Go See Happy Feet

It seemed like the population of Pittsburgh thought the heavens were going to dump snow on us last night. Naturally that meant we went out, to the Waterfront, on a Friday night. Some people have a bottomless capacity for aggravation.

As it turned out, the place was deserted.

We went to see Happy Feet, the penguin movie. You should stop whatever you are doing and go to see it right now.

This is just a really well done movie. I had just heard a review on NPR, and everything he says is true. At one point he talks about how the music in this film works just the way that the music in Moulin Rouge! didn't. It's an odd quote, but he's right. Both films integrated pop music into their stories. The previous film did it well, this one does it better. There's also this nice Drum & Bugle Corp or "step" dimension to the whole thing. They could really sell the soundtrack CD in the lobby. We stopped at Best Buy on the way home, only to discover they were sold out.

If you've seen March of the Penguins you'll probably like this even more so. The first half hour looks like it was cribbed from the documentary scene by scene. All that was missing mas Morgan Freeman. I wonder if they thought of that?

My only complaint about the film is that I wanted to hear more of each of the numbers. In what was already a long movie, I really did want more.

Good story, good music, good animation, good acting (maybe a little too much Mork)... Good stuff. Go see it.