Theodore Bikel: A Living Legend
Theodore Bikel: A Living Legend
CATCHING UP WITH BLU-RAYS
As I said in my recent post, I’ve been laggard in keeping up to date on this website. The…
Ballers: The Reinvention of a Man—Watch the Trailer
Ballers: The Reinvention of a Man—Watch the Trailer
Theodore Bikel: A Living Legend
Several weeks ago I had the privilege of hosting an onstage conversation with Theodore Bikel, one day after his 91st birthday, at American Jewish University here in Los Angeles. The University had just screened his documentary Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem, which has been making the rounds of Jewish film festivals over the past year. Not surprisingly, the audience response was tremendous. The film opens with Bikel recalling the fateful day when the Nazis overran his home town of Vienna, and follows him to the New World and his many careers. Theo has had some health issues of late, but his mind is as sharp as ever. (He recently updated his autobiography to add “reflections upon my 90th year.”) We had a lively conversation,…
Drawing—And Admiring—Mickey Mouse
Drawing—And Admiring—Mickey Mouse
Drawing—And Admiring—Mickey Mouse
When I was a kid my first ambition was to be a cartoonist.Walt Disney’s Magazine printed tips on how to draw his most famous characters, which always began with a perfect circle. I found this challenging, which is one reason I never became a professional artist, or even a good amateur. Still, I retain a fascination with drawing and treasure my copy of Walter Lantz Easy Way to Draw, which Mr. Lantz graciously signed for me many years after I’d marked up its pages with bad renderings of Woody Woodpecker and Wally Walrus. I also got to meet Preston Blair, who created the first manual for aspiring animators in 1948 for the venerable Walter Foster publishing company. (In his much-sought-after original edition he used…
All Aboard for Tomorrowland
Brad Bird has given us the coolest movie of the year—if you share his youthful belief that the future was always supposed to be cool. That’s what I was taught to believe by such visionaries as Walt Disney, whose optimistic outlook is keenly felt in Tomorrowland. To be clear, director Bird and his co-writers, Jeff Jensen and Damon Lindelof, aren’t blind to the realities of modern life. They introduce cynicism and realism into their narrative in a way that Disney might have dodged. But ultimately they convey a message of hope that’s rare in contemporary cinema, where dystopian visions prevail. I think Walt would have approved of Bird’s alternate view. And I suspect he would have enjoyed the thrill-ride aspect of Tomorrowland. The filmmakers have…
All Aboard for Tomorrowland
All Aboard for Tomorrowland
