With the success of the 3-D release of “The Lion King,” it’s no wonder a new version “Beauty and the Beast” arrives in theaters this weekend. The classic 1991 film was the first animated feature to be nominated for Best Picture and took home two Oscars for its beautiful soundtrack. More than two decades after its original release, “Beauty and the Beast” remains a timeless film that can be enjoyed by parents and children alike.

I hadn’t seen the original “Beast” in more than a decade, but the movie remains as wondrous as ever. “Beast” tells the story of a unique and beautiful woman named Belle (Paige O’ Hara), who lives in a small town with her eccentric father (Rex Everhart). She’s considered weird by the townspeople who look down at her tendency to read books and a father who spends his days inventing new contraptions. When her father is imprisoned by a monstrous beast (Robby Benson), Belle switches places with her dad and moves into a castle with the beast.

The beast, however, is more complex than she originally presumed. He previously was a good-looking man who had a curse placed upon him when he denied an ugly woman entry into his home because of her looks. Eventually, Belle and the beast start falling in love despite his outwardly appearance.

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“Mr. Popper’s Penguins” has a lot going for it, namely Jim Carrey, Angela Lansbury, the impossibly sexy Carla Gugino (even in the “mom” role) and a surprisingly watchable story that, at least, managed to hold my attention. But the cons (which your kids probably won’t notice) do, however, outweigh the pros, especially a story so tired and familiar you can see the plot turns miles before you reach the corner.

Carrey is Mr. Popper, a divorced dad who sees his kids on alternate weekends but can’t relate to them, mainly due to his workaholic ways. All Popper wants from life is to be a full partner in a ruthless Manhattan real estate firm that specializes (for no logical reason other than to make them sinister) in purchasing New York landmarks and replacing them with cold glass and steel buildings. Popper’s partnership dreams are finally within grasp when his trio of bosses (including Philip Baker Hall and Dominic Chianese) issue Popper, their best closer, a seemingly impossible challenge: purchase the only piece of privately owned land in Central Park, the Tavern on the Green, and you’ll get your name on the door.

Unfortunately for Popper, Tavern on the Green is owned by Mrs. Van Gundy (the always delightful Lansbury), and she’s less interested in money and more interested in something Popper doesn’t have — integrity and character. Popper’s pretty sure he can wear her down, though, at least until his life is suddenly complicated (I won’t spoil why this happens) by the arrival of six live penguins at his swanky Manhattan high-rise penthouse. At first, naturally, Popper wants nothing to do with them. But in the end, will the penguins make him a better person, father, and citizen of the world?

What do you think?

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The Manchurian Candidate (1962): Director John Frankenheimer’s chilling film-noir Cold War thriller was remade in 2004 and updated with a Gulf War theme but the original, which opens in 1952 Korea, is the masterpiece. It has a complex plot but the gist of it is that an American platoon was captured and sent to Manchuria where they were subsequently brainwashed before being released back to their units under a phony story and unaware of their ordeal. After the war it is gradually revealed that Staff Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) has been trained to be an unwitting assassin – to be activated by his own domineering mother (Angela Lansbury) who is also a communist agent.

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Shaw’s bombastic stepfather, Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), is a politician on the rise – and also a communist agent – who is a part of a plot that will take him all the way to the White House. At a crucial moment Shaw is to be activated by his mother to kill her husband’s rival, thereby initiating a series of chaotic events that will ultimately install the “Manchurian Candidate” into power.

But all along another former platoon member, Maj. Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), suffers recurring flashbacks and dreams about the time they all spent as prisoners in Manchuria and comes to suspect that he and the others were in fact brainwashed. Eventually he uncovers the plot, finds Shaw, and discovers just how far it goes. Shaw, clueless throughout, is a tragic figure as he comes to realize his condition and moves to act accordingly. (more…)

EXCERPT FROM Burt Prelutsky’s: Liberals: America’s Termites or It’s a Shame That Liberals, Unlike Hamsters, Never Eat Their Young

Although, as a rule, those people who star in movies are more obnoxious than their colleagues in television – perhaps because we’re not inviting them into our homes – the folks on TV tend to be even whinier.           

The question that comes to mind is when appearing on the tube went from being a well-paid privilege to being an inalienable right. 

So far as I know, it first became an issue when “Murder She Wrote,” a CBS staple from 1984 to 1996, was canceled.  The phenomenon may have pre-dated that event, but that’s when I became aware of the sea change.  Prior to that, diehard fans were naturally disappointed whenever one of their favorite shows bit the dust, but it was understood that nothing went on forever. 

However, in 1996, Angela Lansbury went ballistic over her show’s demise, even though it had already made her enormously wealthy.  As I recall, Ms. Lansbury felt that CBS had not treated her and the show with the proper reverence.  She didn’t seem to realize that a pink slip is a pink slip, and should not be confused with a condolence card.  In any case, I felt that someone should have pointed out to the lady that CBS is a corporation and not a friend of the family – although God knows this particular corporation had been enormously generous to her family, most of whom had wound up on the show’s payroll – and that a 13-year run is about as reverential as TV ever gets.  (more…)

In what is becoming an annual rite of self-destruction, Broadway has once again chosen to snub many of the big-name stars who have put their film careers on hold to trudge onto the boards eight times a week, take a significant pay cut, and run the risk of being ridiculed for being unable to cut the mustard as a theatre actor  (As Alan Swan famously said before having to appear on live television in “My Favorite Year”:  ‘I’m not an actor, damn you, I’m a movie star!’).  This week’s announcement of nominees for Broadway’s top prize, the Tony Award, was more newsworthy for the names left off the list than for the relatively unfamiliar names singled out for the honor. 

Nathan Lane and John Goodman are selling tickets hand over fist for their revival of “Waiting for Godot” but neither received the honor of a nomination.  Same with David Hyde Pierce, Frank Langella, Mary Louise Parker and Matthew Broderick. 

It was no surprise that Jeremy Piven was included out of the Best Actor category after his famous sushi defense for missing performances in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow,” but not honoring John Lithgow’s brilliant turn in “All My Sons” in the same category is a crime against humanity!  It ranks up there with the snub of Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the 1984 revival of “Death of a Salesman.” Brian Dennehy was honored with the Best Actor award when he did Willy Loman in 2000, but that goodwill did not anoint him worthy of a nomination this year for his turn in “Desire Under the Elms.”  (more…)