What I've Watched: Galapagos

So people who know me openly acknowledge my love of movies and watching films of just about any nature. I'm not always as high minded as my friends Dan and Luke, who regale their appreciation of French films and stuff that they studied in film classes back in college. Me, I was raised in a household where National Lampoon's Vacation and Airplane! were on regular repeats. Even in my adult life now I have a give-and-take with my lady, where I can sprinkle in some great films she would normally never watch (Cache, political documentaries and the like) by allowing her to drag me to romantic comedies and anything involving singing and dancing (don't get me started on her love of Rodgers and Hammerstein flicks.

So earlier this week I watched a great BBC documentary about the Galapagos islands, where Charles Darwin first formulated his theory of evolution. I won't get into the merits of evolution, because I think it speaks for itself and if you believe in creationism or intelligent design or anything notion that T-Rex, Jimmy the Caveman, Adam, Eve and all the mystical ponies were all living in the same space together, then I am no sure what to do with you.

But I highly recommend watching this doc. It comes from the same production house that gave us the brilliant Planet Earth series (first on BBC before being ported over to Discovery). The visuals are obviously stunning, as you see first-hand some of the crazy species that exist only on these islands. Iguanas that swim and hunt in the water, Darwin's finches that evolved from one island to the other ... it's all here in stunning clarity and just appreciating this and more gave me a stunning sense of how much larger the planet is than we often give it credit for. We focus so much on what happens in the immediacy around us, that we lose sight of the bigger picture, and it's outstanding films like this that help bring me to a calmer, more peaceful place.