Thursday, May 10, 2012

Jason watches CHIMPANZEE

And I also checked out the new Century Theaters at Pacific Commons, Fremont. My hometown finally has a first run theater for the first time since the Fremont Cinedome closed. It's been all silents and Bollywood in Fremont, but Hollywood is back now. The theater is state of the art (unfortunately meaning all digital, but that's the wave of the future) and I appreciate all the Charlie Chaplin posters on the walls, a little nod to the history of filmmaking in the area (you can learn more about that at the Niles Essanay Film Museum)

Okay, now for the movie. It's a remarkable view into the lives of a group of chimpanzees. They find food, fight the neighboring group for territory (led by Scar, a name that's a little too on the nose) and raise the young. The focus is on Oscar, one of those young just learning how to get around in the world, devoted to his mother. But when his mother is lost in an attack by the neighboring group, Oscar has to fend for himself. And I'll leave the story at that. That's already enough of a spoiler.

I will say I got pretty tired of Tim Allen's narration. I'm fine with just enough narration to let us know what's going on, I don't need some corny jokes.

And I'll say I would've rather seen this on film. I'm not a knee-jerk film purist, I think a lot of movies look fine digitally. But especially with a lot of fine detail in the trees, I could see a lot of pixelation artifacts. This was particularly distracting in a nature film, to be reminded that all I'm seeing is really cleverly sequenced ones and zeros.

Running Time: 78 minutes
My Total Minutes: 283,734

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