Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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12/17/2001 - 12/23/2001

Sunday, May 19, 2002
14:14 - The Free Spirit http://www.dreamworks.com/spirit/	(top)
Opening on Memorial Day, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is going to be one of those films that seems perfectly timed these days. True, it's about horses, which means it will probably generate a huge new fandom among 14-year-old girls. But beyond that, it's the spiritual successor of The Lion King more than anything else in the past decade-- produced by Katzenberg, animated by John Baxter, music by Hans Zimmer, and the same color keys and visual style that made TLK what it was. I just saw a "Making of Spirit" half-hour special, which went over the filmmaking techniques behind this movie-- it's the most ambitious blend of traditional 2D animation and computer/3D imaging that we've seen to date. All the characters are 3D-rendered as much as they are hand-drawn, in a technique that seems to be a new form of "rotoscoping"-- not in the sense that they're "cheating" by filming live actors and then animating over them, but in the sense that it lets them use 3D to develop the characters in live space as deftly as Pixar does with their characters... but then the 2D animation is overlaid with all the character and nuance that comes from the best Disney 2D art. The result is characters who are more alive than I've ever seen in any previous animated film, and more realistic in all their movements. It's one thing to do them all in CG, like in Dinosaur; but this blends the best of both worlds. And this in a movie based on the most difficult of all figures to animate, the animator's nightmare: the horse. Even John Baxter had to spend months studying before he was ready for this project. Anyway, the film is not about "belonging" or "finding true love" or any of that schmaltzy, overused gunk. This film is about freedom, and it's about America. The huge landscapes of the American West are as much a character in this film as any of the cast are; and the story is about a horse who refuses to be broken, upholding a theme banner of individuality and freedom being the highest of aspirations-- and supremely worth fighting for. It's a sentiment that will be very timely, it seems, now that America is being roundly criticized throughout the world for its individualism and its commitment to personal freedom over and beyond the "common good". While we're taking fire for the things that we're only just now remembering that this country stands for, it's going to be a ninety-minute balm to see wild mustangs, bald eagles, grizzlies, bison, and elk against the backdrops of Monument Valley and the Grand Tetons, and have it be presented as the very romantic paradise that it's never been shown so unabashedly to be on the big screen before. This is, after all, the first time an animated feature has been shot in CinemaScope-- and they're doing it because it seemed blasphemous to film these landscapes any other way. I don't know-- we'll see whether it's any good. But it looks like it may well be another of those film projects that's done for the pure joy of bringing certain images and a certain story to life-- like The Iron Giant and The Rescuers Down Under-- where in the triumphant whoops of pure fun we remember just why it is that Hollywood could only have happened here.