A good story, well told. And a re-release from Walt’s vault.

Today seems to be a random article kind of day, so here I go …

I have a profound love of children’s literature and all its unabashedly stark metaphors and I believe the bridge between stories like “Goodnight Moon” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is relatively short. The outbreak of war or the need to succumb to sleep are both profound enough to elicit the same response:

We see clearly the things we love and cherish when faced with our own mortality.
Heartbreaking and fantastic, such is life.

Maybe Poe said it best:
“Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?”

When I was growing up, the written word and the moving image played equally important roles in my understanding of this world. Films let me see the faces, and books let me understand the ideas, a synthesis of sympathize and recognize.

Few filmmakers could marry the idea and the image like Disney. It is easy to write off their early films as simple fluff, but watch this clip (sub-par quality, I know. Buy the DVD) and be reminded that some Disney villains meant serious business:

Maleficent, and all the powers of Hell.

Speaking of DVD, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ will be rereleased as a two-disk Platinum Edition (DVD & Blu-ray) on October 7th, 2008.