Disney "Beauty & the Beast 3D" Lumiere. ©2011 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

It’s been close to 2 decades since I last saw the original Beauty and the Beast, sitting mesmerized right alongside my then 3 year old daughter Becky as we watched the enchanted love story unfold before us.  The fact Belle’s face soon adorned sheets, towels, plastic dinnerware and a closet full of other toddler accoutrements throughout my house didn’t obscure the fact that the film was cinematic and animation excellence and worthy of all the acclaim, honors and cash it garnered.

20 years later, sitting mesmerized right alongside my now 23 year old daughter as we watched this beautiful new version of the film, I can safely say the ends justify the means and the tremendous amount of work to bring this film to 3D has produced a visually stunning experience.

Is there a dead Christopher Walkin among us?

It's hard to choose my favorite Christopher Walken.  Kevin Pollack, Jay Mohr and of course, Kevin Spacey come to mind.  In fact, Mr. Walken has become such an iconic personality that it's tough to watch him on TV or in a film and not think, for a moment, that he doesn't do nearly as good a Christopher Walken as one of the previously mentioned actors. He's just not Walken enough.  As they say, you can't be too rich, too thin, or have enough Christopher Walken.

For every cowbell junkie and True Romance lover, this video should scare the "Wow, Wow, Wow" out of youze.

Moe, Larry and Curly would be proud.

Is this 13 seconds of tough love or tough luck?  You decide.

This aint your father's Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Candy Kugel, Rick Broas and the folks at Buzzco Associates have taken on big business and the pervasive economic and political dissatisfaction spilling over on Wall Street with a set of 7 animated shorts.  In the time-tested spirit of political humor, where one can only laugh when faced with daunting issues that are anything but funny, each short is based on a traditional nursery rhyme, spinning topical issues together with little childhood ditties we all know and love.  The latest film, Itsy Bitsy Spider, was just released last week.

Poster for the restored McCay short

For the past 2 years, Bill Plympton has had a team of interns busy restoring Winsor McCay’s last short film, The Flying House.  As work has progressed, Matthew Modine came onto the project as a producer and with assistance from business partner Adam Rakoff, has launched an online fundraising effort through Kickstarter.com.  Find out more about Winsor McCay, his career, the restoration of the film and how you can get involved.

Craig Barron has posted a really nice short film tribute to film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, who this past Saturday received the Governors Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

Cinzia Angelini's Mila.

Frank Gladstone shot me a note about a short animated cg film called Mila being made by former Disney, DreamWorks and Imageworks animator Cinzia Angelini. Hoping to push the boundaries of non-photorealistic rendering to create a painterly aesthetic and character design, Cinzia is also striving to tell a socially relevant story about war’s most tragic collateral damage – the youngest civilians. The film is inspired by true stories that Cinzia’s mother and grandmother told her of their own lives in Italy during World War II. 

Gary Schwartz' 2010 Ottawa Short Fa Fha Pha Ottawa!

I’ve known Gary Schwartz since, well, since he was a much younger zany filmmaker and animation teacher.  In the Webster’s Dictionary, under the word “energy,” there is a picture of Gary with his infectious grin, a camera and a tripod.  If you ever meet him, ask him about taking 3-D pictures of Don Knotts in the Toronto Airport.  This year at the Ottawa Animation Festival, as he does every year, Gary made an extremely cool stop motion short – in one day! This year’s edition, Fa Fha Pha Ottawa!, inspired by the Ottawa festival award designed by sculptor Tick Tock Tom, is his best yet!

Beautiful downtown Annapurna, Nepal.

As reported on the Republica website, Nepal’s first annual Animation Short Film Festival will be held tomorrow, Friday, October 29 by the Independent Film Society (IFS), in association with Artistic Alliance Nepal (AAN).  18 films from 9 countries will be screened.  The event will be held at the Nepal Tourism Board, Exhibition Road. Oxygen tanks must be checked at the door.  And in a related story...

Courtesy of YouTube.

From the Taiwanese studio and web broadcaster NMA.tv comes their latest animated news “piece,”  Brett Favre's Pecker the Talk of the Town.  Pardon my cheap pun. It can’t be avoided – you’ll understand once you watch the video.