'FANTASIA 2000' CONJURES CHARMING BLEND OF OLD, NEW.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic ``Fantasia'' is back, and it's bigger than ever. Louder and more technically advanced, too. But better? Let's put it this way: If Walt Disney's 59-year-old effort to marry classical music with cartoon animation was kitsch that later generations mistook for cinematic art, future audiences may consider ``Fantasia/2000'' art. What it is at the moment is a state-of- the-sciences introduction to great and marginally great music for kids, a good deal of fun and not quite as imaginative as you'd like it to be. And, as mentioned, ``F2K'' is big. It's screening exclusively at IMAX IMAX Noun a film projection process that produces an image ten times larger than standard theaters through the end of April, including a brand spanking spanking Pediatrics Corporal punishment, usually of children, in which the buttocks, are pummeled, swatted, or otherwise struck. See Corporal punishment Sexology Slapping, usually of the buttocks as a part of sexuoerotic activity. Cf Sadomasochism. new one that the Disney company built just for this run off the 405 Freeway at the Howard Hughes Parkway, down around where Culver City Culver City, city (1990 pop. 38,793), Los Angeles co., S Calif., a residential suburb of Los Angeles; inc. 1917. It is a center of the U.S. motion-picture industry, whose roots in the city date to c.1915. Its chief manufactures are rubber products and computers. meets Westchester. The movie should hit standard-size screens later this year, but a key part of the experience - except in the forlorn case of one segment - is seeing the beautifully wrought drawing dance across, practically, your entire field of vision. ``F2K'' is the first non-documentary, feature-length production presented in IMAX, and it certainly doesn't waste the medium's capacity for sweep. Depth is a somewhat different matter. ``F2K,'' which contains seven new animated segments and the Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse Famous character of Walt Disney's animated cartoons. He was introduced in Steamboat Willie (1928), the first animated cartoon with sound. Mickey was created by Disney, who also provided his high-pitched voice, and was usually drawn by the studio's head animator, ``Sorcerer's Apprentice'' sequence from the original, gets off to an impressive start with computerized bits from the first ``Fantasia'' flying around a studio where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chicago Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1891 by Theodore Thomas, who conducted it until his death in 1905. Orchestra Hall was built for it in 1904 with funds raised by public subscription; the hall is now part of Symphony Center, which was completed in 1997. , under the leadership of James Levine James Lawrence Levine (b. 23 June 1943) is an American orchestral pianist and conductor and most well known as the music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He is also the current music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. , is tuning up for the upcoming toons. This leads into the film's most abstract and arguably most successful segment, a semi-psychedelic symphony of light and patterns set to Beethoven's Fifth. Then we get Steve Martin Noun 1. Steve Martin - United States actor and comedian (born in 1945) Martin , the first and funniest of several segment hosts, pushing his two-week master musician study course and introducing a variation - to put it mildly - on Respighi's ``Pines of Rome.'' No Italian trees in sight in this heavily computerized vision of flying whales romping through arctic seas and skies. Marked by rich cloud and water formations and stunning perspective shifts, it's an accomplished presentation that never quite transcends its visual origins, which can basically be found at any tourist gallery on the island of Maui. The film's approach to Gershwin's ``Rhapsody (1) A subscription-based online music service from RealNetworks that gives users unlimited access to a vast library of major and independent label music. Within a single interface, Rhapsody provides access to streaming music, Internet radio and extensive music information and in Blue'' is certainly apt. Based on the flat line drawings of celebrity caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, it follows several residents of Depression-era New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of through their day and daydreams. Conceptually inspired all the way around, but the characters' adventures unfortunately add up to very little. One of the better put-together pieces sets Hans Christian Anderson's ``The Steadfast Tin Soldier'' to a section of Shastakovich's second piano concerto. Though much of it is computer-generated, this particular toy story has a richly shaded and colored, classic animation look, plus a fast, eventful and wonderfully sustained pace. Low points immediately follow. A quick thing involving flamingos and a yo-yo set to Saint-Saens seems like so much animal slapstick slapstick Comedy characterized by broad humour, absurd situations, and vigorous, often violent action. It took its name from a paddlelike device, probably introduced by 16th-century commedia dell'arte troupes, that produced a resounding whack when one comic actor used it to - and it can't help but compare unfavorably with the lyrically loony hippo ballet from the first ``Fantasia fantasia (făntā`zhə) [Ital.,=fancy], musical composition not restricted to a formal design, but constructed freely in the manner of an improvisation. In the 16th and 17th cent. .'' But just when they've got you longing nostalgically, up comes ``Sorcerer's Apprentice,'' which, all splotchy splotch n. An irregularly shaped spot, stain, or colored or discolored area: "spectacular splotches of color and beauty in the blossoms" Wendy Lyon Moonan. tr.v. and grainy grain·y adj. grain·i·er, grain·i·est 1. Made of or resembling grain; granular. 2. Resembling the grain of wood. 3. Having a granular appearance due to the clumping of particles in the emulsion. on the humongous screen, becomes that forlorn piece mentioned earlier. ``F2K'' somewhat regains its footing in the stretch, with an amusing Donald Duck as Noah's assistant ark-filler while some ``Pomp and Circumstance'' marches play. Things crescendo with another mystical/environmental/New Agey bit, in which a water sprite accidentally awakens Stravinsky's Firebird and sees her forest turned to ash. Like most of the new film's segments, this one echoes a piece from the original - the genuinely chilling ``Night on Bald Mountain'' - and seems to echo it faintly at that. But even if ``F2K'' doesn't initially sing to us as vibrantly as we felt ``Fantasia'' did, it certainly does not lack the kind of artistry that could resonate with future viewings and future audiences. And there can be no question that as much care and love went into creating this extension of Disney's dream as Uncle Walt lavished on his first, now-classical-by-consensus attempt. THE FACTS --The film: ``Fantasia/2000'' (G). --The stars: Steve Martin, Bette Midler, James Levine, Itzhak Pearlman, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, Quincy Jones, Penn & Teller. --Behind the scenes: Directed by Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas, Gaetan and Paul Brizzi, and Don Hahn. Produced by Donald W. Ernst. Released by Walt Disney Pictures. --Running time: One hour, 15 minutes. --Playing: Opens Saturday at Disney's ``Fantasia/2000'' IMAX Theatre, Los Angeles; Edwards IMAX Ontario Palace, Ontario; Edwards IMAX Valencia Town Center, Valencia. --Our rating: Three stars CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Conductor James Levine gets a helping hand from the Sorcerer's Apprentice in ``Fantasia/2000.'' Box: THE FACTS (see text) |
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