There are two interesting stories today related to the new Disney movie Earth, and since I’ve seen the little kid-friendly doc and disagree with both sides of the backlash, I’m going to address the stories in today’s bloggery despite the fact that only a few film blogs have commented on this topic. First off, there’s the complaint from Newsweek’s Jesse Ellison who thinks the film is too violent to be rated G, to which I call b.s. If anything, the movie cops out too much when it comes to the food-chain kills that every kid is aware of. Bambi is more violent than Earth, and I do honestly believe Ellison made up, or at least exaggerated, his observation of a little girl jumping into her father’s lap. There were kids at the press screening I attended too, but they were so visibly bored with the tameness of the movie that they were literally running up and down the aisle of the Disney screening room.
As for the other story, apparently all of the footage in Earth is recycled from BBC’s Planet Earth series and basically only the James Earl Jones narration is fresh. Well, sure, maybe this is true, and maybe it’s a bit of a scam, but if so it’s at least a decent abridged and censored version with which to introduce kids to that series (since I’ve only seen bits of the series, I guess it was an introduction for me, as well).
So, I guess your decision to see the movie now rests on three things: you’re okay with a little implicit nature violence, you’re okay with an excellent nature series being retooled for your kids and shown on the big screen (where Planet Earth was not made available), and you want Disneynature to plant a tree in your honor, as promised by the studio’s genius promotion.
After the jump, some responses from the blogs, plus some bonus bloggery related to Earth Day:
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The screening of the short documentary Living Lightly was a debut in more ways than one. Its screening at the Denver Film Festival marked the films first public screening and it was director Robin Burke’s directorial debut. Prior to making this film, she worked predominantly as a producer on other people’s projects. Living Lightly is a debut that any first time director would be very proud of. It is poetic and thought provoking and just plain beautiful. The film is about the Vido family. They have chosen to live in such a way that they only take what they need from the earth. The film focuses on their practice of schything to make hay for their livestock. Interviews with the family are imbued with a kind of pastoral poetry that few documentaries achieve. Burke’s approach is not to charm the audience with flashy camera work or clever editing but rather, she places the camera, frames her shots wide and captures the beauty of this family, swinging their scythes in what amounts to a kind of moving painting. After the screening I talked about her process when making a documentary and what it was like to enter the world of this unusual and fascinating family.
Starz Denver Film Festival, Spout podcast, Living Lightly, Robin Burke
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