Loving Life! And Life! And, um…
Life really does have infinite diversity: it must, because I keep ending up at the same place in the DVD store. Seriously, three of my all time favorite things ever have the same title, or damn near it: there’s a Damien Lewis detective series, Life
At some point I will tell you why I love both of the above-mentioned cop shows . . . but today I want to talk about the nature documentaries. For those of you who maybe got into these programs around the time of Planet Earth
Seriously, it’s run-don’t-walk time. Get thee to your nearest buy/borrow/steal outlet and see all of:
1. The Private Life of Plants
2. The Life of Birds
3. The Life of Mammals
4. Life in the Freezer
5. Life in the Undergrowth
6. Life in Cold Blood
7. Blue Planet: Seas of Life
8. Planet Earth
9. and, finally, Life
If you still aren’t sure what I’m talking about, I’ll tell you right now—they’re nature footage. The shots are deeply interesting, thoughtfully organized, and presented as stories. Attenborough doesn’t just give you a bit of remarkable, ain’t it cool? footage. No matter how strange or otherworldly an animal or its behavior seems, he puts it in context, imbues it with meaning . . . and he does it all while twinkling with delight. Why wouldn’t he brim with joy? Here’s a guy who’s spent a good chunk of his life a) travelling the world; b) learning about wonders—jaw-dropping, breathtaking, heartstopping friggin’ wonders of Evolution!; and c) sharing them with the world, while also; d) getting that rosy glow that has to come from reminding one’s destructive human cousins that we could perhaps choose to preserve these treasures.
What wonders? Well, by now you probably all know about the insane life cycle of Emperor penguins. But so what? Seeing a two-foot male bird huddle with all his poker chums, each with an egg on his feet, in the eighty-below freezing dark of Antarctica never gets old. And that’s the least of the stunners.
The Life of Birds
Like what? How about parrots who use clay as an antacid so they can eat toxic fruit? How about a bird that can imitate a camera or a car alarm or a chainsaw? What about a bird that builds an art display to prove it is worthy to father chicks?
Other reasons to get and devour all this TV:
Painless stretching for your brain: Unless nature absolutely makes you yawn, you’ll watch and rewatch these simply because they are wonderful entertainment. But there’s knowledge here, wrapped in Attenborough’s soothing, dulcet tones. It’s sticky, and you’ll find uses for it.
They tell you amazing behind-the-scenes stuff about the film process and science folk: Want to see how they tried to feed their camerawoman to a lion? Or a guy getting beaned by flying fish? Want to be glad you aren’t the technicians who had to desperately tape up the crotches of their paper suits, so as to keep out the cockroaches covering the world’s biggest pile of bat guano? Ever see a scientist tracking rattlesnakes with a radio detector? It’s all here.
They actively look for behaviors that have never been filmed:. Let’s face it, we’ve all seen a lion taking down a gazelle. But have you ever seen a snow leopard plunging down a sheer cliff face after dinner? Or, if you’re more a lover, not a fighter, how about slugs mating? If you haven’t seen this, your life’s just not complete:
Fun for the fur family: I can’t say for sure that this has any appeal for dogs, but I can tell you for a fact that when the BBC puts a whole bunch of screeching fairy terns on my TV screen, the cats come running.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
I think I may have seen the one about birds- I heard they taped a camera to a bicycle so they could catch birds just as they took off in flight. Also, slug love? Hold me back
You will be amazed and delighted by the slug love!!!
We have the Planet Earth and Life series. I’ll turn an episode on to keep the kids busy while I do some work and realize an hour later that I just sat there watching the movie instead of doing any work. It’s a problem.
I’m not sure if Attenborough’s narrating it, but there’s a new one called HUMAN PLANET coming out whose preview is spellbinding.
I love these things- great to watch with the kiddos.