This was supposed to be the weekend we saw “The Aristocrats,” but alas, the sleepover invitation we were expecting didn’t come, and so it was “March of the Penguins” instead, probably the only G-rated movie I’ll see this year. It was wonderful — how can penguins not be? — but here’s something you may not know about this French-made film, via Terry Lawson’s Freep review: When “March of the Penguins” was shown under its original title at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it gave various penguins voices, a la “Babe” and allowed them to tell this story through their perspective. It also featured a score more suitable to a 1950s cartoon; that has been replaced by rich, dramatic but unobtrusive orchestrations by Alex Wurman.
If you see the movie you’ll find this fact astonishing — it has the rich, classy, respectful look of a serious nature documentary, and the idea of the birds being anthropomorphized and cartoonified is hard to believe.
Morgan Freeman does the narration in the American version. No funny voices. Good call.
(Pause.) Well! That was quite a “Six Feet Under” finale, wasn’t it?
I didn’t really like it all that much.
Oh, it was OK, but it was a bit…maudlin. I wanted a little more dark humor, but I guess that came in the last 15 minutes. It looked as though Brenda actually died of boredom. If only Billy could be as funny as his T-shirts.
“What would Jesus bomb?” Har-de-har.
I’m not going to miss “Six Feet Under” quite so much, now that we have “Entourage” and “The Comeback” to look forward to, both of which made me forget all that weeping the hour before. I absolutely didn’t see the backwards-dress thing coming.
Let’s cut this thing short, then, with a snippet of bloggage: The DetNews blogmaster asks contributors to post something every day for a month, so what the hell, I’m keeping my word. A Sunday trifle.
Dorothy said on August 22, 2005 at 9:16 am
It has to be tough for writers to write a final episode scene that satisfies everyone. Too many ends to tie up in a neat bow, trying to please too many people (executives, viewers, actors, etc.) All in all, it was a somewhat satisfying ending, but you are right, it was maudlin. I still cried in a few spots: Ruth hugging Claire and telling her how she MUST go to New York was one. Mothers want to hold children close, not push them away, but sometimes we have to. That struck very close to home since I have a daughter starting her own life in Virginia now.
I think my favorite scene was when Nate and Nathaniel were admiring Willa, and Nathaniel introduced himself to Brenda. I thought that was an interesting twist – ghosts taking the time to make social niceities!
And thanks for stating what Billy’s shirt said. I could not make out the last word!
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brian stouder said on August 22, 2005 at 9:46 am
“It has to be tough for writers to write a final episode scene that satisfies everyone.”
I confess that when I first read this sentence, I thought Dorothy was about to comment about the delightful finish of Nance’s ‘Sunday Trifle’! Not for nothing, that article provided another nudge in my thinking…I could definitely drive less and ride more – and I bet most everyone could say the same. The last barrier is simply deciding to do it
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amy said on August 22, 2005 at 10:35 am
I have a lot of thoughts, yet unblogged on the ep, but just to focus on the t-shirt…double irony because Sisto played Jesus in the CBS miniseries on Jesus a few years back. Double heh.
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Nance said on August 22, 2005 at 10:49 am
I didn’t know that, Amy — that must be why the folks on the TVWoP forums call him Jesus. I thought it was just his amazing resemblance to a Palestinian, along with his tendency to misplace his razor.
Also, his eccentric travels: “Is Billy back from Dubai?”
(I remember Jeremy Sisto as Kevin Kline’s kid in “Grand Canyon,” personally.)
I’m softening a bit toward the episode today. It’s hard to wrap up a series to everyone’s satisfaction, and I think Alan Ball took his best shot. The NYT headline today was, “And they all died happily ever after,” which sums it up nicely.
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Dorothy said on August 22, 2005 at 11:38 am
Jeremy Sisto reminds me of Steve Railsback, who played Charles Manson in the 1976 production of “Helter Skelter.” Weird, huh? Jesus and the devil in one neat package!
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mary said on August 22, 2005 at 1:22 pm
I think I want to watch the episode again before I make up my mind about it. It seemed to drag a bit around to me. Mostly, I need to watch alone. The kids were being less than considerate of mom’s need to hear every word, last night. I will retaliate by interrupting while Mythbusters is on. Actually, I sort of like Mythbusters myself.
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trever said on August 28, 2005 at 2:44 pm
where can i get lyrics for da thirty point buck
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