13 March 2001

Atlantis is about the search for the lost island of Atlantis, headed up by a Michael J. Fox voiced version of a young Dean Jones known as Milo. With the support of a slightly wacked out Howard Hughes type who made a promise, voiced by John Mahoney, Milo sets out with a band of mercenaries, led by James Garner’s voice. It isn’t long before one realizes that Atlantis is something we have never seen from Disney... a straight action adventure cartoon.

There are no anthropomorphic animals. No musical numbers. No Rosie O’Donnell. No Rice, no John, no Menken... not even a Zimmer. This is a move-it-along action flick with a multi-national, age-varied, sex-unbiased group of characters in a story that has spiritual overtones that are unusually accepting of spirituality beyond the Judeo-Christian world. Don Hahn, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale took a lot of elements we’ve seen before and cobbled them together in a way we’ve never seen before... not that this is a huge animation breakthrough. But we know most of these characters and yet they remain fresh and interesting throughout.

That’s the good news. And the bad news. We have seen this before. That won’t keep a solid film from doing $130 million, even in a competitive animation market this summer. But the question for Atlantis, as it is for Shrek and Osmosis Jones, is whether its core constituency will make it - or any of the trio - a mega hit in the $200 million range.

In the materials they handed out, the studio offers up the Atlantean alphabet that they use in the movie. Let’s hope that no one decided to get cute, because you can be sure that someone is going to sit there and watch every DVD frame, decoding every word. Just you wait for the first rumor.

Anyway... good film. A solid double, heading towards third. And then... the kind of magic that makes Disney Disney. High above the room, a woman hangs from the ceiling, slowly descending into the room. It’s impossible to describe one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen... and it wasn’t because the woman was identifiably anything other than simply talented.

And then, the stage in front of us came to life... with dancers, with swimmers, with tumblers, with characters... even the stage itself seemed to be breathing. In the wings, above the audience and behind gauze, the live orchestra. Every time the room seems to be as deep as one could imagine, it got a little deeper. It was a 5 dimensional performance. There was no human way to take it all in, though you were always aware, whatever layer you were focused on, that there was activity in the foreground and the background. Amazing. I, myself, am not a Cirque De Soleil fan. I’m good for about five minutes of tumbling before I check out. But this was something unlike anything I’ve ever seen. In the silence of the art, the audience had to tell itself what the story really was. And that is a beautiful thing. I’m sure that two people could make strong arguments for different stories living on stage while watching the same show. Disney gave us about 20 minutes of the show and that may have been the perfect dose. But I will probably go back to this show... and I don’t do Vegas shows... to find out for myself.

For me, this was easily the highlight of the ShoWest 2001 experience. Bravo to Disney. And I liked the film too. It was kind of like Oscars... people ask why Miramax can get a film like Chocolat nominated for Best Picture... so, why is Disney the top dog on the animated scene? This is why. They took a good movie and created an afternoon of absolute magic.

THE FUTURE OF SHOWEST: Well, I’m just about out of space, aren’t I? Over 1800 words to this point means that another 1000+ on ShoWest is just too much. So, look for that tomorrow.

THE END OF ROUGHCUT: Today marks the final end of roughcut.com, as the last vestiges of the site exit our Larchmont Blvd. offices. Almost 6 weeks after the shutdown, I am still not completely severed from the company. But that laundry will remain in my hamper. I just wanted to acknowledge, one last time, the extraordinary efforts of Scot Safon and Cindy Campbell on roughcut’s behalf. And of course, one more thank you to all the people who worked under the roughcut banner in its 5-year run. I thank some of you more than others, but I think you will all know which ones of you I would like to hug and which ones I would like to hug to death. Oscar night will be something of a personal rebirth for me, as another former roughcut editor-in-chief, Andy Jones, and I team up for E!’s Oscar pre-show and post-show. The more things change...

Onward.

READER OF THE DAY: JR writes about yesterday’s A.I. blurb: "Pregnant ladies gestate; people who talk with their hands gesticulate. And if that was deliberate, then you get four points for non-sequitur use."

And 506 Dalmatians points out that I wrote: "Haley Joel Osment gets a chance to work in white face make-up and none of the 99 percent white crowd seemed politically disturbed in the least."

He then comments: "I don't really understand this comment.  Why would they be?  White-face make-up seems brings to mind for me clowns, mimes, etc. but it has no negative racial baggage like black face make-up does.  Just wondering what made you point that out."

E ME: I was just trying to make people think. What makes you think?