Monday, January 24, 2011

How to Catch a Possum on Movie Day!

It's movie day here at The Painted Possum! It's been a long time since the last movie day; as a matter of fact, it's been a while since my last blog post here. But, chalk it up to The Winter Doldrums. Also, life in general is like sliding down a very fast sliding board.

Hoping to find an illustration for you, I Googled "Possum on a sliding board." Oddly enough, I didn't find a possum on a sliding board.

However, here's something interesting I did find, at Handy Tricks From Quatemala, by Tim Anderson:


How to Catch a Possum
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Don Filberto explains how his father used to catch small animals. He'd prop a box or basin up on an avacado pit or another smal round object. He'd put a weight, such a a board (or in this case, a machete) on top of the box. The animal would go inside to get some bait, the box would fall down, and 'voila', you got yourself a captive possum. I don't know what 'voila' is in Spanish. But Don Filberto added that his father would move the pan or box around until the animal's tail was poking out, then grab it by the tail.

So, I can identfy with this. While life is INDEED like sliding down a very fast sliding board, there are interludes when life is more like being a possum trapped under a pan with an avacado seed ...
Back to Movie Day!
Today's movie is The Road to El Dorado, one of my favorite movies, an animated comedy film by DreamWorks Pictures. The two main characters, Miguel and Tulio, are voiced by Kenneth Branaugh and Kevin Kline, and the soundtrack features music by Elton John and Tim Rice.
The movie begins in 16th century Spain where two con-artists, Miguel and Tulio, using loaded dice, win a map that shows the location of El Dorado, the city of gold in the New World. They stow away on one of Hernan Cortes' ships, escape with Cortes' war horse, and end up in El Dorado, where they are mistaken for gods. And why not?
According to Wikipedia, the story is inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would be King and Voltaire's Candide.

Also, there is a cute little animal that I like to think of as a possum, although it may be an armadillo.

3 comments:

Joanne Cage said...

Sounds like a good movie.I hope it turns out to be a possum instead of an armadillo.

Susan @ Blackberry Creek said...

I don't get the fascination with this movie.

Ramey Channell said...

It's hilariously funny, and Kenneth Branaugh and Kevin Kline are just delightful (as are Tulio and Miguel.) I can watch it over and over, and just be grinning like a possum every time.