Madagascar

There is no fish out of water in the fish-out-of-water comedy Madagascar. But there are a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo very much removed from their element - their element being the pampered, exhibitionist life of an animal in a zoo. With neither the ambition nor the sophistication of a Shrek or The Incredibles, the computer-animated Madagascar is nevertheless an enjoyable buddy picture in which the four exotic mammals escape the confines...

The discovery of a meat-eating dinosaur on the island of Madagascar has sparked new debate over the past positions of the Earth's continents, which have been drastically rearranged over the surface of the globe since the age of the dinosaurs. The creature, which lived 65 million to 70 million years ago on the island that is now off the east coast of Africa, bears a significant resemblance to dinosaurs found in Argentina. "How do you explain that we have such similar dinosaurs in Madagascar and South America?"

The requests are simple. The stories behind them are not. Thirty bicycles for traveling pastors who can only navigate the rough terrain of Madagascar on two wheels. Plastic pipe for a village in Uganda that needs access to a fresh water spring eight miles away. A solar energy system and generator for an area of Honduras that has no roads or electricity. These are the kinds of requests that filter in daily to Willow Grove's Mission Projects Fellowship, a nonprofit charitable organization that tries to make life easier for people who spread the gospel.

I'm walking along the main drag of Fort Dauphin and I can't stop muttering to myself. Fort Dauphin is on the southeastern tip of Madagascar, a point that if it is not the end of the world, it is closing in on that distinction. The street has potholes that have potholes, and the wind-blown rain playing its way through the hood of my poncho isn't helping my mood. "Why? Why? Why am I here?" I keep wailing to myself. I had schlepped these 16 zillion miles from home and now none of the folks who take you from here to there to see what there is to see in southeast Madagascar are going out. "It rain," they all say. Yes, indeedy, it does.

As the small plane approached Tamatave in Madagascar, a Texas-size island 250 miles off the east coast of Africa, Randy Junge looked down from his window. He could see a patchwork of rice fields and dwindling forest, smoke rising from the burning trees. He had come all the way from the United States to this remote spot because it is the only place on the planet where lemurs live in the wild. A veterinarian with the St. Louis Zoo, Junge was on his way to pick up eight ruffed lemurs, animals about the size of a large house cat with a foxlike muzzle, a thick ruff of hair at the neck, and a long, bushy tail.

Pope John Paul II yesterday said that the world's wealthy nations had a duty to help the poor. "I would like to repeat that the Son of God, . . . the brother of all men, is first of all the brother of those of us who have least," he said, speaking to a crowd of 25,000 at an open-air Mass on the second day of his African tour. "We want to hear His call for that solidarity which urges us to carry each other's burden," he said. Living standards in Madagascar have dropped sharply over the last 10 years, and the country is suffering hardships resulting from an International Monetary Fund economic reform program.

THERE ARE all sorts of ways to make money in the animation business. You can go the Pixar way of, say, "WALL-E" - marvelous technology and the industry's best storytellers in the service of a bittersweet ode to man, machines and the environment. That'll net you $200 million. Or, you can dig up a 10-year-old Reel 2 Real disco song like "I Like to Move It," play it over the image of a hippopotamus shaking its butt, and that'll get you to $200 million just as fast. I don't fully understand the power of the dancing, talking animal.

My vote for Oscar's best animated short? Glad you asked. I'm torn between the evocative "Madagascar: A Journey Diary," an impressionistic sketchbook/audiobook of the African island's people, places, and sounds, and "The Lost Thing," a surrealist steampunk parable from Australia. All five contenders are screening at the Ritz at the Bourse. Total running time: 85 minutes. If you saw Toy Story 3 , then you've probably caught Pixar's entry, Teddy Newton's "Day & Night," a charming tale of mutual suspicion, curiosity, and growing respect.

Who says there isn't enough scoring in soccer? Just Thursday, a team notched 149 goals all by itself in a single game during a professional league tournament in Madagascar. Problem is, the players from Stade Olympique l'Emyrne put all those goals into their own net, apparently in an organized protest against prior officiating decisions that went against them in the tournament. The referee just kept putting the ball back down on the center line after each goal. "That's silly," said Dan Rudloff, president of the local chapter of the Intercollegiate Soccer Officials organization.

I liked The Wild better when it was called Madagascar - and I didn't like Madagascar that much. A tale of a lion, a giraffe, and two other creatures that break out of the Central Park Zoo to rescue a buddy/stowaway to Africa, The Wild is a dim diversion that might be called "How the Lion Got His Roar. " How would menagerie animals accustomed to three meals a day, creatures that never had the opportunity to defend themselves from their natural predators, act if suddenly let loose into untamed Africa?

My vote for Oscar's best animated short? Glad you asked. I'm torn between the evocative "Madagascar: A Journey Diary," an impressionistic sketchbook/audiobook of the African island's people, places, and sounds, and "The Lost Thing," a surrealist steampunk parable from Australia. All five contenders are screening at the Ritz at the Bourse. Total running time: 85 minutes. If you saw Toy Story 3 , then you've probably caught Pixar's entry, Teddy Newton's "Day & Night," a charming tale of mutual suspicion, curiosity, and growing respect.

WHEN FORMER "Ren and Stimpy" and "Madagascar" animator Tom McGrath lists the original "Batman" as one of his big movie influences for "Megamind," it makes sense. But "Lawrence of Arabia"? Yes, said McGrath, who said he loves being an animator because it gives him the tools to replicate beloved scenes in classic cinema that are too expensive to duplicate these days with live action. McGrath recalled being transfixed by a scene of Peter O'Toole walking in and out of a 70 mm wide-screen close-up in "Lawrence," something that's extremely difficult to do on film, as it requires a long, exacting take and complex choreography.

By Marc F. Bellemare When world leaders assembled in New York to discuss development policy last week, there was a lot of noise about rich countries' failure to attain the Millennium Development Goals, which were adopted by the United Nations' member states in 2001. Chief among the goals is halving the proportion of people who are extremely poor - that is, living on less than a dollar a day - by 2015. The other goals involve primary education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and environmental sustainability.

THERE ARE all sorts of ways to make money in the animation business. You can go the Pixar way of, say, "WALL-E" - marvelous technology and the industry's best storytellers in the service of a bittersweet ode to man, machines and the environment. That'll net you $200 million. Or, you can dig up a 10-year-old Reel 2 Real disco song like "I Like to Move It," play it over the image of a hippopotamus shaking its butt, and that'll get you to $200 million just as fast. I don't fully understand the power of the dancing, talking animal.

Michael Nutter will be sworn in as Philadelphia's mayor tomorrow. Below, four distinguished mayors of big American towns offer advice on what Nutter should be thinking about as he settles in the mayoral chair. Ed Rendell is governor of Pennsylvania and was mayor of Philadelphia from 1992 to1999 My advice would fall into three major categories: (1) Govern as if you were going to be a one-term mayor. If Michael Nutter tries to worry about the effect on his reelection chances of every little thing he does in office, he'll govern ineffectively and go crazy.

I liked The Wild better when it was called Madagascar - and I didn't like Madagascar that much. A tale of a lion, a giraffe, and two other creatures that break out of the Central Park Zoo to rescue a buddy/stowaway to Africa, The Wild is a dim diversion that might be called "How the Lion Got His Roar. " How would menagerie animals accustomed to three meals a day, creatures that never had the opportunity to defend themselves from their natural predators, act if suddenly let loose into untamed Africa?

There is no fish out of water in the fish-out-of-water comedy Madagascar. But there are a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo very much removed from their element - their element being the pampered, exhibitionist life of an animal in a zoo. With neither the ambition nor the sophistication of a Shrek or The Incredibles, the computer-animated Madagascar is nevertheless an enjoyable buddy picture in which the four exotic mammals escape the confines...

From ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar to some humans, descriptions of wild behavior punctuated a hearing yesterday in Chester County Court. Senior Judge Lawrence E. Wood heard testimony from the Pennsylvania Game Commission and from Sandra Reynolds, a West Grove breeder, who petitioned the court for the return of 13 exotic animals seized by the state in March. After listening to arguments - including disputes over whether Reynolds' African servals and fennec foxes bear any resemblance to lions, tigers, or bears - Wood took the matter under advisement.

Who says there isn't enough scoring in soccer? Just Thursday, a team notched 149 goals all by itself in a single game during a professional league tournament in Madagascar. Problem is, the players from Stade Olympique l'Emyrne put all those goals into their own net, apparently in an organized protest against prior officiating decisions that went against them in the tournament. The referee just kept putting the ball back down on the center line after each goal. "That's silly," said Dan Rudloff, president of the local chapter of the Intercollegiate Soccer Officials organization.

Elkins Park sculptor Ronald Klein was just back from collecting artistic images in the rain forest of Madagascar when he learned about it. West Chester jazz musician Peter Paulsen was preparing to record some compositions for his first CD when he heard about it. Last week, Klein and Paulsen were notified that they were among those whose art had been anointed with state recognition - and a state check. The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awarded $500,000 in 1998 fellowships - grants were $1,250, $2,500, $5,000 and $10,000 - for 98 of the 487 state residents who applied.