Best part of Waking Sleeping Beauty, or: Who's that mopey guy?

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a documentary about the "Disney Renaissance," where starting with The Little Mermaid, the animation studio had a great comeback in artistic, critical, and boxoffice responses. Well, being a documentary on animation, especially hitting with the nostalgic stuff from my childhood, this is basically a movie made specifically for me. It's very well made and while it stops in 1995 and doesn't explore the post-Lion King studio closings and all the flops and CGI misfires, it delves deeply into the tense rivalry between Michael Eisner, Roy E. Disney (Walt's nephew), and Jeffery Katzenberg (who would go on to co-found Dreamworks). Pretty surprising since it was produced by Disney and released by them.

It's also very revealing about lyricist Howard Ashman's contributions to the movies he worked on. It may just be the directors and interviewees fondness for him affecting their memories, but it really seems as though he was the key auteur behind Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast. The segment of the documentary focusing on his death from AIDS before the release of Beauty & the Beast is incredibly moving.

However, the greatest part of the film features archived video of somebody going around the studios and taping the animators goofing about (the guy behind the camera turns out to be John Lasseter). Then they come across this one guy all alone in his office working at his desk. He looks at the camera unamused, like he's spent the last two night in his office, hasn't had his coffee yet, and really wants the camera out of his face. Like that creepy, unsociable kid at college who's spent the last twelve hours on World of Warcraft and really just wants you to leave him alone.

It's Tim Burton.

P.S. If you watch the trailer in the link, you might think that Beauty & the Beast won Best Film at the Oscars. While it was nominated and won in several other categories, it lost... to The Silence of the Lambs.

Mwahahahaha.

It's Storytime! (featuring Baum's Ozma of Oz)

Hello children, today our story is from Frank L. Baum's third Oz book, Ozma of Oz. When we last left Dorothy, she had just been reunited with her friends the Scarecrow and the Tinman, as well as just meeting Princess Ozma for the very first time. We now find her looking for her newest friend, Billina the chicken.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin:

Without waiting to hear more Dorothy ran to get Billina, and just outside the door she came upon the Cowardly Lion, still hitched to the chariot beside the great Tiger. The Cowardly Lion had a big bow of blue ribbon fastened to the long hair between his ears, and the Tiger wore a bow of red ribbon on his tail, just in front of the bushy end.

In an instant Dorothy was hugging the huge Lion joyfully.

"I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried.

"I am also glad to see you, Dorothy," said the Lion. "We've had some fine adventures together, haven't we?"

"Yes, indeed," she replied. "How are you?"

"As cowardly as ever," the beast answered in a meek voice. "Every little thing scares me and makes my heart beat fast. But let me introduce to you a new friend of mine, the Hungry Tiger."

"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.

"Dreadfully hungry," answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.

"Then why don't you eat something?" she asked.

"It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."

"Why, it is the same with me," said Dorothy. "Yet I keep on eating."

"But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies."

"How dreadful!" said Dorothy.

"Isn't it, though?" returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No, hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for."

"I think you are a very good tiger," said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast.

"In that you are mistaken," was the reply. "I am a good beast, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted. That is why I left the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion."

"But the Lion is not really cowardly," said Dorothy. "I have seen him act as bravely as can be."

"All a mistake, my dear," protested the Lion gravely. "To others I may have seemed brave, at times, but I have never been in any danger that I was not afraid."

"Nor I," said Dorothy, truthfully. "But I must go and set free Billina, and then I will see you again."

-From Chapter 8, titled "The Hungry Tiger"

Hey, kids! LOL Cats!

First of all, I'm really enjoying the Prince of Power mini-series, having become a real big Amadeus Cho fan recently.

A highlight of issue #3 that dropped last Wednesday answers the question we all come across at time: How do you pacify the raging, lion-headed Egyptian Goddess of Destruction, Sekhmet?



Ah, the soothing, healing power of LOL Cats...