After a bank heist goes seriously awry, Doris Fairfeather (voiced by indie fave Lili Taylor)--a young lady penguin hoodwinked by her new beau Charlie Abaloney into participating in the botched heist--winds up with up a 10-year sentence in the penguintentiary, where she is subjected to every “women behind bars” cliché in the book. Co-written and directed by Janet Perlman, Penguins Behind Bars is a tediously drawn out bad girls spoof full of sadistic prison guards, psychologically battered inmates (one constantly carries a shrimp doll), and cell block bullies. Co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada, this animated program is nothing like the 8-12 minute shorts that the NFB are famous for--neither in animation quality nor in compressed inventive humor. Rather, this is more like a Cartoon Network-level cartoon, which--it turns out--is precisely where it aired. That leaves us with two questions: 1) why is this “cartoon” (and I mean this in the generally accepted usage of the word) priced at $129, and 2) why on earth does it have a study guide? Not recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)
Penguins Behind Bars
(2003) 23 min. VHS: $129 (study guide included). National Film Board of Canada. PPR. Color cover. Closed captioned. Volume 19, Issue 4
Penguins Behind Bars
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