Have Cheetah,Will View #39 -“Amazing Journeys” (1999)

It’s 9:56 pm

How does one afford finding good movies for very affordable prices? Video stores are on their way out,thrift stores prices not always very cheap and shopping yard sales is always hit and miss price wise.
A YouTube film buff,David aka Cinema Sickness,is a collector after my own heart,always hunting and always hunting for the best deals.  One place he mentioned while out and about is your local library. Many branches run small stores within the branch and sell books at extremely good prices. Now they are selling CDs and DVD/BluRays as well.
I hadn’t been to my local branch since I first met my friend Sharon and after our walk,went and renewed my library card. So when I decided to check out my library,I wasn’t sure what to expect.
The “Second Hand Prose” is the small store within Canton’s library and its staffed by some very friendly volunteers.
When I asked about media,I was directed to the main shelf and the new new stock shelf.
DVDs were a dollar and box sets run anywhere from 3.00-7.00 person. While the selection wasn’t very deep,there was one thing I noticed right away, that other stores and shops rarely have any documentaries. But the library has plenty and I shopped for those before checking what else they had.
One of the DVDs I picked up was “Amazing Journeys”. Directed by George Casey and photographed exclusively for IMAX theaters by Rodney Taylor back in 1999,this 40 minute film takes a look at six different animals as they migrate from several thousand
miles to the width of a small island in the middle of the ocean.

Narrated by the wonderful Robert Foxworth,Casey and his die hard crew travel all over the world,tracking the monarch butterfly,the gray whale,different types of birds,warthogs and zebras and the charming red crabs of Christmas Island. The degree and difficulty of using a IMAX camera which was still relativity new back in 1999 is shown first hand. Hours of finding a good location,setting up and often waiting patiently for hours for any kind of action to happen and then only have have 5-6 minutes of film that the IMAX can shoot,it makes the journeys all that more moving.

Not every creature required this kind of hard work,the migration of the red crabs of Christmas Island every November has been called one of the most amazing nature events in the world as over 100 million crabs cross the island to mate.
They also cover the migration of a pair of African tribes who move their cattle by foot from north to south,there are no Rowdy Yates here,no chuck wagons,just small tents and a lot of dedication.

 

This film also has a two very good featurettes,a 30 minute documentary of the migration of the gray whale and a behind the scenes look at the filming of “Amazing Journeys”.  The scene that struck us was the crew trying to get the tribesmen whom they were filming to sign off on the filming,they were showing the tribesmen how sign a X on a release form.
There are other scenes that didn’t make the film as well….

Since this is a 18 year old year release,you might have to haunt Ebay or Amazon to find a copy…or catch lightening in a bottle like we did and find it at your local library!
Despite only a brief glimpse of a cheetah in this movie,both Paladin and I gave “Amazing Journeys” a thumbs/paws up!

 

Thanks for reading and please feel free to drop a comment below,we love hearing from you all!!

 

Giselle- One journey ends,the greatest is now starting.