Last night HE reader Aaron Lindquist saw Don Hahn and Peter Schneider‘s Waking Sleeping Beauty, a doc about the re-emergence of Disney animation from the time of ’84’s The Black Cauldron to ’94’s The Lion King, at the Art Center College of Design.

Despite an ’09 Toronto Film Festival pan by Variety‘s Rob Nelson, Lindquist calls it “amazing film” that “seems to bring closure to much of the animosity between Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy Disney.

“Their interviews were incredibly candid and filled with dimension, and about such an important period of their lives.” he writes. “It seemed a very honest account of Disney Animation from 1984 to 1994 and the work that went into those films and the struggles that went on behind-the-scenes.

“Hahn and Schneider were there for a q & a afterward and mentioned it would be playing at MOMA soon. I highly recommend it if you get the chance.

“The title alludes to Disney animation going from its nadir (like Sleeping Beauty falling under the spell) with the release of The Black Cauldron to its pinnacle with The Lion King. The doc covers the transition of Disney from the failing Ron Miller days to the Eisner-Wells-Katzenberg era and the challenges and triumphs of the animation department throughout that time.

“They literally went from almost being excised from Disney to being the reason the brand endures. All of the footage was shot by Disney employees (John Lasseter among them) over the years, in defiance of strict corporate policy. Not always high quality images, but incredibly candid stuff.

“From what they said at the q & a it seems like Disney is giving it a small release (five theaters) and will then quietly release it on video, which I think is a shame because it’s a really good film. I think there are a lot of people who would be interested to see Eisner, Katzenberg, and Disney in a human light because all they’ve seen is the media spectacle. Here’s the film’s Facebook page.”

Runaround day, stand-around day, friendly-meeting day, UPS day, FedEx day, Starbucks day, forgot-the-power-cord day, wait-in-line-at-six-or-seven-different-locations day. There’s a Lovely Bones screening early this evening, folllowed by a q & a and then an after-event.

President Barack Obama‘s West Point Afghanistan speech last night reminded us once again that the right runs this country. It sure as hell knows how to crack the whip and prompt Commanders in Chief, young or old and of whatever party, to get out the old sheet music and sing the old hymns. And the Bush Jail guards are delighted because they know they’ll never be out of a job.

As we all know the tragedy of 9/11 wasn’t a single ghastly occurence, but a match that lit a fuse that still burns and looms large. It triggered a mandate and a rationale for a never-ending war with Islamic yahoos who may want to one day attack this country with more domestic terrorism. For as long as the 9/11 fire alarm continues to clamor in our heads, we will be inmates in Bush Jail. Because guys like Barack Obama can’t finally think of anything to say or do except “kill the Islamic wackos and keep killing them until further notice.”

As long as we believe, in short, that the proverbial “Wily Pathan” (as Richard Lester‘s How I Won The War describes him at 5:40 in this clip) is constantly plotting to bring more terror to our shores, there can be no end to it.

The only way to win the war against Middle Eastern terrorism is to kill every U.S.-hating Islamic wacko and every last one of his sons and cousins, and then bury them all in a huge mass grave in the desert. And even then we wouldn’t be safe. Because there is no such condition. So we’re in jail for life. No one is leaving.

The 28th Amendment, the still-unmade thriller about a young U.S. president who discovers the existence of a secret cabal that runs (and has always run) the foreign policy of the government, is not fiction.

I’m perfectly fine with the pace of the subtitled narrative in Matt Zoller Seitz‘s video essay about Clint Eastwood‘s career-long theme of revenge, called “Kingdom of The Blind.” Some have said it moves along too fast but not for me. MZS has nonethless said he’ll be launching a version later today (possibly by noon) that will be friendlier to readers who prefer a slower pace..

I was half taken and half irked with Brian DePalma‘s Carrie when I first saw it in ’76. But the bit that happens at 6:33 made me jump out of my seat, and I was thereafter sold on the idea of DePalma being a kind of mad genius. I was gradually divested of this view in subsequent years, sad to say. Actually by The Fury, which was only two years later.

To me DePalma was at his craftiest and most diabolical in Greetings, Hi, Mom, Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise and Carrie. Bit by bit and more and more, everything post-Carrie was one kind of problem or another (except for Scarface).

Many, many days ago the Hollywood Reporter‘s Gregg Kilday, Jay A. Hernandez and Borys Kit posted a review of the ten biggest flops of the last decade. By the standard of the greatest production cost to deadbeat-gross ratio, the worst wipeout was 2002’s The Adventures of Pluto Nash ($100 million production tab vs. $4.4 million domestic gross) followed by ’01’s Town and Country ($90 million in costs vs. $6.7 million in domestic earnings). The others are Battlefield Earth, Land of the Lost, Gigli, Catwoman, The Invasion, Rollerball, Grindhouse and The Spirit.

My God, she doesn’t even inhale! Takes a drag, blows it out a second or two later — obviously not attuned to the potential cannabis experience.

Yes, I realize that Roger Durling‘s decision to invite The Blind Side star Sandra Bullock to take part in a Santa Barbara Film Festival dog-and-pony show means he’s betting that she’s got some serious Best Actress heat. (Tapped out on iPhone at AMC Lincoln Square before Up In The Air all-media.)

Envelope/Gold Derby columnist Tom O’Neil is claiming that the forthcoming Best Picture win by Precious at the indie Spirit Awards next March (O’Neil believes it’s a foregone conclusion) is as much if not more about the Spirits’ rivalry with the New York-based Gotham awards as the quality of Lee Daniels‘ film.

“As expected, Independent Spirit Awards lavished nominations upon Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire today, thereby addressing the film’s ridiculous snub by the other, rival prize for independent films, the Gotham Awards, which gave their top trophy last night to The Hurt Locker,” O’Neil writes.

“This year’s clash between the two awards — bestowed by rival factions of an organization that split in 2006 — marks the height of absurdity in awards land. Each side is embracing one of the two top indies — The Hurt Locker or Precious — to the exclusion of the other. In the end, both awards look foolish and everybody loses.

“The Hurt Locker isn’t eligible at the Indie Spirits this year so it won’t be going head to head with Precious on awards night, but it was eligible last year and failed to be nominated for best picture. How clueless is that?

“Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie received lead- and supporting-acting bids, so we know that it was on voters’ radar. They just didn’t think it was worthy of consideration for the top prize. Instead, the Spirit nominees were Ballast, Frozen River, Rachel Getting Married, Wendy and Lucy and the winner, The Wrestler.

“In recent months, The Hurt Locker has built up deafening buzz. The Gotham Awards — based in Manhattan — saw their chance to swoop in and give The Hurt Locker the kudos love it should have received from their Los Angeles counterpart, but, strangely, the Gothams decided to snub the other top indie film in the process: Precious.”

(Which I incidentally feel was an okay move.)

“Get the picture? Can you guess what’s going to win the Indie Spirit Award this year? Does it even matter that there are four other nominees: (500) Days of Summer, Amreeka, Sin Nombre and The Last Station?

Among Empire‘s gallery of iconic movie role portraits, this shot struck me more than any other. What, honestly, was your first reaction to it? Your second reaction, most likely, was that Daniel Radcliffe is wearing the most complex, adult-seeming, wised-up expression among the three. But initially…?

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grinch.

The N.Y. Times has posted an amusing, very clever little video piece about how David Carr has handed the Carpetbagger reins to Melena Ryzik. Refresh Content’s Nick Dawson graciously sent the embed code along [which I had to remove due to an automatic launch function], and yet the fact remains that somebody in the Times pipeline is refusing to make the code easily available.

It would be one thing if the piece was easily findable on YouTube, but it’s not…if it’s there at all. I’d prefer to grab a YouTube code because the one Dawson sent me automatically launches the video whenever a reader refreshes the HE page.

I called the Times a few times and left messages…nothing. An embed code is not going to re-direct traffic to someone else’s site, and yet the Times — increasingly isolated in its mule-like refusal to roll with the 21st Century swing of things — refuses to let dumb guys like me (i.e., who can’t figure how to capture the code inside the guts of the Times website) access their codes and post their videos.

Can someone from the Times at least send me a code that won’t automatically launch the video?

The week’s least intriguing Avatar article comes from Vanity Fair‘s usually engaging Julian Sancton, who interviews the guy hired to crate the Na’vi language — i.e., Paul Frommer, Professor of Clinical Management Communication at U.S.C.

Sanction: “How would you greet someone who called you on the phone in Na’vi, if there were such things as phones on Pandora?” Frommer: “I would say, ‘Kaltxi. Ngaru lu fpom srak?’ Which is kind of, ‘Hello, how are you?'” The piece includes a sound file of Frommer saying this.