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DVD Duma (Full Screen Edition)
This African tale follow the rhythms of director Carroll Ballard's earlier films The Black Stallion and Fly Away Home, namely a child is drawn into the mysteries and magic of an animal. Xan (newcomer Alexander Michaletos) is a 12-year-old living in South Africa with his parents (Campbell Scott and Hope Davis, who appeared as a much different couple three years earlier in The Secret Life of Dentists) when they find an abandoned baby cheetah. They bring it up as their own and name it the Swahili word for cheetah, Duma. After some time, the creature is too big to stay domesticated and Dad tells the boy they will have to journey back to Duma's home to set him free. A sickness makes the family pull up stakes and head to the city where Xan and Duma don't fare well. Xan must take Duma on his own to set him free. To tell more would be a crime. As with any Ballard film, the story is subtext, the visuals rule. First-time cinematographer Werner Maritz fills the screen with the desert landscape and is able to capture the magnificent speed of the cheetah. Ballard's films seem to build on their own inertia, creating scenes that seem to be simply happening instead of scripted, although this often suffers in the balance of wonderment versus all-too-lucky occurrences. Based on the children's picture book/memoir How It Was with Dooms by Xan and Carol Cawthra Hopcraft, this is a film worth seeking out, especially for families and kids above 5 years old. --Doug Thomas
Another family-friendly, engaging film from the director of "Fly Away Home"
My son "made" us see this movie, and we're so glad we did! Although there are some parallels to Fly Away Home (orphaned critters) and the Black Stallion (marooned far away from civilization), the story is completely different--somewhat predictable, but nevertheless pleasant to watch. Probably no Oscars for acting here, but definitely worth our time.
Water in the desert
I just saw this movie with my 11-year-old son who watched it with rapt attention. I agree it has many parallels to "Fly Away Home." But it will be a refreshing break for parents who endure the wasteland of children's movies and wonder what there is out there to engage and inspire our children rather than bludgeoning them with hyped-up animation, improbable superheros, and vulgar comedies. Don't miss it if it ever comes to a theater near you. We need to support movies that have some agenda other than fast-food tie-ins.
Pleasant, but little more than that
In Fly Away Home Carroll Ballard directed a moving story of an orphaned flock of goslings that needed to be guided through their first migration. The guide was a young girl that recently lost her mother and she was helped by a father she didn't know at all. Duma is a radical departure from that theme. In Duma it is an orphaned cheetah. a young boy and a deceased father. If it worked in Fly Away Home so well why not stick to it eh? Duma begins with a cheetah cub being orphaned when some mean old lions make a snack out of mama. It's the first of many scenes where Ballard shows his impressive talent for weaving nature footage into a feature film. The problems start when we are introduced to the human characters. The acting is not the problem and with a cast including Campbell Scott, Eamon Walker and Hope Davis it shouldn't be. The characters they have to play though are too two dimensional to really care much about. Scott plays a father without flaws and Davis is a caring but slightly distant mother. The early scenes of Xan (a debuting Alex Michaeletos) with with Peter (Scott) do not carry enough emotional weight for the death of Xan's father to move us.
Xan's subsequent quest to return Duma to the wild is where the real story is. Again it is a competently performed story that plays more or less straight with nothing to really engage us outside of beautiful shots of cheetahs and the South African landscape. Ripkuna (Walker) finds Xan sheltered in the wreckage of an old airplane where his motorbike ran out of gas. As they begin their journey across the wilderness they encounter dangerous and benign animals to about the same effect for filmgoers: mild, detached amusement. Toss in some light personality conflict and you've got an idea of what happens.
One wonders what a South African director might have done with the same material. Though there is a different sensibility in adult-child relationships, it's still a little uncomfortable watching a black man dig for water in a scalding sun while the white kid sits in the shade with his pet cheetah. Nothing is taught to the audience in Xan's classroom either though it's almost entirely white. Even in naming the cat there is a chance to say something. Duma is the Swahili word for cheetah. Swahili isn't a dominant language in South Africa but Duma only sounds cool to the family because it's from a language that as South African whites they don't, and likely wouldn't, speak. Would any of the Anglophones on this site name their cat Gato? Duma doesn't end up having much to say about love, loss or life in South Africa. Great wildlife shots redeem the film a bit but given that Ballard already told this story, it would have been nice if it was done as well this time around.
March of the Penguins instantly qualifies as a wildlife classic, taking its place among other extraordinary films like Microcosmos and Winged Migration. French filmmaker Luc Jacquet and his devoted crew endured a full year of extreme conditions in Antarctica to capture the life cycle of Emperor penguins on film, and their diligence is evident in every striking frame of this 80-minute documentary. Narrated in soothing tones by Morgan Freeman, the film focuses on a colony of hundreds of Emperors as they return, in a single-file march of 70 miles or more, to their frozen breeding ground, far inland from the oceans where they thrive. At times dramatic, suspenseful, mischievous and just plain funny, the film conveys the intensity of the penguins' breeding cycle, and their... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Luc Jacquet DVD Release Date: Released the 29 November 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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There are some filmmaking teams that invariably bring out the best in each other, and that's definitely the case with director Carroll Ballard and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. They previously collaborated on The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf, and Fly Away Home is their third family film that deserves to be called a classic. Inspired by Bill Lishman's autobiography, the movie tells the story of a 13-year-old girl (Anna Paquin) who goes to live with her estranged, eccentric father (Jeff Daniels) following the death of her mother. At first she's withdrawn and reclusive, but finds renewed happiness when she adopts an orphaned flock of baby geese and, later, teaches them to migrate using an ultralight. Sensitively directed and stunningly photographed, the movie... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jeff Daniels - Anna Paquin Director(s): Carroll Ballard DVD Release Date: Released the 07 August 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Some people think "family entertainment" is an oxymoron, but even they might enjoy Because of Winn-Dixie. This straightforward story of a girl and her dog is simple without being simplistic, heartfelt without being sappy, and thoughtful without being ponderous. Opal (Annasophia Robb, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who manages the near-impossible feat of being cute without being cutesy) can't make any friends in the small town of Naomi until she hooks up with a dog that's running loose in a supermarket. She spontaneously names him after the store and soon the dog is leading her into unexpected places--a pet store, where she meets an awkward musician (Dave Matthews); a library, where she meets a librarian with as many stories as books (Eva Marie Saint); and into a house... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Annasophia Robb - Jeff Daniels - Cicely Tyson - Dave Matthews - Eva Marie Saint Director(s): Wayne Wang DVD Release Date: Released the 09 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Doing for tigers what The Bear did for Grizzlies and Kodiaks, Two Brothers offers lush adventure with a message that anyone can take to heart. French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud directed both films, blessing them with his keen eye for beauty and a love for wildlife that's as impassioned as it is infectious. This time, the adorable critters are Kumal and Sangha, sibling tiger cubs in French Indochina circa 1920, separated when a treasure-hunting adventurer (Guy Pearce) inadvertently leads them to capture. He makes amends by defending their right to freedom, but before that can happen, the now-grown tigers must endure cruel treatment that younger viewers (and sensitive adults) may find somewhat traumatic. There's a purpose to their ordeal, however, and Annaud (along with a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Guy Pearce - Freddie Highmore Director(s): Jean-Jacques Annaud DVD Release Date: Released the 21 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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