IMAX 'Fantasia': the bigger, the better

By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 16, 2000

Movies usually get smaller with age, moving from theaters to home video. Today's release of Fantasia 2000 to multiplexes adds another clause to the law of diminishing returns.

Disney's updated animated classical music showcase opened Jan. 1 in 76 IMAX theaters worldwide. The only way anyone could see the film was in IMAX dimensions, about four times the audio and visual impact of a good multiplex auditorium.

Orlando was the closest location, since Tampa's IMAX Dome Theater declined Disney's demands for exclusivity and higher revenues. Fantasia 2000 was worth the trip. Later, I revisited the film at an IMAX venue in Las Vegas and was again moved by the experience. This much imagination, this much musical virtuosity, need room to operate.

The reduction in scope to fit standard theaters does make a difference, judging from a preview at Veterans 24 in Tampa in one of its best auditoriums.

Fantasia 2000 does look and sound great in multi-channel stereo and 35mm projection, but can't match the massive IMAX format.

However, if the film itself suffers, it's only by comparison for viewers who saw Fantasia 2000 in its jumbo presentation. Size and volume don't make much difference in the fluid animation, grand humor and pathos, and exquisite performances of seven musical masterworks.

One segment is actually improved by the transition. The Sorcerer's Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse, is the only cartoon reprised from the 1940 original. The remastered version looked faded and faintly blurred under IMAX magnification. Those blemishes aren't apparent in the smaller image.

Six new segments were designed with IMAX in mind, using computer animation to interpret compositions by Elgar, Shostakovich and others. The best segment is still George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue serving as a Manhattan serenade for four happy endings in the style of Al Hirschfeld's caricatures.

Styles range from the opening, abstract bats/butterflies of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to a sweeping climax of environmental renewal inspired by Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. They can be as majestic and hallucinatory as flying whales in Respighi's Pines of Rome or as silly as a flamingo with a yo-yo in Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals. Fantasia 2000 is a splashy primer in classical music for young ears.

Comic relief, but not much music education, is provided by celebrity hosts, including Steve Martin, Penn and Teller and Bette Midler. James Levine conducts the dynamic Chicago Symphony Orchestra with arrangements of integrity for the classics.

Disney plans to keep Fantasia 2000 in theaters for only four weeks. See it now before it shrinks to television size. Grade: A.

PSYCH OUT -- A 5-month film series sponsored by the Tampa Psychoanalytic Society concludes Sunday at Tampa Museum of Art. "Projections: Art and the Psychoanalysis of Film" focuses on interpersonal relationships depicted in movies, with panel discussions after the show.

Sunday's final session features James Ivory's 1987 drama Maurice, starring Hugh Grant as a man dealing with his homosexuality in 19th-century England. After the screening, psychiatrist Lycia Alexander Guerra and USF art history professor David Wright will comment on the film's themes, encouraging audience participation.

Show time is 1:15 p.m. Admission is $5, with discounts available to students, museum members and Tampa Psychoanalytic Society members. The museum is at 600 N Ashley Drive in downtown Tampa. Call (813) 274-8130 for information.

SARASOTA PREMIERE -- Six months after the Sarasota Film Festival ended, and six months before it returns in 2001, organizers are staying limber with a fundraising premiere of an original cable-TV film.

Crossfire Trail, directed by Simon Wincer (Lonesome Dove), is based on one of Louis L'Amour's Western novels. The film, produced by and starring Tom Selleck, will make its debut on TNT network in September. A screening will be held June 24 at Sarasota's Hollywood 20 multiplex, with a reception following at Longboat Key Club.

Selleck is scheduled to attend the film and party with Wincer and co-stars Joanna Miles and Brad Johnson. Tax-deductible tickets are $125. Call (941) 364-9514 for reservations and information.