Cheap Animals Are Beautiful People (DVD) (Jamie Uys) Price

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Customer Reviews of Animals Are Beautiful People

Not your average "nature documentary"...
I first saw this documentary about 12 years ago and I could not believe how downright funny it is. Most of us wouldn't connect the words "funny" and "nature documentary" together, but this video shows a side of animals that you most likely won't see on the Discovery Channel. And you haven't seen funny until you've seen a drunken elephant trying to keep from falling over, or the spectre of a baboon with a nasty hangover the day after eating mass quantities of fermented fruit. All I can say is, you gotta see this to believe it. It's great family fare and a must for nature lovers.

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AABP - much more than just another African Documentary
Did you enjoy "The Gods Must Be Crazy"? If so, make sure you watch AABP. It is made in the same subtle, comedic style and well worth a watch, even if you are not the "National Geographic" or "Discovery Channel" type. The part where the animals get drunk from eating fermented Marula fruit and wake up with hang-overs is not to be missed.

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Some staged scenes, but very entertaining
This "Documentary" was produced by the same guy who went on to do "The Gods Must be Crazy".

It is very funny in parts, but for parents who don't want their kids seeing baby birds dying by the hundreds, don't watch the last 15 minutes (I don't mind my kids seeing this, but I thought I'd throw in that caveat)

Like an earlier reviewer, I too thought that nest fire looked set up. There was just no reason for the camera to be focusing on that one drop that happened to start the fire.

Also, that same reviewer pointed out the "drunk scene" was man made, so I checked out the site he mentioned (wildwatch.com), and if you search around the plant section (some plant that start with an m, sorry I forget which).

Here is the relavent text:
"Due to its well-known alcoholic capacities, rumours abound as to the Marula's intoxicating effects on wild animals. While elephants and baboons both relish the fruit, the former would need to consume prodigious amounts of already fermenting fruit for it to have even the mildest impact, and since these huge animals drink up to 160 litres of water a day, there would anyway be a major diluting effect. Interestingly, examination of fresh elephant dung show that less than ten percent of Marula fruits are actually 'processed' in any way - most fruit passes through the digestive tract intact.

Observations on baboons suggest that they prefer fresh Marula fruit and because the pulp is digested and the seeds passed within a 24-hour period, fermentation is impossible. The infamous scene in a popular movie from the 1970s - Jamie Uys' 'Beautiful People', which depicted a troop of obviously drunken baboons in and under a Marula tree, was clearly man-induced and would today be outlawed in terms of animal cruelty."

When I first saw this video, (...) Watching it with the knowledge that it was set up, made it seem rather cruel.

Despite this, I still found this movie very entertaining on the whole.