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Sita the cheetah watches over her cubs in Walt Disney’s amazing new nature documentary “African Cats.” |
I sat in awe of what my eyes beheld.
There on the river bank stood a mighty male lion defending his pride from an aggressive crocodile attempting to interrupt their dinner.
With inches between their noses, the lion and crocodile play a deadly game of chicken. The lion cuts loose with bloodcurdling bellows. The reptile hisses.
The lion advances. The crocodile slowly backs off. Then, with one final snap! of its jaws in protest, the reptile retreats into the water.
The mighty lion stands down, and I started breathing again.
“African Cats” is filled with scenes like this one. Incredible, wonderful, frightening, tense and insightful scenes that drop us into the lives of the wild cats that roam the hostile and unforgiving land of Kenya.
This doc, co-directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill, assembles some of the most moving and educational animal kingdom footage since “March of the Penguins.”
It took his crew more than two and a half years of filming in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve to get what we see here, and their patience and persistence pay off handsome entertainment dividends for us. (Read more…)