Nants ingonyama bagithi baba! It's been nearly two decades since that glorious savanna sunrise, and once again
The Lion King is
at the top of the box office. It's a good chance to revisit what made the original the capstone of the
Disney Renaissance, starting with the music. Not the gaudy show tunes or the Elton John ballads, but the soaring, elegiac score by Hans Zimmer which, despite winning an Oscar, never saw a full release outside of
an unofficial bootleg.
Luckily, it's unabridged and high-quality, allowing one to lay Zimmer's
haunting,
pulse-pounding,
joyful tracks
alongside the original video (
part 2,
3,
4), revealing the subtle leitmotifs and careful matching of music and action.
In addition, South African collaborator
Lebo M wove traditional Zulu chorals into the score, providing
veiled commentary on
scenes like this; his work was later
expanded into
a full album,
the Broadway stage show, and
projects closer to his heart. Speaking of expanded works, there were inevitable sequels -- all of which you can experience with
The Lion King: Full Circle (
download guide), a fan-made, three-hour supercut of the original film and its two follow-ups.
Want more? Look...
harder... [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 1, 2011 -
22 comments
It was bound to happen eventually. After
a quarter-century,
26 Academy Awards, and an unparalleled streak of
eleven artistic and commercial triumphs, Pixar's latest project,
Cars 2, is
Certified Rotten. Critics have
assailed the film as a slick but hollow vehicle for Disney's
$10 billion-dollar Cars merchandising industry "lifestyle brand," replacing the original's serviceable tale of small-town redemption with
zany spy games,
hyperactive chase sequences, and even more
lowbrow aww-shucks potty humor from
Larry the Cable Guy. But it's not all bad news! Along with
a fun new Toy Story 3 short, preceding today's (3-D) premiere showings is a first look at next year's
Brave --
a darkly magical original story set in ancient Scotland featuring the studio's first female lead (and
director).
Evocative high-res concept art [mirror] is available at the official website, and
character sketches have leaked to the web, with the apparently striking teaser trailer sure to follow. Also, be sure not to miss the sneak peak of
Brave's associated short,
"La Luna"!
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 24, 2011 -
263 comments
Toy Story 3 hits theaters today, and it's already winning
universal acclaim as an enchanting and heartbreaking wonderwork, employing
understated 3D and a
"real-time" perspective that
deftly capitalizes on the nostalgia and can't-go-home-again angst of a generation that grew up with the series.
It has a strong pedigree, with 11-year-old predecessor
Toy Story 2 the rare sequel to equal its forebear, 1995's
Toy Story (itself the first CGI feature in history).
And it joins a lofty stable of films: over the last 15 years, Pixar has put out an unbroken chain of
ten commercial and critical successes that have grossed over $5 billion worldwide and collected
24 Academy Awards (including the
second-ever Best Picture nom for animation with
Up), a legacy that
rivals some of the greatest franchises in film history.
But there's rumbling on the horizon. Although the studio has been
hailed for its originality (of the 50 top-grossing movies in history, only nine were original stories -- and
five of them were by Pixar), two of their upcoming projects are
sequels, both of them based some of their least-acclaimed films (
Cars 2 in 2011 and
Monsters, Inc. 2 in 2012). And while 2012 will also bring
The Bear and the Bow Brave, the first Pixar flick to feature a female protagonist
[previously], fellow newcomer
Newt has been
canceled. With
WALL-E/Up/Toy Story 3 guru Andrew Stanton focusing on
his 2012 adaptation of
John Carter of Mars and with
forays into live-action already in development,
does this mark the end of the golden age of Pixar? Or is this latest entry lasting proof that even the toughest case of sequelitis can be raised to the level of masterpiece?
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 18, 2010 -
227 comments
"This is a war, and we are soldiers." The first teaser for "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" has hit the web (QT only). Is this the movie that is going to break the Spider-Man/Star Wars Episode 2 records? Do the fans want/need a sequel? Can they possibly top the "cool fight scene" quotient of the last movie?
posted by Grum
on May 15, 2002 -
23 comments
