Imitating Penguins

I've always believed that a really cold movie is just the antidote for the Texas summer. It can't be a cool movie with action heroes and special effects. I'm talking about COLD.

My old cold favorites include the Russian dacha parts of Dr. Zhivago. I'm always annoyed that Omar Sharif's Yuri prefers the blonde Julie Christie's Lara to the brunette Geraldine Chaplin's Tonya, but the ice encrusted dacha is so beautiful, so magical, he can be forgiven! Just writing about it can ward off a hot flash.


My new cold favorite is March of the Penguins. This documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman, in his cool voice, is just mind-boggling in its true-life-real nature strangeness. The cinematography is gorgeous, and more chilling than standing in front of your open refrigerator all day. And then there are the penguins! Emperor penguins live such harsh, bizarre, and beautiful lives that you can't help going slack-jawed watching. Your struggle to find a parking place is nothing. Your long wait at the grocery deli counter to get the sliced ham and provolone--nothing. Troubles balancing family and career? Phooph! Can't find comfortable walking shoes? Thphthph! Need a Milky Way to tide you over until lunch? You are soooo pathetic! Someone else controls the office thermostat??? Try seventy below zero with winds over one hundred miles per hour, and you've got to balance an egg the size of a mango on your feet, preventing it from touching the ice while you keep moving so you don't freeze to death---FOR WEEKS AT A TIME WITH NO MEALS! It's so weird the Surgeon General has warned that it causes Brain Freeze.

If the movie isn't coming soon to a theater near you, go to the website to see the trailers and still photos. There are some great shots to use as your computer desktop background. The movie is probably appropriate for kids over ten.

Trying to explain the movie and the lifestyle of the penguins is very difficult. If you see someone at the office watercooler waddling on his heels, with arms tight to his side and hands flared out, and moving his neck in odd arcing motions, you will know he has been to the penguin movie! If he regurgitates a full belly of krill on your wingtips, or tries to demonstrate the choreography for passing off the newly-hatched chick from the dad's feet to the mom's feet in that tight space behind your desk, he's gone way over the edge. He can't help imitating the penguins, but do suggest he practice in the privacy of his own home!



What of the other favorite cold and golden oldies? I always feel refreshed after watching Sean Connery and all the submarines off Greenland in The Hunt for Red October.


I usually want to go off on a trip to Lithuania in the winter, after Ramius tells about growing up in Vilnius and going fishing with his grandfather. I can feel the snow against my cheeks even though it's over one hundred degrees outside.


Still, a woman of my years can feel overly warm at times, especially on an Ozone Action Day. That's when it's time to play a video of Jeremiah Johnson with Robert Redford and Will Geer fur-trapping and inviting bears into their cabin. Are you wearing a fur hat and snowshoes yet?

Shivery Honorable Mentions go to:

--the 1940 Disney "Fantasia" for the animation of the fairies changing the seasons with the "Dance of the Flowers" music from the Nutcracker Suite.

--the scenes just before the massacre on the Washita in Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George.

--the winter scenes in the 1969 version of Jean Craighead George's book, My Side of the Mountain.

Please submit your own personal cold movie favorites. The National Weather Service is predicting a steamy summer for my zip code. Thanks, and chill out!