A Thought for the Day

This is from Roger Ebert's (positive) review of "Brother Bear":

"Note: The movie, a product of the same Orlando animation studio that produced Disney's "Mulan" and "Lilo & Stitch," is very good looking, and sometimes seems to want to burst through the boundaries of conventional animation to present a more visionary portrait of its time and place; a sequence involving cave drawings comes impressively to life. There's also a curious early moment when the animators reproduce the effects of sunlight refracting through a lens, even though animation uses no lens and refracts no light. Variety says this will be the last 2-D animated film from Disney for the foreseeable future; the studio is switching to the 3-D style originally popularized by Pixar. Both formats have their strengths; one is not better than the other, simply different."

If only someone could get this notion through the even-thicker skulls at Disney and the other studios. It's as if someone decreed that painting should cease to exist because there is sculpture, or than the sonnet had been replaced by the sestina.

On The Occasion of Mickey Mouse's 75th Birthday

November is a month of birthdays in my world. I turn - gasp!- 35 on the 15th, and I share my birthday with a good friend. Two days later, another close friend has a birtday, and in between, my nephew in Israel turns six. My sister-in-law's grandfather, God willing, will be turning 95. And then there is the birthday on November 18.

(The following is a bit odd and quixotic, even for me. Be warned.)( Read more... )