`Fantasia 2000′ won’t disappoint fans

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In theaters

FANTASIA 2000. 75 minutes, G, directed by Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas, Gaetan Brizzi and Paul Brizzi. Music performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

When Walt Disney gathered his animators to create the masterpiece that would become “Fantasia,” he did so with the intention that new animated shorts would be added to the work over time.

The idea was to create a constantly changing and evolving piece of visual art, a film that would be like no other — the imagination periodically let loose within the parameters of a set piece of work.

But in 1940, when the film — the first to feature stereo sound — was released to the public, it was skewered so completely by film critics, it bombed, so badly, in fact, that Disney withdrew his original plans and no new segments were ever added.

That is, of course, until now.

With Walt Disney’s nephew Roy at the helm, “Fantasia” is back in theaters in the form of “Fantasia 2000,” a remarkable achievement in animation that carries on Walt Disney’s dream of wedding classical music to stunning visuals. What better way for parents to introduce their children to classical music?

Fans of the original will be pleased to know that Mickey Mouse’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” has been retained while others have been axed in favor of seven new segments, including a magical piece on the flight of whales set to Ottorino Respighi’s “The Pines of Rome”; a terrific version of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Steadfast Soldier” set to Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Piano Concerto No. 2”; and a witty version of the story of Noah’s Ark set to Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.”

The latter piece stars Donald and Daisy Duck, which means Donald finally gets “Fantasia” billing with Mickey in a film hosted by Steve Martin, Bette Midler, James Levine, Itzhak Perlman, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, Quincy Jones, and Penn and Teller.

Grade: A-

BOYS AND GIRLS. 100 minutes, PG-13, directed by Robert Iscove. Written by Andrew Lowery and Andrew Miller.

At my screening of Robert Iscove’s “Boys and Girls,” it quickly became evident that the film wasn’t going to go over with its target audience of high school teens when the young woman seated in front of me, who had been so enthusiastic upon entering the theater, eventually rested her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder and quietly began to snore.

More power to her.

“Boys and Girls” is the latest teen flick from Hollywood to offer some sort of shape and meaning to the teen experience, but it never accomplishes that tricky goal because it’s never as bright as the audience it tries in vain to depict.

To say the film is naive is an understatement, so we’ll just leave it at dumb. It stars Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ryan and Claire Forlani as Jennifer, a cute couple who meet when they’re 12, spar for the next 10 years, and then finally sleep with one another after what proves an insufferably long courtship.

Sex, as you may have already surmised, spoils their relationship so much, it sends each into emotional turmoil.

If this sounds like the basic plot used for so many of today’s teen-oriented films, that’s because it is, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if only each new film offered new insight into the teen experience. “Boys and Girls” doesn’t — not once.

With Jason Biggs reprising his performance from “American Pie” and Heather Donahue (“The Blair Witch Project”) truly stretching the boundaries of her unremarkable talent as the perky Megan, “Boys and Girls” isn’t terrible, it’s just terribly bland, terribly rote, terribly cliched.

Grade: C-

On video

SWEET AND LOWDOWN. 95 minutes, PG-13; written and directed by Woody Allen.

In Woody Allen’s “Sweet and Lowdown,” a quasi-documentary reminiscent of Allen’s 1983 film “Zelig,” Sean Penn is Emmet Ray, a brooding, self-absorbed 1930s jazz musician who pimps on the sly, shoots rats at garbage dumps for the sheer relaxation of it all, and who also proclaims, at every bickering chance he can get, that he is a great artist, one who is nearly freed by music when caught in the furor of his arpeggios.

Considering how adept Emmet is with the guitar — when he cuts loose on “Limehouse Blues,” it’s a moment that would make even Jelly Roll Morton smile — Emmet is indeed a great artist, second only, in his mind, to the great Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, a man who is so legendary, whenever Emmet sees him, Emmet faints.

But as this excellent film tells us through brief, witty cameos by Allen and a host of jazz experts, Emmet won’t ever rise to Reinhardt’s level until he first opens himself up to the risks of love. “Your feelings are locked away so deeply, you don’t even know where to find them,” he’s told. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Emmet answers.

In a film that knows that great art is usually attained through great depths of feeling — whether rooted in despair or lofted in love — Emmet’s world eventually must collide with Hattie (Samantha Morton), a mute laundress with a pretty face and sad eyes, and then with Blanche (Uma Thurman), a loud socialite who longs to be a writer. Only through these relationships will he ever be free as a man and as an artist.

Filled with rich characters and terrific performances from Penn and particularly from Morton, who could have been a silent film star, “Sweet and Lowdown” reveals a lot about Allen, a jazz enthusiast who knows a few things about women, a bit more about a muddled personal life, and a bit more still about worshipping an idol: Ingmar Bergman.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”