This just in from filmmaker Aaron Pacentine:

[I'm a filmmaker and producer with FamilyFilmsProductions.com I wanted to bring to your attention a brand new independent documentary film on The Parent Trap. Hayley Mills is participating and others from the 1961 film and sequels. I have already received clearance from Disney to go ahead with my documentary. We are also in the process of arranging to using music from the 1961 film as well.  

 We are trying to get the word out on the project and trying to raise the funds.]

I have no information about the project beyond this. I might support it this week.

I have not yet received this very specialized reference book but I know that some of you will want to know that it has just been released.

This book is pure images and no text. This is not a book for historians. It is one for Pixar hardcore fans and art directors.

I enjoyed it very much but I do not consider it a "must have."

Talk about a book that took me completely by surprise. With a title like this I was expecting a pure "marketing" product. Not so at all. This is an outstanding book, full of never-seen-before illustrations and photographs, and impeccably researched by Marcy Carriker Smothers, an author who clearly cares deeply about her subject matter.

This is a book that will be a pure delight to fans of Walt Disney himself and to Disneyland enthusiasts. I never thought I would say this about a book titled Eat Like Walt, but this is clearly a "must have" for many of us.

Outside world events rarely influence what is posted on this blog, but it happens from time to time.

They Drew As They Pleased - Volume 4 (Chronicle Books, 2018) will feature a chapter about Disney artist Walt Peregoy. Before he joined Disney for good, Peregoy created this beautiful drawing featuring the US, Russia and the UK defeating Hitler and Nazism...

Anyway... Brighter things tomorrow with a rave review of a book I was originally not expecting to like.

I just received recently a review copy of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons by Dave Bossert and David Gerstein. From my standpoint there is no doubt that this is a "must have."

It is full of never-seen-before artwork, photographs and illustrations (and I mean from cover to cover) and the text will allow you to know absolutely all there is to know to date about all the Oswald cartoons. I was utterly fascinated when I read an early version of the manuscript a few months ago.

Then again, I am biased, since I played a small part in this quest by strongly recommending to Dave and David to work together on this project (the quest for the lost Oswald and Alice cartoons not the book itself). I can't tell you how excited I am with the results and with the number of "new" Oswald shorts that they have re-discovered.

I will be reviewing two wonderful new Disney history books over the next few days, but in the meantime my good friend and animation historian John Canemaker has just released the first review of They Drew As They Pleased - The Hidden Art of Disney's Late Golden Age and I though you might enjoy reading it.