The Life of Mammals

Rating:
Summary: A Lesson In The Reality of Evolution
Review: Charming, enduring, creative, pretty good for a goverment susidized publication. What everyone says about Sir Attenborough is true, he is great to watch and listen to, his presenatations have a way of sucking you in, making you feel apart every moment. Beyond Attenborough's inviting personality there are a plethora genuinely fascinating moments that were achieved thourgh the use of cunning and cutting edge photography. What's really neat is that Sir Attenborough fills you in on some of those photography secrets while leaving you scratching your head wondering "how did they shoot that" on others. In this case, the DVD is worth having, there are a few featurets that made you appreciate the work and research that went into this production, not mention interesting fact filies, a series of intriguing and ocassionaly humourous video clips done to the excellent sound tract. Also this BBC production used more high resolution cameras than some of the other series like "life of birds" did. Even apart from clips shot with a starlight camera (those you expect to be a little grainy), there are a small handful of images that were obviously shot with lesser equipment but ,hey, if you can't forgive those than don't buy anything BBC and stick to recent PBS and Nature presentations. As form follows function, so price follows quality, that's true with the BBC, they've made several 10 epeisode nature series and The Life of Mammals is a little more expensive than most, but rightly so. It was better written, produced, and shot with better equipment (for the most part) than the others.

Rating:
Summary: What to expect from the BBC
Review: Charming, enduring, creative, pretty good for a goverment susidized publication. What everyone says about Sir Attenborough is true, he is great to watch and listen to, his presenatations have a way of sucking you in, making you feel apart every moment. Beyond Attenborough's inviting personality there are a plethora genuinely fascinating moments that were achieved thourgh the use of cunning and cutting edge photography. What's really neat is that Sir Attenborough fills you in on some of those photography secrets while leaving you scratching your head wondering "how did they shoot that" on others. In this case, the DVD is worth having, there are a few featurets that made you appreciate the work and research that went into this production, not mention interesting fact filies, a series of intriguing and ocassionaly humourous video clips done to the excellent sound tract. Also this BBC production used more high resolution cameras than some of the other series like "life of birds" did. Even apart from clips shot with a starlight camera (those you expect to be a little grainy), there are a small handful of images that were obviously shot with lesser equipment but ,hey, if you can't forgive those than don't buy anything BBC and stick to recent PBS and Nature presentations. As form follows function, so price follows quality, that's true with the BBC, they've made several 10 epeisode nature series and The Life of Mammals is a little more expensive than most, but rightly so. It was better written, produced, and shot with better equipment (for the most part) than the others.

Rating:
Summary: David Attenborough's Latest Series
Review: David Attenborough's Latest Series - The Life of Mammals.

As you probably know, this is the current BBC Television Series hosted by David Attenborough.

It is very interesting to me that its broadcast airing is on Discovery, rather than PBS, but that's the way the world is going these days. Cash before class.

I tried to watch a couple of the episodes on television, but the commercial breaks and the way that Discovery constantly promotes itself drive me crazy. I was reminded again why I never watch it. Not that I watch PBS much anymore either! Especially since they stopped airing "Wild America"!

So, I bought the set on DVD ... Pretty amazing changes underway in video sales also. Shopping online and 10 One-hours Specials at [price]each. Ouch. Tough competition, when the Brits pay for producing them with government money and then practically give them away in retail.

Anyway, here's the report. The Series is certainly watchable, especially compared to The Osbournes and Mr. Personality. It is worldwide in scope, obviously, and fairly equally divided between the continents. Call me a provincial snob, but Australian wildlife never has excited me much and, with a few rare exceptions from Alan Root and David Hughes, the films on African wildlife are always about Lions and Elephants. Yawn. Which is much of what they show here. And, Monkeys... My oh my, does the BBC love them Monkeys! I guess that my favorite subject matter is American wildlife... imagine that.

They went out of their way to include two-shots of David with as many animals as possible. So, he feeds Flying Squirrels, pets Manatees, lets Meerkats sit on his shoulder and Chimps hop on his lap, floats with Sea Otters, etc. etc. etc. It became so repetitious that I almost expected him to leap on the back of something and ride off into the sunset. Which is to say that he is as passionate and animated as ever. Bless his little ol' pea-pickin' heart.
I guess that people love it, but since it did not show all the weeks and months of behind-the-scenes work of production assistants and biologists which obviously went into lining up those shots to stick him in, it presented a very distorted view of a human in nature. Hey, I still love Davey boy to pieces. It was just too obviously contrived.

He also played with a lot of gizmos, especially the cool little Sony DVCAM portable monitors... over and over. And they tried to break other new ground, so they had many sequences filmed at night with InfraRed cameras, their Toy du Jour. These sequences appeared in black-and-white and didn't feel at all like night since they were so brightly lit. Like the Joubert Lions-in-the-Spotlight (literally), films, they didn't paint with the light, they blasted with it. Lions hunting and various animals eating Termites... Anteaters, Sloth Bears, Gorillas, etc. etc. My oh my, do those Brits love them Termites. One of their most hyped sequences was Possums, Skunks (they didn't even identify them as rare Hog-nosed Skunks, just called them plain ol' Skunks) and Raccoons eating baby Bats on the worm-infested floor of a Bat cave. Nasty.

Some amazing sequences of Chimps eating Monkeys, Right Whales mating, and Shrews playing Follow-the-leader. (we never did get that shot!). It concludes with an interesting comparison of Orangutans and Chimps to humans and then a very heavy-handed comparison of the collapse of the Mayan empire with our modern over-built, over-populated world. Uh huh. ... And we did it all to ourselves. So, what else is new?

It did not make me want to rush out and buy an InfraRed camera, but it did make me want to film some more American wildlife!

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Again!
Review: From the first episode, I thought that Attenborough might have lost his edge. But the rest of the series was impossibly surprising and spectacular! More, Maestro! Encore! His BBC team is still the leader in this field, by leaps and bounds. Keep pushing the envelope David!

Rating:
Summary: jaw-dropping
Review: Hands down this is one of the best nature documentary series I've ever seen. My jaw was on my lap for many scenes and I found myself laughing loudly, getting chills, yelling at the screen, and clapping when the prey escaped (or sometimes when the predator won). There is tons of footage using the latest infrared technologies which enable us to witness night action that we rarely see. The marine mammal episode was utterly astounding, as were the beginning and ending episodes both introducing the topic of mammals and showing us our primate kin in its fascinating variety. My personal taste would have preferred more framing the action within an evolutionary narrative, but I suppose for a large TV. audience these things are usually "softened" to remain as uncontroversial as possible. But now if I ever get the chance to choose, I'll come back in another life as a flying squirrel!

Rating:
Summary: WOW!!! Stupendous.
Review: I have not yet watched Attenborough's other series, but the 9th movie in this series (_The Social Climbers_) was so outstanding it made me beg for the others. I was not disappointed, although _The Social Climbers_ (monkeys) is my favorite. _The Insect Hunters_ (insectivores) and _Chisellers_ (rodents) are almost as good. All the episodes are densely packed with wonderful information and footage. Since Attenborough's strength is pointing out the wonders of the ordinary and overlooked, he is at his best when filming small animals. (When filming large animals, he is too preoccupied with their size.) I also liked that the series revealed the filming technologies without becoming too overwhelmed with them, except in the leopard scene of _Meat Eaters_.

There is at least one glaring inaccuracy, in _Meat Eaters_: Hyenas are NOT dogs. They are in their own family, which is more closely related to the cat and mongoose families. Fortunately this is correct in the book. Overall, I highly recommend _The Life of Mammals._

Rating:
Summary: WOW!!! Stupendous.
Review: I have not yet watched Attenborough's other series, but the 9th movie in this series (_The Social Climbers_) was so outstanding it made me beg for the others. I was not disappointed, although _The Social Climbers_ (monkeys) is my favorite. _The Insect Hunters_ (insectivores) and _Chisellers_ (rodents) are almost as good. All the episodes are densely packed with wonderful information and footage. Since Attenborough's strength is pointing out the wonders of the ordinary and overlooked, he is at his best when filming small animals. (When filming large animals, he is too preoccupied with their size.) I also liked that the series revealed the filming technologies without becoming too overwhelmed with them, except in the leopard scene of _Meat Eaters_.

There is at least one glaring inaccuracy, in _Meat Eaters_: Hyenas are NOT dogs. They are in their own family, which is more closely related to the cat and mongoose families. Fortunately this is correct in the book. Overall, I highly recommend _The Life of Mammals._

Rating:
Summary: Why the narrator is all time on the screen?
Review: I like theses series. Photography and background sound are simply great, as well as commentaries. The only thing that bothers me is looking at the narrator every 2 minutes on the screen.
I wonder if it was really necessary for Mr. Attenborough to appear again and again annoying the beauty of landscape and animals.

Rating:
Summary: Mammals at their Most Interesting
Review: I must say that I did enjoy watching this series, though being a Christian, the "evolutionary statements" were a bit tedious for me. I know many people believe in it, but I would prefer to let the amazing footage speak for itself as the storyline. The platypus den footage was amazing, as was the flying squirrel footage among many others such as the elephants in the cave, the skunk and opossum eating baby bats, the bat catching spiders off of their webs, etc., etc. I do agree that the African wildlife scenes have gotten a bit passe as everyone films in Africa. I wish there was more footage of mammals that not everyone films, but since I am not the producer... One more thing, does Davey always have to wear that blue shirt with those grey pants? :)

Rating:
Summary: Glass of milk . . .
Review: I purchased "Life of Mammals", in part, for my 6-year-old daughter. After sitting through "The Deep" from "The Blue Planet" for about the 20th time, I figured it was time for both of us to move on.
Each series has its strong points, but "Life of Mammals", in particular, has served to spark her interest in evolution and the classification of animals. The series is very well suited to facilitate natural explanations for precocious 6-year-olds, even if you are a little sketchy on some of the details yourself.
This is a fantastic series for adults with an interest in armchair life-science, but it is also more than appropriate for children. In short, don't be put-off, worrying that your kids won't understand it. After watching it for the nth time, they'll probably know more about mammals than you ever will.