A fellow movie columnist (reputable, “name” guy, works for big-city newspaper) wasn’t permitted to post this, so he sent it to me: “Just about every movie now gets a ‘director’s cut’ DVD, but I must admit I still almost sprung out of my seat when I received a package containing Bambi: The Director’s Cut. What really got me was the sticker: ‘Contains never-before-seen footage of the death of Bambi’s mother.’ Holy moley! The original Walt Disney film never showed this traumatic event (it was signaled by the sound of a gunshot) and yet this sequence is credited with sending generations of children into therapy. I was neither here nor there when I saw it as a kid, but when I re-saw the film as an adult in a crowded theater in Boston, I could hear high-pitched voices in the audience whimpering, ‘Where’s Bambi’s mommy?’, ‘What happened?’, ‘Did Bambi’s mother die?’ and ‘Will you ever die, Mommy?’. And yet it turns out that the first cut of Bambi included an entire extra minute involving the death of Bambi’s mom, and the reaction to it wasn’t conclusively negative. There were some who thought — and some modern-day psychiatrists on the featurette agree — that the scene was quite moving and poetic. As Dr. Robert Bleb of the University of Pennsylvania states: ‘Children who see this [version] now are likely to become less troubled than audiences of the past because what they see is so much less horrific than what those other children had only to imagine.’ I’ve seen it and I think he’s right. Here’s how it goes: As in the released version, Bambi and his mom are happily frolicking to celebrate the new spring when the mom senses the approach of Man and tells Bambi to run. The two of them sprint across a field, and as the camera stays on Bambi, a shot rings out. But this time there’s a quick cut back to Bambi’s mother, whose head jerks back as her body hits the ground, sending up a thin cloud of snow dust. (A faint trickle of blood is visible behind her.) She lies on the snow, her breath vaporizing in the air, and she whispers with her last breath, ‘Bambi.’ After the vapor of the mother’s last words dissipates and her eyes become shrouded with what look like white drapes, her deer spirit levitates out of her body with newly-sprouted wings slowly flapping her heavenward while Edward H. Plumb’s lush score swells to a crescendo. A trio of sweetly chirping bluebirds escorts her up to a thick layer of white puffy clouds, which the mom’s deer spirit passes through alone. On the other side, she is greeted by a large gathering of similar deer spirits, including one who maternally licks her on the head and says in a soft voice, ‘Welcome home.’ (Gulp…talk about the cycle of life.) Then the action returns to Bambi alone in the forest as seen in the original release, with him calling for his mommy until he is greeted by his father, the Great Prince. At the end, when Bambi has triumph- antly taken his father’s place, a superimposed picture of the mother appears in the upper-left corner of the frame, in the sky. She’s smiling down at Bambi, though if you look closely her head appears to be mounted on a wall. That Walt Disney was a cruel ironist. By the way, Happy April 1st.”

“I’m on the same page with you about Dallas, but when it comes to actual Texas work being lost, that’s a whole different story. I’m a sometimes-employed actor here [in Texas], and for a lot of us the news of the Dallas shutdown is devastating. There are a lot of crew members who need something like this. (I’ve seen bumper stickers posted around sets saying ‘Shoot J.R. in Dallas’, which were made up by the Dallas Film Commission). I hope that when Fox gets this film rolling again that they hire Betty Thomas to direct because she at least knows how to do a good parody/tribute.” — Alfred Ramirez, Fort Worth, TX.

Huge earnings for Ice Age: The Meltdown (20th Century Fox), the Carlos Saldanha-directed sequel to ’02’s Ice Age, which was co-directed by Saldanha and Chris Wedges. One projection has the animated family film earning $69.5 million for the weekend. (Another studio is projecting just over $70 million.) Inside Man (Universal) will be #2, with weekend totals projected at $16,754,000. ATL (Warner Bros.) will come in second with close to $14 million. V for Vendetta (Warner Bros.) is projected to earn about $6,518,000…obviously losing steam. Stay Alive, She’s The Man, The Shaggy Dog and Slither will most likely finish in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth place. Sharon Stone‘s Basic Instinct, which opened in 1453 situations, will end up in ninth place with an estimated tally of $3,385,000…right down the toilet.

Were you happy, sad or indifferent about the Variety story two days ago (Thursday, 3.30) that the movie version of Dallas, which 20th Century Fox wanted to start shooting in May so it would be in theatres by November, had fallen apart due to the sudden depature of director Robert Luketic (Monster in Law)? I was personally delighted. Fox may find another director and the film might get made down the road, but there would be a heavy spiritual price all around. Exposure to a thing like this can give you soul cancer. The rule, of course, is that you have to chuckle at gaudy garbage movies or people will shake their heads and call you a sourpuss. To hell with these folks and all the prescription drugs in their bathroom cabinet. Anyone panting to see a Dallas movie has a void in their soul the size of the Houston Astrodome. And who would want to see John Travolta and that bizarre tennis-ball haircut of his trying to re-invigorate the spirit of J.R. Ewing? (I can hear his drawling Texas accent in my head.) Why did Luketic bolt? I’m told that Fox honchos were “shoving casting choices down his throat.” If this is true, I wonder which actor or actors were the deal-breakers? The names that had been kicking in the trades included Travolta, Jennifer Lopez (Sue Ellen Ewing), Luke Wilson (Bobby Ewing) and Shirley MacLaine (Ellie Ewing).

So Hal the coyote had a year of roaming the planet and living off the land, and then a week or so ago some New York City health services guy zapped him with a tranquilizer dart, and then Hal was caged, muzzled, bound up and whatnot. And now the poor guy’s dead…inert matter. Coyotoes are renowned for their exceptional survivor skills — they’re wily, adaptable, resourceful — and know more about the ins and outs of big city life than most humans. If Hal had never been caught he’d still be alive. We all know this. The metaphor is obvious. This is a movie. Somebody should step up and do it. I’ll pay to see it in a theatre, and I’ll buy the DVD.