As some readers may already know, my Tokyo alter-ego is that of an independent record label owner. If there's one thing I've learned over the years it's to never give my friends free CDs. It's not that I don't want to be generous, and in fact, I used to hand out a lot. But the reality is that people will always value something they paid for more than something they got for free. Call it human nature.
I was reminded of this at a recent screening of the new DreamWorks animated film, "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," where not a single other person in the critic/insider audience laughed even once. Now, I saw the first "Madagascar" in the cinema, with my girl on my arm and a bucket of popcorn, and we laughed long and hard, as did most of the other paying customers in the audience.
The new "Madagascar" is clearly on autopilot, and struggling to make a franchise out of what was clearly a one-film premise. (Its solution: rip off "The Lion King.") But it still manages to deliver some great, zany laughs in spurts. When a bunch of hard-boiled penguins stage a road-kill accident in order to carjack some tourists' SUV, anyone who isn't laughing should consider a career as a laboratory specimen for scientists studying pathological humor impairment. Or maybe they just need to buy their own tickets for a change.