Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Oncoming Dimensions

Now with Add On!

Beauty and the Beast, which was converted to 3-D before The Lion King, is only now getting a nation-wide roll-out. (Big box office grosses have a magical pull on movie execs.) This week, corporate hearts at Diz Co. beat faster in anticipation of opening weekend ...

... “Beauty and the Beast” [is the second most popular new release in the Yahoo Search box.] Despite the original film being 20 years old, searches are starting to roar. Over the past seven days, web searches for “beauty and the beast” are up 44%. Related look-ups on “beauty and the beast 3d” are up over 238%. Roughly 25% of the searches come from kids 17 and under. In other words, people who weren't even alive when the film first hit back in 1991..

Since B and B 3-D has already been out on the little silver disks, it's anyone's guess how it performs two days hence.

Add On: Richard Corliss in TIME again give Beauty and the Beast a rave... and this about the new Dimensions:

... For the new edition, the 3-D filigree work — which comprises perhaps 30 or 40% of the film, allowing you to watch most of it without the glasses — sends wood shavings, bats, tree leaves and rain hurtling out of the screen. The process is sometimes an ornament, once or twice a distraction, but it doesn’t materially dilute the still-sublime experience. ...

And of course, there are more conversions to come. In the Fall we get this choice morsel:

13 comments:

Mark Mayerson said...

If The Artist wins best picture, will Disney re-release all its features in black and white?

Anonymous said...

The Artist is WAY over rated.

That said--I'd love to see Fantasia as a silent film....(!)

blah said...

any time now..."Finding Nemo on Ice" in 3d.....

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see 3D on Ice...

Anonymous said...

I guess the only hand-drawn animation we'll be getting from Disney are re-releases of older movies. Too bad.

Btw, I've recently had the opportunity to watch "Adam and Dog" and it was amazing!

I get why Disney won't be producng any more 2D features but why did they stop making hand-drawn shorts? They could have kept this artform alive even just in short form.

Anonymous said...

Witty.

PS) The 1940's called, they want their humor back.

Anonymous said...

PPS) That was directed to the ice comment 2 above...

Anonymous said...

I get why Disney won't be producng any more 2D features but why did they stop making hand-drawn shorts

Who says they stopped? There's plenty of stuff Steve doesnt report about on this blog

Anonymous said...

If they are producing hand drawn films I'll be there with my movie ticket ready to play my role, including all hand drawn re-releases.

Anonymous said...

Just as a friendly suggestion to the people who run this blog:

Report stuff about Studio Ghibli and/or Studio madhouse, such as next month's arrietty release. This is the only 2d animation left in this world outside of television and is, frankly, the only animation I can watch nowadays.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, most Japanese cartoons are juvenile and poorly produced.

David said...

^

Except he wasn't talking about "most Japanese cartoons" , he was talking about Studio Ghibli and Studio Madhouse. There is a difference.

If you want to read some caustic criticism of "most Japanese cartoons" then look no further than Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyasaki. He's not a fan of most Japanese anime either.

You could generalize further and just say that "most animation" is juvenile and poorly produced . (Japanese, U.S., etc.) but that doesn't take away from the good stuff.

Anonymous said...

I get Crunchyroll on my Roku box, and I can tell you that there is plenty of Japanese TV anime that blows most American TV cartoons out of the water. Better art, animation, character design, story, characters, backgrounds...you name it. The characters are often brighter and more kind-hearted than most American TV cartoon characters too. Overall, I'd rather my kids watch anime than empty-headed drivel like Fairly Oddparents.

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