We Know What We're Doing

Posthuman Blues

Pre-Marvel Disney

The third cartoon released by Disney. Directed by Ub Iwerks, it was the first Disney cartoon to feature synchronized sound. Disney used Pat Powers' Cinephone system, created by Powers using Lee De Forest's Phonofilm system without giving De Forest any credit, a business move he repeated often.

Devil lives in N.Cal

Tom Waits plays the Devil in the upcoming Terry Gilliam film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus due out October 13.

Works for me

More Useless Sophistication

California Representative: Michael Duvall

Family values Mike got busted. Already with the denials, higher standards, rehab, deeply saddened, and massive bla-bla. Setting aside the effective red herring of morality, what really ticks people off, liberal, conservative, and real, is that the leadership of both sides consider themselves exempt from the very laws they enact. In an ostensibly classless, democratic republic, this raises some hackles. A number of government theorists and schools teach that a certain sophistication is needed in evaluating these incidents. Government as parens patriae and so on. Baloney. Walk it like you talk it.

Getting in Trouble

via Susan

Hollywood II

Robert Zemeckis is negotiations to direct a remake of Yellow Submarine for Disney, says The Hollywood Reporter. Like all Zemeckis productions, the film would be done in performance capture and would also be a digital 3D endeavor. Disney is still negotiating for the music.

If I remember correctly, one of the definitions of decadence is useless sophistication. The Prisoner (II), Ghost in the Shell (Live action), Popeye (Robin Willams riffing on Max Fleischer): hardly anyone thinks the improvments were improvments. East European and Japanese animation houses, Bollywood, and English soundstages are currently producers of choice. When, not if, they decide to disintermediate the dreaded Hollywood Movie Executive... (some of the best westerns were Italian) Strong anti-piracy laws, heartfelt testimony before Congress, and union baiting ain't going to do Jack if the best you got is Land of the Lost (The Movie).

Levon Helm

Tennessee Jed