For years, Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net has been about two things only – awesome art and the artists that create it. With that in mind, we thought why not take the first week of the month to showcase these awesome artists even more? Welcome to “Awesome Artist We’ve Found Around The Net.” In this column, we are focusing on one artist and the awesome art that they create, whether they be amateur, up and coming, or well established. The goal is to uncover these artists so even more people become familiar with them. We ask these artists a few questions to see their origins, influences, and more. If you are an awesome artist or know someone that should be featured, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.This month we are very pleased to bring you the awesome art of…
Chogrin...
Chogrin...
- 5/6/2023
- by Theodore Bond
- JoBlo.com
Broadway’s Jujamcyn Theaters and International Entertainment Holdings Limited, the parent company of Ambassador Theatre Group, have agreed to combine operations, bringing together two of the major players on Broadway and London’s West End.
Jujamcyn owns five Broadway theaters: the St. James, Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, and Walter Kerr. Atg already owns two Broadway venues – the Lyric, currently home to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the Hudson, where A Doll’s House with Jessica Chastain is in previews. Combining their operations will give the company seven Broadway venues, still the smallest of Broadway’s three major owners, but inching closer to the second-largest: the Nederlander Organization owns nine theaters, while the Shubert Organizatiion has 17.
A.T.G. is a major player internationally, with 58 venues in Britain, Germany, and the United States. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The statement announcing the deal described Atg as “a leading live-theater and ticketing organization,...
Jujamcyn owns five Broadway theaters: the St. James, Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, and Walter Kerr. Atg already owns two Broadway venues – the Lyric, currently home to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the Hudson, where A Doll’s House with Jessica Chastain is in previews. Combining their operations will give the company seven Broadway venues, still the smallest of Broadway’s three major owners, but inching closer to the second-largest: the Nederlander Organization owns nine theaters, while the Shubert Organizatiion has 17.
A.T.G. is a major player internationally, with 58 venues in Britain, Germany, and the United States. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The statement announcing the deal described Atg as “a leading live-theater and ticketing organization,...
- 2/14/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Leon Gast, the veteran filmmaker who won a Documentary Feature Oscar for helming the 1996 “Rumble in the Jungle” pic When We Were Kings, died Monday. He was 85.
The news was confirmed by the Woodstock Film Festival, of which Gast was a founding advisory board member and a 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree.
Gast also won a Spirit Award, a Sundance Special Jury prize and a DGA Award nomination for When We Were Kings, which he also produced and edited. It told the fascinating story about the 1974 heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman held in Kinshasa, Zaire. The filmmaker later produced and directed The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013), which aired the following year on PBS as under the Independent Lens banner. Gast won a News & Documentary Emmy and an International Documentary Association Award for that project.
Gast began his movie career after working for an ad agency in New...
The news was confirmed by the Woodstock Film Festival, of which Gast was a founding advisory board member and a 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree.
Gast also won a Spirit Award, a Sundance Special Jury prize and a DGA Award nomination for When We Were Kings, which he also produced and edited. It told the fascinating story about the 1974 heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman held in Kinshasa, Zaire. The filmmaker later produced and directed The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013), which aired the following year on PBS as under the Independent Lens banner. Gast won a News & Documentary Emmy and an International Documentary Association Award for that project.
Gast began his movie career after working for an ad agency in New...
- 3/9/2021
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
Our 100th Guest! Comedy icon Martin Short joins us to discuss a few of the movies that made him.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Innerspace (1987)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
On The Waterfront (1954)
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
Terms Of Endearment (1983)
Moby Dick (1956)
The Exorcist (1973)
King Kong (1933)
A History Of Violence (2005)
A Song To Remember (1945)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Annie Hall (1977)
The Oscar (1966)
Sleeper (1973)
Bananas (1971)
City Lights (1931)
September (1987)
The Harder They Fall (1956)
Bad Day At Black Rock (1955)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Kiss Me Stupid (1964)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
The Bad And The Beautiful (1953)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Spartacus (1960)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
The Graduate (1967)
Klute (1971)
Blow-Up (1966)
Blow Out (1981)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Burn! (1970)
Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967)
Grease 2 (1982)
The Conversation (1974)
Back To The Future (1985)
Other Notable Items
Saturday Night Live TV...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Innerspace (1987)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
On The Waterfront (1954)
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
Terms Of Endearment (1983)
Moby Dick (1956)
The Exorcist (1973)
King Kong (1933)
A History Of Violence (2005)
A Song To Remember (1945)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Annie Hall (1977)
The Oscar (1966)
Sleeper (1973)
Bananas (1971)
City Lights (1931)
September (1987)
The Harder They Fall (1956)
Bad Day At Black Rock (1955)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Kiss Me Stupid (1964)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
The Bad And The Beautiful (1953)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Spartacus (1960)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
The Graduate (1967)
Klute (1971)
Blow-Up (1966)
Blow Out (1981)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Burn! (1970)
Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967)
Grease 2 (1982)
The Conversation (1974)
Back To The Future (1985)
Other Notable Items
Saturday Night Live TV...
- 8/25/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Edward Norton is fidgeting with the Western-style pearl snaps on his white collared shirt. You wouldn’t call it a tic — though nervous tics are one of many deeply researched subjects he’s able to wax about at a moment’s notice. It’s more like a subconscious tell that he’s about to say something he feels is very important.
And when Norton starts to get worked up about an issue, which is often — his reputation for intensity is well-earned — he has a habit of punctuating his statements with a passionate,...
And when Norton starts to get worked up about an issue, which is often — his reputation for intensity is well-earned — he has a habit of punctuating his statements with a passionate,...
- 10/28/2019
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Broadway lost a true icon today, and the theater community is paying tribute to the man who produced and/or directed all-time classics ranging from Damn Yankees, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof to Cabaret, Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. Harold “Hal” Prince, who died today at 91, was the king of Main Stem musicals, and the outpouring of tributes reflects his influence, esteem and singular accomplishments.
Including the classics listed above, his résumé reads like a list of the most popular and acclaimed shows from the second half of the 20th century: The Pajama Game, Candide, A Little Night Music, Show Boat, Company, Fiorello!, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Show Boat, Follies, Sweeney Todd and many more.
Broadway theaters will dim their lights tonight in honor of Prince.
Here is a sampling of remembrances from people and institutions who knew, worked with,...
Including the classics listed above, his résumé reads like a list of the most popular and acclaimed shows from the second half of the 20th century: The Pajama Game, Candide, A Little Night Music, Show Boat, Company, Fiorello!, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Show Boat, Follies, Sweeney Todd and many more.
Broadway theaters will dim their lights tonight in honor of Prince.
Here is a sampling of remembrances from people and institutions who knew, worked with,...
- 7/31/2019
- by Patrick Hipes and Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
As high-ranking executives at the most famous record company in the world, it was essential for us to project the utmost professionalism at all times. We talked in hushed tones nodding politely at staff whom, when we approached lowered their heads once pass the whispered comments began.
Denys Cowan and I were walking the halls of Motown Records. Denys had just joined me at Motown Animation and Filmworks as Senior Vice President. I was giving him the ten-cent tour of Motown’s brand spanking new offices as we discussed plans to take over the world.
“My god, they nodded at us.”
“We’re so blessed.”
“Long live the saviors of Motown.”
“Nay, saviors of the entertainment industry!”
“Nay Nay The World!!”
“Why Y’All Keep Saying My Name?” Said, Nay Nay.
Nay Nay commented that we “Looked like GQ cover models.” Denys was in Armani, I wore Boss— we both...
Denys Cowan and I were walking the halls of Motown Records. Denys had just joined me at Motown Animation and Filmworks as Senior Vice President. I was giving him the ten-cent tour of Motown’s brand spanking new offices as we discussed plans to take over the world.
“My god, they nodded at us.”
“We’re so blessed.”
“Long live the saviors of Motown.”
“Nay, saviors of the entertainment industry!”
“Nay Nay The World!!”
“Why Y’All Keep Saying My Name?” Said, Nay Nay.
Nay Nay commented that we “Looked like GQ cover models.” Denys was in Armani, I wore Boss— we both...
- 3/18/2019
- by Michael Davis
- Comicmix.com
Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures
by Daniel Zimmer and David J. Hornung
2009, The Illustrated Press, Hardcover, 224pp. ,$39.95 – 2017, Expanded version
With the publication of an expanded edition of Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures, it’s official… Brown was responsible for illustrating every movie poster ever made. Ok, not really but it will seem like it to anyone poring through page after page of some of the most potent propaganda in Hollywood history. An update on the update appears at the end of this review of the 2009 edition.
The era of the illustrated movie poster, that ideal marriage of art and commerce, has long since faded along with the posters themselves. From the big-top colors of Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures for A Night at the Opera to the orange whirlpool of Saul Bass’ Vertigo one-sheet, these were advertisements that excited the senses as much as the films they were designed...
by Daniel Zimmer and David J. Hornung
2009, The Illustrated Press, Hardcover, 224pp. ,$39.95 – 2017, Expanded version
With the publication of an expanded edition of Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures, it’s official… Brown was responsible for illustrating every movie poster ever made. Ok, not really but it will seem like it to anyone poring through page after page of some of the most potent propaganda in Hollywood history. An update on the update appears at the end of this review of the 2009 edition.
The era of the illustrated movie poster, that ideal marriage of art and commerce, has long since faded along with the posters themselves. From the big-top colors of Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures for A Night at the Opera to the orange whirlpool of Saul Bass’ Vertigo one-sheet, these were advertisements that excited the senses as much as the films they were designed...
- 3/12/2019
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
When Tom Arnold opens the big wooden door of his house in Beverly Hills on a Tuesday in late spring, he’s wearing a blue T-shirt with a Superman “S” logo on it. On the floor behind him is a pink, toddler-size Minnie Mouse car, property of his two-year-old daughter, Quinn. “Hey, buddy,” he says, out of breath from his flight down the stairs, and still sweaty, post-shower, from his morning cardio. He lost 90 pounds five years ago, when his son, Jax, was born, aiming to stick around for the...
- 8/13/2018
- by Brian Hiatt
- Rollingstone.com
The 2015-16 premiere of Theater Talk, now in its 24th year, focuses on a campy Off-Broadway hit, Drop Dead Perfect, with its star Everett Quinton and director Joe Brancato, plus the ambitious exhibition, The Hirschfeld Century, celebrating The Art Of the late caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, with Hirschfeld's widow Louise Kerz Hirschfeld and the exhibition's curator and author of its companion book, David Leopold.
- 10/2/2015
- by TV News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
The 2015-16 premiere of Theater Talk, now in its 24th year, focuses on a campy Off-Broadway hit, Drop Dead Perfect, with its star Everett Quinton and director Joe Brancato, plus the ambitious exhibition, The Hirschfeld Century, celebrating The Art Of the late caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, with Hirschfeld's widow Louise Kerz Hirschfeld and the exhibition's curator and author of its companion book, David Leopold.
- 9/30/2015
- by TV News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Wednesday, June 10 at 8Pm, 92Y presents Drawing Music - Hyman's Piano Meets Hirschfeld's Pen. Legendary pianist Dick Hyman will perform music inspired by Al Hirschfeld's magically inked images of Broadway shows and music stars, while a selection of these drawings is shown on stage. Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, president of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, and David Leopold, Creative Director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, will discuss the life and work of this original and iconic artist, and the stories behind his drawings. Tickets for Drawing Music at 92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Avenue, at 92nd Street are 30. For tickets and information www.92Y.org or call 212 415-5500.
- 6/3/2015
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Fantasia 2000
Directed by Don Hahn, Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas, and Paul and Gaetan Brazzi
Starring Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Penn and Teller, Angela Lansbury
Achieving balance is one of the great high-wire acts of family films. Some filmmakers attempt to make universal pieces of entertainment, to appeal to adults as well as to children. Many don’t, but the best of the films from Walt Disney Pictures succeed at that balance, or at least try very hard and come close to succeeding. The most obvious example of a group of people trying to make something as accessible for kids as it is for adults, something that everyone can enjoy on some level, are the two (as of now) Fantasia films. Both movies work within the medium of animation to transcend commonly considered tropes of storytelling. But the people behind both films went about...
Directed by Don Hahn, Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas, and Paul and Gaetan Brazzi
Starring Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Penn and Teller, Angela Lansbury
Achieving balance is one of the great high-wire acts of family films. Some filmmakers attempt to make universal pieces of entertainment, to appeal to adults as well as to children. Many don’t, but the best of the films from Walt Disney Pictures succeed at that balance, or at least try very hard and come close to succeeding. The most obvious example of a group of people trying to make something as accessible for kids as it is for adults, something that everyone can enjoy on some level, are the two (as of now) Fantasia films. Both movies work within the medium of animation to transcend commonly considered tropes of storytelling. But the people behind both films went about...
- 5/19/2012
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
The New York Landmarks Conservancy is honoring another incredible group of New Yorkers who have made outstanding contributions to the City at this year’s Living Landmarks gala on November 2 at the Plaza Hotel at Fifth Avenue.
Philanthropist Lewis Cullman, theater historian Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, legendary actress Angela Lansbury, restaurateur Danny Meyer and TV personality Regis Philbin will join an illustrious list of current “Landmarks.” Former Mayor David Dinkins will receive the special Lew Rudin Living Landmark Award for Public Service.
Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch are Honorary Co-chairs for the evening. The Celebration Committee includes Living Landmarks Mica Ertegun, Agnes Gund, Barbara Goldsmith, Marian Heiskell, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Philippe de Montebello, Elizabeth and Felix Rohatyn, Tommy Tune and Bunny Williams.
Read more...
Philanthropist Lewis Cullman, theater historian Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, legendary actress Angela Lansbury, restaurateur Danny Meyer and TV personality Regis Philbin will join an illustrious list of current “Landmarks.” Former Mayor David Dinkins will receive the special Lew Rudin Living Landmark Award for Public Service.
Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch are Honorary Co-chairs for the evening. The Celebration Committee includes Living Landmarks Mica Ertegun, Agnes Gund, Barbara Goldsmith, Marian Heiskell, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Philippe de Montebello, Elizabeth and Felix Rohatyn, Tommy Tune and Bunny Williams.
Read more...
- 10/28/2011
- Look to the Stars
It’s that time of year again, when sites the web-over compile helpful holiday shopping lists to guide you into the deepest, darkest pits of retail with a map that will hopefully get you out alive. Here now, without further ado, is the 2010 Fred Holiday Shopping Guide.
(If you see anything you like, please support Fred by using the links below to make your holiday purchases - it’s appreciated!)
It’s been over 10 years since cultural icon Stephen Fry released his first memoir, Moab Is My Washpot, which left leaders with only a portion of the story, ending as it did in his teenage years, just released from a prison sentence for credit card fraud, with college - the legendary Cambridge - and fame still before him. Well, he picks it all right back up in the same warm, witty, candid style with The Fry Chronicles (Penguin, £20.00 Srp), a must-read volume that,...
(If you see anything you like, please support Fred by using the links below to make your holiday purchases - it’s appreciated!)
It’s been over 10 years since cultural icon Stephen Fry released his first memoir, Moab Is My Washpot, which left leaders with only a portion of the story, ending as it did in his teenage years, just released from a prison sentence for credit card fraud, with college - the legendary Cambridge - and fame still before him. Well, he picks it all right back up in the same warm, witty, candid style with The Fry Chronicles (Penguin, £20.00 Srp), a must-read volume that,...
- 12/16/2010
- by UncaScroogeMcD
Christina Applegate has successfully begged theatre bosses to put the problem-plagued revival of Sweet Charity on again - just days after bosses decided to pull the plug on it. The show, which received tepid reviews and was called off after Applegate broke her foot, will now open in New York on May 4, two weeks later than originally planned. Producer Barry Weissler says, "Christina came to me and made the most deeply felt emotional plea. She has given up all her movies for the year, plus her home and husband are on the West Coast. This is what she has wanted since she was a little girl and I just couldn't take it away from her." Weissler says he has received assurances from Applegate's doctors that she will be able to perform in the musical, which is a dance-heavy show. Sweet Charity will now begin preview performances on April 11 at the Manhattan's Al Hirschfeld Theatre, with Applegate's standby, Charlotte D'Amboise, playing the role until April 16. Applegate, who broke her right foot during a performance in Chicago on March 11, will take over the role on April 18.
- 3/30/2005
- WENN
In 1940, Walt Disney's "Fantasia" caught the public's imagination in an extraordinary way. The movie was a breathtaking achievement for movie cartoonists, who, despite occasional silliness, displayed a free-form approach to animation in their marriage of music to imagery.
In "Fantasia 2000", Disney animators have done it again. Employing technical tools those pioneering animators could only dream about, today's cartoonists have splashed across the screen bold and beautiful images that pulsate to several musical styles.
Freed from the confinements of traditional storytelling to pursue pure imagery, the animators experiment wildly with styles and color palettes. You can almost feel the artistic exhilaration that went into this 75-minute movie: Whales fly with birds, Donald Duck meets Noah and Al Hirschfeld sketches turn into a teeming cityscape.
Disney can anticipate a huge worldwide audience for this film that should become, as the first movie did, a perennial family entertainment, good for revival or video rentals for decades to come. In some quarters though, anxious viewers will have to wait awhile as Buena Vista launches "Fantasia 2000" in exclusive four-mouth engagements at IMAX theaters around the world beginning Jan. 1. The film will go out in regular 35mm next summer.
The IMAX release is a stroke of genius as the large-screen format brings the viewer into the surreal worlds dreamed up by the animators. The movie encounters a minor problem in the blow-up of the one sequence from the original film, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" starring Mickey Mouse. Despite a meticulous restoration process, this episode does not maintain its color resolution when blown up to IMAX's super screen size.
"Fantasia 2000" contains seven new episodes starting with the staccato first movement from Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony". This three-minute selection is the most abstract of the film's sequences, as triangular fragments drift, swirl, form and re-form pastel-colored designs against a world of clouds and waterfalls much like the pieces in a kaleidoscope.
Each of the remaining sequences is introduced by hosts including Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, Angela Lansbury and the film's music conductor James Levine.
Respighi's "Pines of Rome" evokes not Italian forests but, weirdly yet movingly, humpback whales in a sparkling, blue-tinged Nordic wonderland, performing ballets under water and in boreal skies as a lightning storm and squadrons of birds accompany their migration.
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" borrows from caricaturist Hirschfeld to create a 1930s Manhattan with variations of blue that takes in a hard-hat construction worker, an overworked doorman, the out-of-work Joe, a little girl dragged to ballet and a Harlem jazz club.
Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2" provides the music for a telling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", an action-filled fairy tale about a one-legged toy soldier's determination to protect a lovely ballerina from an evil jack-in-the-box. Animators use CGI to create a three-dimensional plasticity for the three main characters, who move through a world where shifts in color express the story's emotions.
Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals", arguably the weakest of the new episodes, has the nimble water ballet by a flock of flamingos destroyed by one trouble-maker who sneaks a yo-yo into the "chorus line." Pleasing watercolors convey the battle between the conformity of the flock and the routine-breaking by this rebel.
Excerpts from four of the marches in Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" provide the backdrop for the story of Noah and the Ark with Donald Duck acting as his wildlife wrangler. But this is a new, poignant Donald who believes he has lost his beloved Daisy in the tumult of the creatures' boarding. His sorrow is only relieved when the Ark finally "docks" on Mount Ararat and the two love ducks are reunited.
"Fantasia 2000" saves the best for last. Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite -- 1919 Version" prompts a mythical story of life, death and rebirth in which a life-giving water Sprite, summoned by an elk, inadvertently rouses a flame-belching Firebird lurking within a volcano. The monster lays waste to a wilderness with fire and Molten Lava only for the Sprite's magical touch to reawaken the foliage. The intensity of the powerful images and fiery colors in this sequence is stunning.
Created during nine years in a project championed by Disney vice chairman Roy E. Disney, "Fantasia 2000" firmly re-establishes that studio's leadership in animation at the dawn of the new century.
FANTASIA 2000
Buena Vista Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Executive producer Roy E. Disney
Producer Donald W. Ernst
Directors Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy,
Eric Goldberg, James Algar,
Francis Glebas, Gaetan Brizzi, Paul Brizzi
Music conducted by James Levine
Performed by Chicago Symphony Orchestra
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Supervising animation director Hendel Butoy
Associate producer Lisa C. Cook
Editors Jessica Ambinder Rojas,
Lois Freeman-Fox
Color/stereo
Running time -- 75 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
In "Fantasia 2000", Disney animators have done it again. Employing technical tools those pioneering animators could only dream about, today's cartoonists have splashed across the screen bold and beautiful images that pulsate to several musical styles.
Freed from the confinements of traditional storytelling to pursue pure imagery, the animators experiment wildly with styles and color palettes. You can almost feel the artistic exhilaration that went into this 75-minute movie: Whales fly with birds, Donald Duck meets Noah and Al Hirschfeld sketches turn into a teeming cityscape.
Disney can anticipate a huge worldwide audience for this film that should become, as the first movie did, a perennial family entertainment, good for revival or video rentals for decades to come. In some quarters though, anxious viewers will have to wait awhile as Buena Vista launches "Fantasia 2000" in exclusive four-mouth engagements at IMAX theaters around the world beginning Jan. 1. The film will go out in regular 35mm next summer.
The IMAX release is a stroke of genius as the large-screen format brings the viewer into the surreal worlds dreamed up by the animators. The movie encounters a minor problem in the blow-up of the one sequence from the original film, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" starring Mickey Mouse. Despite a meticulous restoration process, this episode does not maintain its color resolution when blown up to IMAX's super screen size.
"Fantasia 2000" contains seven new episodes starting with the staccato first movement from Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony". This three-minute selection is the most abstract of the film's sequences, as triangular fragments drift, swirl, form and re-form pastel-colored designs against a world of clouds and waterfalls much like the pieces in a kaleidoscope.
Each of the remaining sequences is introduced by hosts including Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, Angela Lansbury and the film's music conductor James Levine.
Respighi's "Pines of Rome" evokes not Italian forests but, weirdly yet movingly, humpback whales in a sparkling, blue-tinged Nordic wonderland, performing ballets under water and in boreal skies as a lightning storm and squadrons of birds accompany their migration.
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" borrows from caricaturist Hirschfeld to create a 1930s Manhattan with variations of blue that takes in a hard-hat construction worker, an overworked doorman, the out-of-work Joe, a little girl dragged to ballet and a Harlem jazz club.
Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2" provides the music for a telling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", an action-filled fairy tale about a one-legged toy soldier's determination to protect a lovely ballerina from an evil jack-in-the-box. Animators use CGI to create a three-dimensional plasticity for the three main characters, who move through a world where shifts in color express the story's emotions.
Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals", arguably the weakest of the new episodes, has the nimble water ballet by a flock of flamingos destroyed by one trouble-maker who sneaks a yo-yo into the "chorus line." Pleasing watercolors convey the battle between the conformity of the flock and the routine-breaking by this rebel.
Excerpts from four of the marches in Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" provide the backdrop for the story of Noah and the Ark with Donald Duck acting as his wildlife wrangler. But this is a new, poignant Donald who believes he has lost his beloved Daisy in the tumult of the creatures' boarding. His sorrow is only relieved when the Ark finally "docks" on Mount Ararat and the two love ducks are reunited.
"Fantasia 2000" saves the best for last. Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite -- 1919 Version" prompts a mythical story of life, death and rebirth in which a life-giving water Sprite, summoned by an elk, inadvertently rouses a flame-belching Firebird lurking within a volcano. The monster lays waste to a wilderness with fire and Molten Lava only for the Sprite's magical touch to reawaken the foliage. The intensity of the powerful images and fiery colors in this sequence is stunning.
Created during nine years in a project championed by Disney vice chairman Roy E. Disney, "Fantasia 2000" firmly re-establishes that studio's leadership in animation at the dawn of the new century.
FANTASIA 2000
Buena Vista Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Executive producer Roy E. Disney
Producer Donald W. Ernst
Directors Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy,
Eric Goldberg, James Algar,
Francis Glebas, Gaetan Brizzi, Paul Brizzi
Music conducted by James Levine
Performed by Chicago Symphony Orchestra
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Supervising animation director Hendel Butoy
Associate producer Lisa C. Cook
Editors Jessica Ambinder Rojas,
Lois Freeman-Fox
Color/stereo
Running time -- 75 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 12/23/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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