DISNEY AND PIXAR TO RE-RELEASE FOUR FILMS IN 3D IN 2012 & 2013

Well, why not? With “The Lion King” 3D making a fortune 17 years after its initial release, this makes perfect sense.

I do think, though, that “The Lion King” is special and that, for the other films, the novelty will wear some. If I recall, the theatrical re-release of “Star Wars” did much better than “Empire” and “Jedi.”

WARNER BROS. AND DOWNEY JR. TO REBOOT ‘PERRY MASON‘

Man, it’s just all brand-brand-brand-brand-brand now. I have never in my life been so uninterested in seeing the latest movies. I walk up to a Redbox these days having seen nothing new in months and can’t find anything worth the energy required to watch and return it.

Why would I want to watch “The Green Lantern” when I have “Superman II” at home on DVD? Why would I want to watch the latest nihilistic indie offering when I have “Abbott and Costello Go to Mars” at home? Why would I want to watch “Sucker Punch” when the original “Mission: Impossible” television series streams on Netflix?

And I don’t think it has to do with my middle age. The films made to attract teenagers when I was a teenager still entertain. Nothing I enjoyed as a younger man has lost any of its appeal.

Am I crazy or a curmudgeon or do movies simply suck like a black hole today?

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Ken Burns’ latest documentary, “Prohibition,” is a step-by-step rebuttal of the Left’s big-government ways. So says cagey New York Post columnist Kyle Smith.

But don’t tell that to Burns himself, who apparently sees Prohibition as yet another way to slam the Right’s misgivings over illegal immigration. Burns, arguably the most trusted documentary filmmaker on the scene, did just that on a Sept. 28 appearance on “The Colbert Report:”

“This is a story of single-issue political campaigns that metastasized with horrible, unintended consequences – the demonization of immigrants, smear campaigns and the loss of civil discourse,” Burns told the show’s flip host, Stephen Colbert.

Here’s betting Burns wasn’t thinking about Vice President Joe Biden calling conservatives “terrorists.”

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Apparently, instead of just wallowing in the misery that must have attended getting canned by MSNBC back in January, Olbermann has spent part of his hiatus from the public eye rubbing elbows with “top progressive…voices” like Richard Lewis, Ken Burns, and the always adorable Michael Moore (yes, the same Moore who helped raise $50,000 for the ground zero mosque and who still believes universal healthcare will work in America regardless of its miserable showing in Europe and Canada).

Moreover, Olbermann recently announced that Lewis, Burns, and Moore, will all be part of his new show, set to premier on Al Gore’s Current TV on June 20, 2011.

As it concerns Moore, this announcement is very timely because it comes on the heels of Moore’s incredibly ignorant op-ed scribbling – incredibly ignorant even for him – about our actions against the recently deceased Osama bin Laden. It appears that Moore believes our country’s image would have been better served had we captured Osama and brought him back for trial instead of just killing him on the spot.

Yet Moore’s thoughts are so incongruous that in the same op-ed in which he makes his case for a trial, he also wrote that he’s against the death penalty. By extrapolation, this can only mean that if we had in fact brought Osama back for trial, even upon finding him guilty, the most Moore would have wanted us to do for punishment would have been to sentence him to life in prison. (more…)

Great filmmaker but just a wee bit out of touch…

Left-wing Politico:

[T]he Civil War wasn’t the only thing on Burns’s mind as he visited Washington. As the budget battle continues in Congress, many lawmakers have discussed cutting off funding for public broadcasting, which has been Burns’s bread and butter for decades. …

“This is a completely foolhardy, unnecessarily partisan attempt at social engineering, of picking on something that they can score points with the base and it doesn’t make any sense and it will come back to hurt people. It won’t be a political hurt immediately, but what we’re talking about is whether we will retain our superiority as a country. That is the question. … If you’re serious about balancing the budget, then go and talk about much more significant parts of it, not a fraction of 1 percent of the whole budget. … People can make arguments about the marketplace, but if your house is on fire at 3 a.m., you don’t call the marketplace. When your road needs plowing, you don’t call the marketplace. The marketplace doesn’t have boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And while I would never suggest that public broadcasting has to do the defense of our country, it actually makes it worth defending.” 

As for the notion that the reporting of such public broadcasting outlets as PBS and NPR skew liberal, Burns says that’s nonsense. 

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Yesterday I walked into my local supermarket to find they already had a massive Christmas tree up ornamented with gift cards. Yes, it’s quickly approaching “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and that means gifts to buy, preferably before you find yourself scrambling from store to store in a panic on Christmas Eve.

With that in mind, here are five drool-worthy stocking stuffers for the cinemaphiles in your family, all of them due to be released in the next few weeks.

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1. Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection (November 2, 2010, $54.99 at Amazon)

Get hep to this, man: seven discs containing fourteen hours of TV specials and filmed concerts, with Ol’ Blue Eyes joined by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Gene Kelly, Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Denver, Bing Crosby, and of course Dino. Four of the specials have never been released, and a host of isolated TV clips are thrown in for good measure. Top it all off with a 44-page booklet chock full of rare photos and scholarly commentary, and the Chairman of the Board is truly back in all his scotch-soaked glory.

The seventh “Bonus Disc” sounds like the perfect thing to have playing in the background while you are decorating your tree: a “Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank” color TV special. (more…)

I caught a live tribute to Ted Kennedy on TV the other day. Family, friends, and colleagues were praising him as a champion for universal social justice. 

I started thinking about how much I’ve been hearing the word “universal” lately.

“Universal” is the “it” word, as in universal health care or “The Universe will guide me,” or “Leave it to the Universe.” 

There was a different word for it back in the day, more imposing but less confusing: God. But God is not a trendy word anymore. God is not popular, just like the Republicans. You are guilty by association with both. Even C.G. Jung was annoyed by it (the not calling God a ‘God’ part, not the Republicans). 

There was also that video tribute by Ken Burns to Ted Kennedy’s legacy.  (more…)