Watch this while you can

This Goofy short ran with the mostly terrible "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" in 2007, and has been unavailable on home video to the best of my knowledge. Here it is in YouTube form, until Disney gets wise and pulls it. It's in the tradition of the best Goofy shorts of the past.

Wes Anderson and "Sleeping Beauty"

First, a tip of the cap to Jason Sperb, whose blog inspired me to watch "The Life Aquatic" on Sunday.

In the past 36 hours, I watched both "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" and "Sleeping Beauty," two films that appear to have nothing in common, aside from being Disney releases. But as I watched "Sleeping Beauty" this morning -- with commentary by critic Leonard Maltin, Disney/Pixar guru John Lasseter, and animator Andreas Deja -- I couldn't stop thinking about Wes Anderson's colorful confection.

"Sleeping Beauty," released in 1959, was quite a stylistic departure for Walt Disney's animated products. The story was familiar, of course -- it's nearly the same as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," minus the dwarfs -- but the visuals were not. Uncle Walt entrusted artist Eyvind Earle to dictate the film's look, and what he got was a motion picture that looked like a medieval tapestry coming to life. Extensive use of the multiplane camera technique that Disney himself invented lent the film a dimensionality that even masterpieces like "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" lacked, and all of Earle's meticulously detailed background paintings were kept in focus at all times. The film was presented in a 2.55:1 aspect ratio -- wider than today's widescreen films -- and printed on 70mm film in a process that Walt dubbed "Super Technirama 70." The result was an incredibly gorgeous film that is finally available in its original format on Disney's latest DVD and Blu-ray releases.

"The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures in 2004, was Texas auteur Wes Anderson's most ambitious film in scope, if not in subject matter. Like all of Anderson's films, "Zissou" gives us super-saturated colors and clear-focused widescreen frames packed with detail -- and that's why it kept creeping into my head when I was watching "Sleeping Beauty."

While we can argue over whether Anderson's dark, ironic films connect with us emotionally, there's no arguing that he consistently delivers flat-out beautiful films. (I consider it a great tragedy that I did not see "The Darjeeling Limited" in a theater.) There are frames of "Zissou" that almost demand to be paused, just so you can see everything that's happening. Steve Zissou's tour of his boat is such a sequence; Anderson gives us a cutaway set of the entire vessel, roaming from room to room in one unbroken shot. On the DVD commentary, he says the set was inspired by drawings in World Book encyclopedias and Time-Life books he pored over in his youth.

Techniques and details like that -- along with the eye-popping colors and Anderson's penchant for using titles -- lend Anderson's films a sort of magical quality that seems odd for his subject matter. Of course, that odd combination is a huge part of why Anderson's films work.

And then there's "Sleeping Beauty," which truly is magical. Two scenes in "Sleeping Beauty" deserve to be mentioned among the all-time greatest. One is a stunning forest panorama in which Princess Aurora serenades the animals with "Once Upon a Dream," and the other is Prince Philip's climactic confrontation with the evil fairy Maleficent, whose transformation into a dragon must have been simply astonishing to the moviegoers of 1959. (Man, do I wish I could see a pristine print of "Sleeping Beauty" on the big screen.)

I guess it's highly improbable that the guy who gave us "Rushmore" and "Bottle Rocket" could have been influenced by "Sleeping Beauty," but I find the visual parallels to be fascinating. Anderson's next film, "Fantastic Mr. Fox," employs stop-motion animation and looks like it hasn't abandoned any of the director's techniques. Maybe the parallels will continue to reveal themselves this November.

• • •

These aren't the best quality, but you get the idea.

Arrested development

As I'm typing this, Disney's "TRON" is spinning in my DVD player. This past weekend, I joined thousands of screaming teens, tweens and toddlers at a concert starring Disney's next big recording artist, Demi Lovato. I spent the rest of the weekend watching panels from the San Diego Comic-Con on YouTube, with particular interest in the presentation by the cast and producers of "Lost" -- a Disney production that airs on Disney's ABC network. I have visited Disney resorts on both coasts three times since January 2007, and have a framed Jungle Cruise attraction poster hanging over my DVD rack, which contains dozens of Disney movies.

What the hell is going on here?

I am 30 years old. Shouldn't I be listening to Wilco, talking about how great "The Hurt Locker" is, and planning some kind of hiking adventure in Costa Rica?

Tim Burton's Whimsical Adaptation: Part 10

Note: Disney has apparently killed every embeddable version of this trailer. Click here for Yahoo's high-res version.

Shoddy visual effects aside, is there a single surprising thing about the trailer for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"? And is there any chance I won't be seeing it?

Though hailed as this wildly creative near-visionary, Tim Burton has rarely given us anything truly original -- and that's a shame, because when he does, the results are usually extraordinary. "The Nightmare Before Christmas," which Burton conceived and Henry Selick directed, is a classic, and "Beetlejuice" remains his most memorable and entertaining film as a director.

But most of Burton's career has been devoted to adaptations or extensions of existing franchises. To wit:

• "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985)
• "Batman" (1989)
• "Batman Returns" (1992)
• "Mars Attacks!" (1996)
• "Sleepy Hollow" (1999)
• "Planet of the Apes" (2001)
• "Big Fish" (2003)
• "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005)
• "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (2007)

And now we can add this rather "Chocolate Factory"-esque interpretation of "Alice" to the list.

I line up for every movie with Burton's name on it, more out of a sense of obligation than one of excitement -- and it almost feels like that's how Tim treats his movies now, too. "OK, I guess I'll make another quirky movie for the Hot Topic crowd." While it fit that decription, "Sweeney Todd" was Burton's best movie in more than a decade because it was a bit of a departure for him: a musical. His best film before that? The black-and-white biopic "Ed Wood," another departure from his decidedly different brand of normal.

What is Tim Burton's true passion? I can't imagine someone with his bursting imagination would want to spend an entire career reinventing someone else's ideas, but that's mostly what he's been doing. (One wonders if he's upset about not directing any of the "Harry Potter" movies.) His next film will be a reinvention of his own idea: "Frankenweenie," a feature-length version of the 1984 short film that got Burton noticed in the first place. I can't say I'm too excited by the idea of that film -- or by "Alice in Wonderland" -- but I'm sure I'll see both of them.

If he really wanted to shock his audience, he'd make a sports movie: "Tim Burton's Roid Rage." That could be interesting...