“Beauty and the Beast,” the title track from the soundtrack, was the brainchild of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Menken’s score took home the top honor that night as well. This animated masterpiece even got nominated for Best Picture — it lost out to “The Silence of the Lambs.”

With such a glowing history, and as one of Disney’s crown jewels, why would the studio now decide to re-release “Beauty and the Beast” in 3D? Sure, Disney’s theatrical history is built on the concept of re-releasing an animated classic into the movie houses every few years. However, 3D is already overused, and has some analysts speculating that the visual technology is losing steam, fast.

Following the triumphant return to animation glory with “The Little Mermaid,” Disney proved this type of moviemaking was worth fighting for, like Walt had done all those years ago. Thank then wunderkind Jeffrey Katzenberg for figuring out a way to jolt the animation department back to life. What happened between then and now to see Disney pander to 3D fans?

Perhaps Pixar is to blame. The once independent computer animation house, now back at Disney, has made a lot of money producing 3D animated features, including the critically praised “Up” and “Toy Story 3.” Those films, however, are not in the vein of hand-drawn animation, an art that has nearly faded into the annals of moviemaking history. “Beauty and the Beast” was an example of how such artistry can still dazzle.

In Roger Ebert’s original review of “Beauty and the Beast,” he noted that the film “reaches back to an older and healthier Hollywood tradition in which the best writers, musicians and filmmakers are gathered for a project on the assumption that a family audience deserves great entertainment, too.” The lauded critic has recently been attacking 3D technology. One can only imagine how he will react, if at all, to Disney retrofitting such a glorious film to use that annoying technology.

Would Walt have been on board with such a shift? He was notoriously unhappy with all of his animated features, always trying to find ways to fix something up until the last possible moment. He even managed to correct sloppy animation in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” before it got a wide release. But, Walt was working towards perfection, not adopting the latest trend. He broke new ground, as opposed to following the herd. Had he not, the concept of a feature length animated film might have never become reality. Hopefully, 3D will be a short-lived trend, and it is worrisome to see Disney turning its classic films into trendy bits of entertainment.

All of that changed when Lincoln Center’s annual Midsummer Night Swing imported The Time Jumpers, a group of well-respected western musicians from Nashville that are nearly the only ones left keeping Western Swing music alive. To see this old fashioned bunch of artists take the outdoor stage at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park was quite a unique experience. New Yorkers gathered around the stage, decked out in cowboy boots and hats, ready to do some two stepping on the specially designed dance floor.

“The Time Jumpers only play a couple road dates a year,” Ranger Doug Green told me while we chatted backstage before the performance. When not playing with this group, Green keeps busy as the lead singer of an equally impressive western band, Riders in the Sky. The fact that Green and his band-mates agreed to play New York City put a smile on his face. “It’s the most exciting town on Earth and we have a great turn out.”

Green, a self-professed music historian, reminisced about the seeming lost art of Western Swing, pinning the original style to musician Bob Willis. “Back in the 1930s, [Willis] took the fiddle music he grew up with and mixed it with Benny Goodman which he was hearing on the radio and mixed the two together.” While that sound dropped off the pop culture radar when rock music swept the scene in the 1950s, Green beams with pride, asserting that the Time Jumpers are keeping it alive.

On Monday nights, The Time Jumpers play a regular gig at Nashville’s Station Inn, where much of the crowd finds western swing a bit foreign. “We have the older people that remember the music,” fiddler Kenny Sears told me backstage, “but we also get college students sent by their professors to study the music and younger kids who think we are doing something new.”

The Time Jumpers songbook is comprised mostly of songs from the likes of Bob Willis and another western classic, Spade Cooley. Names that don’t ring a bell with the crowd listening to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, nor for that matter the tweens bopping to country acts like Taylor Swift or the Dixie Chicks. But, when Green mentioned the name Cooley to me, my ears perked up. My grandfather, Harry Sims, had been a western musician and played with the likes of Tex Williams and Cooley. It turned out that Green’s other band, Riders in the Sky, actually recorded a version of a song my grandfather composed, “You Stole My Wife, You Horsethief.”

Perhaps my grandfather’s link to the era of western music that the Time Jumpers were playing that night is what has kept me interested in the genre, but it didn’t take a family connection to get the lively crowd of New Yorkers to don their country best and dance at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing. With such enthusiasm on the Upper West Side of New York City last week, and popular artists like Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow and Elvis Costello making trips to Nashville for the Time Jumpers, perhaps it is time Manhattan got into the country western groove. Until then, this summer’s Time Jumpers experience at Lincoln Center will have to tide this country western fan over for a while.

I am currently spending the summer working as Lincoln Center’s first Blogger-in-Residence. Read more about The Time Jumpers and Midsummer Night Swing on my blog, Summer at Lincoln Center.

Of course, Mamet makes sure to tout his latest Broadway contribution, Race, currently playing in New York City through August 21, 2010. While shows like Lend Me a Tenor and Promises, Promises ring true to his theory that only unfunny plays are being staged on Broadway, he failed to mention the touchingly funny Next Fall or stirring Red as worthy theatrical offerings that are still up-and-running. Mamet should have used his short moment on national television to attack Broadway’s insistence on inserting Hollywood actors in plays. But, of course, Mamet himself has been feeding that frenzy with his last two productions, Race and Oleanna, both of which were star magnets.

Broadway actor Hunter Foster has picked up that more worthy fight with the creation of a Facebook group titled “Give the Tonys Back to Broadway!!,” which sets out to urge the Tony Awards producers to allow “those artists who have made theatre their livelihood to take a more active part in its yearly presentation.” The group has more than 3,362 members at the time of writing this article.

“I want to draft a letter and start a petition to send to the Tony committee. Lets make a difference!” Foster said in an email.

If the Broadway community could combine the sentiments of both Mamet and Foster, perhaps the next few years could be prosperous not just to the pocket books of theatrical producers but to the art form itself. Watering town Broadway with unfunny revivals and star-studded productions spells disaster for all those that call live theatre home.

Steve Jobs, the visionary behind Apple’s magic gadgets, descended on San Francisco today to introduce the iPhone 4 to press and technology geeks at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2010.

As everyone cheered for Jobs and his interactive presentation, including a sneak peak at iMovie for the iPhone — the phone will be able to shoot in 720p HD video, which can then be edited in the new app — and front-camera video chatting through the use of “FaceTime.”

Allowing users to video chat via WiFi is a feature many people knew was in the pipeline, so its introduction wasn’t a major revelation, however, along with the feature demonstration was the premiere of a video commercial that director Sam Mendes created for Apple.

Mendes, the Hollywood director behind the cult-classic “American Beauty” and Broadway’s revival of “Cabaret,” helmed a spot for the iPhone 4 and used some touching scenarios to show how powerful “FaceTime” is. With Louis Armstrong playing in the background, the Mendes commercial shows a father chatting with his wife and baby, a mother-to-be broadcasting a sonogram to her military husband and a deaf couple using sign language. Cue the heartstrings.

Enjoy the commercial:

It is nearly impossible to dismiss the fact that Broadway experienced a rather lackluster year, star-studded shows or not, as can easily be seen by the list of Tony nominations. When musicals like “Memphis” and “Million Dollar Quartet” are able to snag nods for best musical, and the dreaded “Addams Family” can be listed as having one of the best original scores, it’s certain that the creative juices flowing around Times Square were strained this past season.

Perhaps this season is slightly a result of the recession bounce-back effect. In late 2008, as the realities of a recession were preparing to strike Broadway, the New York Post’s Michael Riedel reported that “backers who regularly used to cut checks for $200,000 have all but vanished.”

There were, of course, Broadway cheerleaders during those hard times, claiming that art would endure and the show would go on, but what turned out to be more accurate was that the full effect of scared theatre funders and opportunistic producers would not be completely realized for years to come.

Just look at the celebrity-filled stages over the past few seasons, culminating in a string of Hollywood productions this time around. From Catherine Zeta-Jones in “A Little Night Music” — audiences would never eat their musical vegetables like this show without a celebrity endorsement — Jude Law in “Hamlet,” Christopher Walken in “A Behanding in Spokane,” Denzel Washington in “Fences,” and so on.

Production costs on Broadway are through the roof, as it costs upwards of $3 million to put on a play while musicals can run between $7 million and $11 million, according to FoxBusiness.com. It’s no wonder that producers felt squemish about relying on actual art to sustain a production. After all, “A Steady Rain” proved that a complete bore could become a hit merely because it featured Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, while a worthy revival like “Ragtime” couldn’t find an audience as it had no Hollywood-linked names.

Thank goodness for the Tony nominating committee realizing “Ragtime” and “Finian’s Rainbow” were deserving of a nod for best revival of a musical, although the frontrunner is the Kelsey Grammer starring “La Cage aux Folles.”

Every name in the best leading actor in a play category can claim Hollywood stardom, from Law, Walken and Washington to Alfred Molina (“Red”) and Liev Schreiber (“A View from the Bridge”). All gave award-worthy performances, but that could be due to the lack of opportunity for a regular Broadway Joe in this creative dry spell.

Broadway’s one-time crown jewel, Kristin Chenoweth, has spent more time in Los Angeles than on the stage since her exceptional turns in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” and “Wicked,” leading to an experiment gone wrong in this year’s “Promises, Promises.” Her name is nowhere to be found on the Tony ballot.

The most intriguing production to hit Broadway this time around was “American Idiot,” a concert-like musical based on the music of Green Day and shepherded to the stage by director Michael Mayer. While the show is by no means another “Spring Awakening” — a show that wasn’t even the next “Rent,” despite what teen audiences would have you believe — it was certainly the most creative idea to hit Broadway this season, although “Fela!” gives it a run for its money in that category. Of course, don’t look for “Idiot” to get much love on Tony night, as the show was mostly snubbed by the nominators.

Plays fared a little better, with “Enron,” “Time Stands Still,” “Next Fall” and “Red” all proving that good pieces of art have a place on Broadway — all but the London-born “Enron” have been able to stay open for more than a few weeks, while “Time Stands Still” is gearing up to re-open only a few months after closing.

If I were chosen to vote for the best productions on Broadway this past season — feel free to take me up on that idea, Tony folks — my picks would look something like this: “Next Fall” as best play, “American Idiot” as best musical, “Everyday Rapture” as best book of a musical, “Enron” as best original score, “A View from the Bridge” as best revival of a play, “Ragtime” as best revival of a musical, Liev Schreiber as best leading actor in a play, Viola Davis as best leading actress in a play, Douglas Hodge as best leading actor in a musical and Sherie Rene Scott as best leading actress in a musical. And Mayer didn’t even get nominated for his direction of “Idiot,” so I’d abstain from that category.

The most dramatic thing that could happen at the Tony Awards on Sunday would be if Newsweek’s Ramin Setoodeh showed up for a public beheading at the hands of the telecast’s host, Sean Hayes. Short of that spectacle, this past Broadway season will fade away into the annals of theatre history, and hopefully never be brought up again.

Kidjo’s version of the Curtis Mayfield song appears on her album “Oyo” and features vocals from Bono and John Legend. As for the music video, appearing on the Huffington Post, the Bill T. Jones trained dancers from Broadway’s “Fela!” are prominently featured throughout, giving wider exposure to an already celebrity-backed musical production.

“I am convinced that the success of the ‘Fela!’ musical on Broadway is the indisputable sign that people are now interested in the true richness, depth and beauty of African culture,” Kidjo said in a statement, according to the Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, “Fela!’s” producers are ecstatic to have their dancers show up in the video, adding that the company “was honored to participate in this beautiful music video, and we are delighted by how well the video captures both the spirit and soul of Angelique, of the ‘Fela!’ performers, and of Bill’s choreography.”

MTV knew just how iconic that “Risky Business” scene was, and decided to capitalize on it in a promotion for the upcoming MTV Movie Awards, airing June 6. While the MTV demographic, whatever that might be nowadays, might have written Cruise off as a Hollywood loon, the promo spot is a fantastic use of viral video techniques. It shows Cruise, dressed as his “Tropic of Thunder” character Les Grossman, chastising the character from “Risky Business,” forcing him to take off his pants in order to make the “Rock and Roll” scene work. Basically, it’s Funny or Die with a MTV twist. Check it out.

Jeffrey Katzenberg

It’s no wonder that Jeffrey Katzenberg and the entire DreamWorks team were weary of Nicole LaPorte’s new book, The Men Who Would Be King: An almost epic tale of moguls, movies, and a company called DreamWorks, a sweeping look at the tumultuous creation of Hollywood’s wunderkind studio. Just five years earlier, Katzenberg’s meteoric rise to success at Disney was chronicled in James Stewart’s book DisneyWar. And earlier this year, moviegoers were treated to yet a further look at the one-time studio chairman of the Walt Disney Company in the insider-documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty, a look back at the rebirth of Disney’s animation franchise.

Katzenberg, with the soft-spoken help of Roy Disney, injected new life into the animation arm of the studio following a drought that lasted more than 30 years — it wasn’t until the Katzenberg-led Little Mermaid took Hollywood by storm that critics paid attention to the integral part of Disney that birthed Mickey Mouse. Neither leaders Michael Eisner nor Frank Wells saw any life left in drawings, rather they hoped to boost the performance of live-action movies and expand Disney’s theme parks and hotels.

Following a bitter, and soon-to-be court contested departure from Disney, Katzenberg found himself trying to kick start animation at DreamWorks SKG, the studio he created with David Geffen and Steven Spielberg. If he could usher in a new era at Disney, certainly he could work the same magic across town. Or so he thought.

Antz, the first animated release under the DreamWorks banner, only made $90 million in the U.S., or as LaPorte reports, “about as much as it had cost, thanks to high-profile voice talents… no longer were actors always agreeing to make animated films on the cheap.” Then came the traditionally animated films The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado, both failing to find expected critical praise. Spirit, Sinbad and Shark Tale rounded out the list of less than stellar pieces under the one-time animation Midas’ oversight.

Despite Katzenberg being a cheerleader of traditional animation, he ignored the rest of his Disney schooling, opting instead to fill animated films with celebrities rather than heart — none of Disney’s classics relied on star power. It was the magic of fantastical storytelling, beautiful music, and even the Disney brand that made audiences fall in love with Snow White, Cinderella and the pantheon of animated masterpieces making up the studio’s rich library.

While still at Disney, Katzenberg’s buddy Geffen helped him discover the talents of musical lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, a duo that crafted the hit songs responsible for much of Mermaid’s recognition. Their next project, Beauty and the Beast, proved that Katzenberg had tapped into the formula Walt Disney used to perfection during his legendary reign. Next came Aladdin, yet another animated trophy for Katzenberg’s mantle.

Katzenberg then took the king of the jungle and created a masterpiece, one that ultimately led to his demise at Disney. The Lion King evolved from an idea that Katzenberg first discussed while on a plane ride to Euro Disney. As LaPorte writes, “the film broke every record for animated films,” taking in $700 million in box office sales, but an underling should never get too powerful. “Katzenberg was beginning to look — a bit too much for some — like the king of the Disney jungle.”

Between his time at Disney and the animation launch at DreamWorks, what went wrong?

Perhaps he was tricked into believing Robin Williams’ turn in Aladdin led to the film’s success, but that was by no means the case, at least not artistically. And in a medium that is, at its core, the most artistic form of movie making, there is an onus placed on its creators to keep to higher standards than the rest of Hollywood.

Up until DreamWorks, Katzenberg seemed to understand such unspoken rules. In the end, it appears his vendetta against Eisner clouded his judgment, leading to break-neck speeds when churning out animated films and the desire to one-up his arch nemesis, rather than work towards impressing Walt Disney, a man Katzenberg once imagined looking down from above and guiding his animated work at Disney.

The Los Angeles Times wrote that Antz, a movie voiced by such A-listers as Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone, had “no magic in the air.” Shark Tale, as LaPorte writes, was “one of the most chaotic productions to date,” thanks in large part to troubles working with Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Will Smith.

Lion King sported a somewhat well known cast of voice actors, but they did not make the film, rather the old Disney formula of heart and magic was at work.

Were it not for the Shrek franchise, Katzenberg might have never been able to puff his chest around Hollywood again, but Shrek is a film that purposely dumps on Disney’s hallmark brand of storytelling. While it is a welcome addition to animation, it by no means stands alongside Walt’s original creations, or even Katzenberg’s earlier masterpieces. In the end, Katzenberg opted to “go Hollywood” with animation, relying on celebrities and flashy technology to sell his movies, but for a one-time believer in all things Disney, he has sadly damaged the value of an art form he once championed.

This article was also published by the Huffington Post on June 4, 2010.