We took our under 6 brood to see Madagascar today, along with many other people. We had the slight embarassment of bumping into friends on the way in who were turned away because the movie was sold out. Fortunately, we had bought our tickets beforehand. C'est la vie. As it turns out, they may have been the lucky ones.
Unless your five-year-old lives in the five boroughs and reads the NYT Book Review, this movie may miss its mark. I think the Tom Wolfe joke ten minutes in set the tone for the whole movie. The creative premise is that a band of Central Park Zoo buddies (a zebra, lion, hippo and giraffe) embarks on an adventure and through a series of fortunate or unfortunate events, wind up in "the wild." (To give you a taste, the Manhattanite animals thought the wild was in Connecticut.) The group is so thoroughly domesticated that they don't realize until they are there that in the wild, the lion would eat the zebra.
In the Woody Allen Movie Husbands and Wives, Mia Farrow's character is arguing with her husband, Allen's character. She is calling him out for telling people at parties that he wants to move to Europe. "That's just a flirting technique; you couldn't survive off the island of Manhattan for 48 hours." Madagascar is Woody Allen meets Heart of Darkness. Soon after the friends arrive in Madagascar, the lion, Alex, realizes that the steaks at the zoo come from actual animals like his zebra friend, Marty. Alex reverts to "the wild." To chart his regression, his mane, once smoothly coiffed, kinks up in to a frizzy look, which is sort of discomforting to think about. Once Alex snaps out of his Kurtz-like trance at the end, his mane looks Miss Clairol straightened again.
If the original Shrek was a hit because it had laughs for the grown-ups, and Shrek 2 overdid the grown-up laughs, then Madagascar continues down the spectrum, leaving the kids in the theater with puzzled looks on their faces. I'm never one for gratuitously adding potty humor to kids' movies just for laughs, but I laughed the loudest at one line. (This may reflect more on the other jokes in the movie than on my sense of humor.) Toward the beginning, the zoo gang gets busted at Grand Central Station. As two monkeys have guns turned on them, the head monkey says, "If you have poop, fling it now." I guess you had to be there.
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Since moving to New York City, I started noticing (and am amazed at) just how ..." [more] (Tracked on June 8, 2005 @ 11:59)
1. Posted by Chris on May 30, 2005 @ 23:19 | Permalink
Well, I saw the movie with a friend heading to an advanced degree in biochem and another just finished with his second year of law school. The three of us enjoyed it immensely, which -- I suppose -- might mean you're right.
2. Posted by on May 31, 2005 @ 10:11 | Permalink
Chris Rock by Marty the zebra
3. Posted by on June 2, 2005 @ 9:09 | Permalink
I think Madagascar is casted very well! I just love the hypochondriac giraffe Melman and the hippo Gloria. they are really hilarious!
I was looking for photos and posters from the film for my little one who just loved it and stumbled across www.poster-art-gallery.com/madagascar/madagascar-movie-poster.php on another madagascar forum.
They've got a lot of info on the film and a much wider selection of pics and posters than your usual suspects (i.e. allposters.com or art.com).
If you're interested, they've also got stuff like news about the film and profiles of the characters and other resources connected with the film. A bit too much for me, but i bet it's right for some people.
Anyway... hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Mina
4. Posted by sarah on July 16, 2005 @ 10:41 | Permalink
i am 13 n i even thought madacascar was brill. i luv melmanhe is well dumb n i think that ittle creature that alex scared was really cute
5. Posted by Merideth Carleton on November 14, 2005 @ 10:20 | Permalink
Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 25133, and it got it right! Pretty neat.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
