Month: August 2005

And then came *Supercross: The Movie,* the long-anticipated filmic adaptation of Shakespeare’s lost play *The Fast and the Furious.* That other movie about heroic young men and their wheeled conveyances tried to appropriate some of that Bardic gravitas by snatching the title, but to no avail, as we all well know.

As a species, birds are pretty amusing, and penguins, with their hobbled, flightless birdiness, are the most hilarious birds of all. And adorable, of course, too, with the waddling and the little tuxedos and all. That’s why *March of the Penguins* is the biggest hit of the summer: because people like seeing cute, funny animals. Or that’s how it started, at least. Cuz what’s happening, I suspect, is that folks are popping in expecting just to see some cute, funny animals and discovering that there’s all sorts of nobility and honor and tenderness and love to these odd birds, these emperor penguins — that they have a story, as a species, that’s weirder and more wonderful than you could ever have imagined.

It doesn’t work if you don’t believe. It’s the mindset that fuels the power of superstition, of placebos, of magic, of religion. It also fuels the power of movies, and in particular of horror movies: Can you let go your skepticism to a degree wherein you can fool yourself into buying — for an hour and a half or so, at least — the most outrageous conceits? You’re only looking for some temporary diversion, after all, not a cure for cancer or the eternal salvation of your soul. And yet it can be surprisingly hard, in the face of movie characters behaving stupidly even when confronted with clear indications to get the hell out of demonic harm’s way.