by the sight of an alien visitation.

The band of wayfarers enlarges again with the addition of rockhopper penguin Lovelace (Williams again, in soulful mode), a self-styled guru. The odyssey briefly reunites Mumble, who retains his immature gray feathers throughout, with Gloria and his emperor brethren. But with food in diminished supply, Mumble sets out for the Forbidden Shore, where elephant seals (including one voiced by the late Steve Irwin) warn him he'll encounter the dreaded annihilator aliens. He also crosses paths with two killer whales in a scene of eye-popping choreographed action.

Mumble's close encounter with Earth's dominators and the detritus of their activities, powerfully imagined from the bird's point of view, proves thoroughly sobering; following logically, pic would end on a quite dire note. Given this impossibility, Miller and fellow screenwriters John Collee, Judy Morris and Warren Coleman contrive a way to deliver a relatively upbeat ending, one that doesn't completely dismiss the peril but still seems concocted.

While having been nimbly edited for momentum and flow, "Happy Feet" employs long takes and the moving "camera" considerably more than do most animated films. Result is a film of heightened elegance and precision as well as a strong sense of space; the widescreen frame can barely contain the vast landscapes, as well as a bulging cast of happy-footed "extras" that would have turned Busby Berkeley green with envy. Pic reps the most ambitious and successful use of the motion-capture technique to date.

Musical elements, overseen by composer John Powell, are extraordinarily diverse in style. At times, the familiarity of song selections proves tiresome and overbearing. At others, however, freshness of the covers and novelty of the contexts are genuinely funny, among them a Spanish-lingo version of "My Way," an ironic rendering of "Leader of the Pack" and some Beach Boys-backed surfing unlike anyone in Malibu has ever done.

A Babel's brew of accents comprise the spirited voicings, with Williams doing fine double-duty in focused funny mode. End credits, which contain more than 1,000 names, may be the longest on record.