For the past few weeks, this guy in my office has been raving about the new IMAX technology. Granted, it could be the same technology they’ve been using for the last ten years. It’s been at least that long since I was willing to fork out for a six story nature show. But I’m totally susceptible to rave reviews. (Which explains why I paid good American currency to see The Changeling.)

Apparently, full features are released in IMAX, now. It’s not just for nature anymore! At the Museum of Natural History in New York, however, it’s all earth all the time. I can’t imagine how many terrifying visions of extreme weather, journeys to the tops of mountains and fierce (or cuddly) animals they had to go through before they sank to this depth: Beavers.

The museum website doesn’t even give these poor creatures an adjective in the title of their IMAX debut. They don’t package them as “funny,” “resourceful” or even the tried and true “busy.” Nope. They’re asking you to fork out for plain ole beavers. All twelve-year old humor aside, is any beaver worth twenty bucks?

Seeing as the little guys spend most of their day building shelter, I can imagine that half the movie will actually be shot inside oversized dams. Q: What could be less exciting than watching a bucktoothed mammal build a twig-and-mud contraption? A: Watching a twig-and-mud contraption instead of Where the Wild Things Are, screening across town at Sony Lincoln Square.

I have to admit, part of what gets me about Natural History is their ticketing policy. In order to see IMAX, you have to pay the full (rather than suggested) admission to the museum. I’m a big fan of the pay-what-you-wish policy, as I’m pathetically closer to a starving artist than a patron of the arts.  Even so, I imagine that I could pull a crisp bill out of my hat for Spike Jonze.

Beavers, not so much.