March of the Penguins Blu Ray

March of the Penguins Blu Ray Review

Planet Earth has really put nature documentaries on everyone’s must see list. Even if you are not a great fan of nature shows, most of us have watched nature documentaries in one form or another. Most likely, a documentary narrated by David Attenborough. The March of the Penguins is right up there with the best of the documentaries. The director Luc Jacquet follows the incredible journey of Emperor Penguins on their trip to procreate. The trip seems very difficult from start to finish. I cannot imagine the trouble the crew went through to capture the amazing footages.

We follow the Emperor Penguins at the start of the journey where they patiently trod and slide from the sea to their ultimate destination. This is a long journey that takes them away from food source and into one of the most hostile environment on Earth. Once they get to this place, they find a mate. Once the egg is laid, the females return to the sea to feed while the males huddle together to protect their offspring. The females return to relieve their mates and to see their offspring.

The English version is narrated by Morgan Freeman. He adds a tremendous narrative skill to the entire movie. The story is almost unbelievable. The trouble these penguins go through to ensure the continuation of their species is nothing short of amazing. The movie’s breathtaking images will be imprinted in your minds long after the movie is finished. This is a movie everyone can enjoy. Even if you are not a big nature documentary fan.

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Africa: The serengeti – Blu-ray movie review

The animals living in the wilds of Africa have an order, a schedule and a system of natural law by which that spend their entire lives. Deviate from them and you're dead. That is the central idea presented by `Africa: The Serengeti' a spectacular and sometimes breathtaking IMAX feature created by George Casey who also directed the stunning `Ring of Fire'.

We learn that there is order in nature by which the lioness kills for food then gives the carcass to the male. The male has his share then the lioness and the cubs, then the smaller predators on down to the vultures. This is a system and a way of life.

This is a great documentary with some amazing footage of wild animals. My only complaint is that they showed humans, that ruined it for me. They showed about 5 minutes of africans in the serengeti and how they live, also they showed a little bit of visitors in hot air baloons. IMO, I would have rathered that they kept it only about the wild animals, we see humans every day and it's too bad that they included some here.

I think films like this are a waste of the IMAX medium. I would never knock natural beauty, but why do you need IMAX for that? For REALLY BIG natural beauty? No, the wonderful thing about IMAX is the ability to make you feel like you're there.

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Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure – Blu-ray movie review

This short documentary was a bit of a mixed bag. First the 3-D and CG: the director obviously was more at ease with the the extensive CG then the live action elements, because the 3-D work was jarring and uneven during then. Part of the problem occurs when the live-action segments are shot too closely to the target. There is a sequence in a car and it took me ten seconds at least to get adjusted to the 3-D. These are not problems that occurred in vista shots.

The plot tracks "Dolly" (the main character) on her life long journey. The word Monster in the title is a bit deceiving as most of the creatures are the sea form of dinosaurs. The 3 D experience is absolutely outstanding. I found that sitting toward the front of the theater produced the best 3 D experience. This movie may be a little intense for small children but all other ages will love it. The one positive thing for children is the forty minute run times that seems to fly by. National Geographic should have a hit on their hands as more and more people travel back in time to check out the Sea Monsters.

The "Adventure" jumps seamlessly between the ancient life of Doli and the paleontologists unraveling her story; it stops and explores ancient beasties like Tylosaurus, Xiphactinus, the Ammonites, etc. as they most likely lived rather than simply introducing their names before hurriedly moving on like "Chased." It almost convinced me that these things are really still alive out there.

I've thoroughly enjoyed other National Geographic presentations on Blu-ray such as Relentless Enemies, however this one seems to be short on substance and designed for color 3-D delivery which is not really possible on Blu-ray yet.

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Australia: Land Beyond Time – Documentary Blu-ray movie review

This IMAX movie is a wonderful documentary about what a beautiful and desolate place Australia is. This film explores Australian life right from the very beginning to the present day. This film talks about what a harsh and unforgiving environment the Australian outback is. The film also explores the beautiful and remarkable Australian rainforests. The film also talks about the trials of life all Australian animals and plants must face in order to survive the harsh and changing Australian environment.

Extraordinary panoramic vistas, taken from a 2-engine plane with a camera attached to its nose, amazing geological facts, and marvelous animals, most of them unique to Australia, are what we get in this superb documentary of what is both the world's smallest continent, and its largest island. Once joined to Antarctica many millions of years ago, with high mountains and lush forests, time transformed Australia into 3 million square miles of mostly arid flat land, and its creatures adapted to the different weather conditions. Fabulous and often amusing footage of kangaroos and koalas (both share the same ancestral marsupial possum), as well as desert creatures from ants to the giant and fearsome parenti lizard, and the "living contradiction," the platypus, are among the many delights shown in this film.

These movies are all informative, and Australia itself is of course gorgeous. Some people seem to think the only things in Australia are kangaroos, koalas, Aborigines, Crocodile Dundee, and Steve Irwin feeding his baby to the crocodiles. Students in China will ask you "What is the weather like in Australia?" as if a country roughly the size of China or the USA has the same weather from east to west and north to south. These films will show you otherwise, but it is annoying that I can't find a single DVD about Australia made by Australians. These are distinctly American, even though the third has a British narrator.

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Blue Planet – Documentary Blu-ray movie review

This series has a lot going for it with beautiful footage of the some of the most impressive underwater environments on this planet. Being a staggering five years in the making, one would be hard-pressed to expect any less. I did get the impression that some scenes from the first episode where repeated in the latter ones, which is naturally only a minor gripe.

I highly recommend you watch this series. To see the angler fish outside of the small pictures shown in textbooks is truly a treat, but only a needle in the vast haystack of the sea that Blue Planet covers. From the open ocean to tidal pools, coral seas to the deepest darkest part of the ocean itself, the BBC takes the viewer on an almost magical journey through the ocean.

The entire series, not just The Blue Planet, is nothing short of amazing. The best nature series we have ever seen. The episode on the deep is like traveling to outer space! We have watched this with our 10 and 7 year old boys and all four of us have not been able to pull away. We read a negative comment on this and could not believe it. There is so much new information that we never learned in school. Its also the best view we have seen from any television or movie into the delicate balance of our earth's eco-system. The amount of time and effort put into capturing these shots is very much apparent when you sit down and watch this series.

Blue Planet is not a perfect documentary, however. It does get a bit repetitive after the 3rd episode. How many ways can different sea creatures swim, kill, poo, mate, and lay eggs, and do all of these ways really need to be explored? But if you have a deep interest in sea life, this repetition shouldn't become a problem for you at all.

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When We Left Earth – Documentary Blu-ray movie review

I was really impressed with this series. It is a very extensive look at America's space program, from it's infancy to the present. It is amazing the breadth of cooperation they received from the many people giving interviews, to the behind scene footages. I have been a long time follower of NASA and I learned a great deal from this program.

This miniseries was good in that it captures, 30 to 50 years later, the thoughts and experiences of those who were there. The modern footage -- the interviews with the astronauts and flight controllers especially -- does what historical documentaries do best: captures the words and experience of those who were actually there. I especially liked the interviews with Gene Kranz, Jim Lovell, and -- of all people -- the nearly hermit-like Neil Armstrong.

The HD filming is breathtaking on the more modern film footage. Obviously, film taken from the 60's is not going to look great. But the recent footage from the shuttle flights is amazing, especially when Bruce McCandless flies in space with the jet back-pack, completely untethered from the spaceship... All I can say is WOW!

I'm still amazed that this was all so recent that the principle characters are still alive, and to hear them talk was to feel the power. Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and the first President Bush and scores more spoke into the cameras of what they had seen, or done, or helped with. I actually realized that "the Establishment," as our rigidly organized government and its projects are often cynically called, was capable of miracles of its own.

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Galapagos-Blu-ray documentary movie review

Excellent documentary of the Galapagos Islands. Stunning photography. Very informative. I learned a lot from this documentary. Great educational material for all ages. The evolution of the individual islands is facinating. Highly recommended. BBC has many excellent documentaries available on Blu-ray.

On the box of the disc it said due to difficult environments some footage of the video was not shot in HD. Well, I can't seem to notice any particular time point when the video was not in great resolution and color! I think this video should have been part of the Planet Earth series and bundled with the other discs.

Aired stateside on the National Geographic Channel, the set consists of three fifty-minute programs. The first, "Born of Fire", provides a vivid archaeological history of the islands and shows how several of the most unusual species originated there and learned to co-habitate with each other. The second program, "Islands That Changed the World", looks at man's imprint on the islands, for better or worse, with an obvious emphasis on the work of Charles Darwin as he developed many of his theories about evolution based on his sightings here. It does take on the feel of a scholastic film with recreations of historical figures and events, but they do provide helpful context. The last is "Forces of Change", which forecasts the future with some coverage of the global warming issues but more of the focus on man's burgeoning presence on the islands and what is currently being done to maintain the natural environment.

Only complaint is that some parts are not in HD and it is "only" in 1080i.  Regardless, it is an excellent documentary everyone should watch.

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Earth: The biography Blu-ray movie review of BBC documentary

Any fan of superb documentary Planet Earth should find many qualities found in Earth The Biography.  Presenter Iain Stewart takes us on a tour of the forces that have shaped the earth over the last four and a half billion years: volcanoes, atmosphere, ice and oceans. A basic understanding of the material shown should be part of everyone's education.  The shows are broken down very well into five categories - 1: Volcano 2: Atmosphere 3: Ice 4: Oceans 5: Rare Earth. Each segment goes into detail about that system and how it affects the planet.

Every content is presented with very precise scientific data and with Bleeding edge, nice Graphics even being watched in Standard Definition.  If we don't already know, we learn that Earth was completely icebound for millions of years, that ice ages have come and gone, that the Mediterranean has repeatedly disappeared when land movements closed the Straits of Gibraltar, that the global oceanic currents have stopped again and again causing massive extinctions, and much more.

The final episode explains how unusual and possibly unique our planet must be despite the billions of stars in our own galaxy and the billions of galaxies elsewhere. There are plenty of references to climate change that might be the result of human activity, but life on earth will survive with or without modern homosapiens.

Minor complaint is that it is not in high definition format.  It is presented in standard definition format.  Regardless, if you own Blu-ray player this is the edition to get.

Any fan of superb documentary Planet Earth should find many qualities found in Earth The Biography. Presenter Iain Stewart takes us on a tour of the forces that have shaped the earth over the last four and a half billion years: volcanoes, atmosphere, ice and oceans. A basic understanding of the material shown should be part of everyone's education. The shows are broken down very well into five categories - 1: Volcano 2: Atmosphere 3: Ice 4: Oceans 5: Rare Earth. Each segment goes into detail about that system and how it affects the planet.

Every content is presented with very precise scientific data and with Bleeding edge, nice Graphics even being watched in Standard Definition. If we don't already know, we learn that Earth was completely icebound for millions of years, that ice ages have come and gone, that the Mediterranean has repeatedly disappeared when land movements closed the Straits of Gibraltar, that the global oceanic currents have stopped again and again causing massive extinctions, and much more.

The final episode explains how unusual and possibly unique our planet must be despite the billions of stars in our own galaxy and the billions of galaxies elsewhere. There are plenty of references to climate change that might be the result of human activity, but life on earth will survive with or without modern homo sapiens.

Minor complaint is that it is not in high definition format. It is presented in standard definition format. Regardless, if you own Blu-ray player this is the edition to get.

Click here to purchase above blu ray movies at Amazon.com and save 30% or more!

BBC Planet Earth Blu-Ray Review

Planet Earth is a worthy documentary series that looks not just at the animals and plants in remote areas, but at the ever-changing ecosystems that look prone to collapse in the near future. This is the sort of program that the BBC excels at and makes better than anyone else. And David Attenborough does an excellent job narrating as usual. In short, this is the definitive nature documentary regarding planet Earth as a whole.

The camera-work is fantastic and the sections at the end of each programme where they look at how certain parts were filmed is interesting as you see the dedication of the crew who go out to these desolate spots for months to film sections that will last only a couple of minutes on screen. Much of the wildlife has barely been filmed and some such as the wonderfully agile Wild Amur leopard have probably only been seen by very few living people in the flesh.

Each episode explains how the animals live in particular habitats. It shows captivating (often ugly) descriptions of this habitat and the animals there in a breathtaking way…

Some of the sequences shown are very brave, most notably the struggles of the polar bear to find food on the ever-decreasing Arctic ice. Too many nature documentaries succumb to "niceness" and show only cute animals looking sweet. To understand how Man is changing the planet it is crucial to show how wasting energy may be affecting wildlife in distant lands (or seas). Sadly it is also important as it seems all too likely that much of the footage will become museum property in the near future, showing subsequent generations the marvelous diversity of life Earth used to enjoy.

And, all these shots/sequences are filmed entirely in High Definition. The influence of the IMAX pioneers is evident in the slow, careful camera pans. The "British" approach is less bombastic and much more informative.

Also the thrust of the series seems to be on how wonderful and breathtaking the planet is, without delving into questions about how humans are impacting these ecosystems (the episode on polar bears was an exception - but even this didn't dig into too much detail). In Canada like many others I grew up with "The Nature of Things" with David Suzuki, which really delved deeply into the science and human issues. This series seems to concentrate mostly on great photography, jumping from one area of the globe to another without pausing for too long to get into any real "details".

Overall, this series is a must for all nature documentary fans.

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