Peter’s nut — ow! — buster

To the surprise of many in these recessionary times, this year’s live presentation of Piotr (or Pyotr or Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker by the Boston Ballet is selling out. The other big thing in entertainment going on right now isn’t typical holiday fare, it’s James Cameron’s “Avatar.” Frankly, I’m not fond of computer-generated characters, except the cartoonish varieties, and the previews for “Avatar” looked stupid to me. But it’s been getting good reviews, at least when the 3D projection is done right. And Bismo liked it, so I’m planning to see it in IMAX next week with Eric.

What I have to acknowledge and admire about James Cameron is that his attitude is similar to that of Walt Disney, who was told that “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and, later, Disneyland were crazy ideas. Disney’s most far-out movie venture was “Fantasia,” which didn’t turn a profit for 30 years. As Cameron has done with “Avatar,” “Fantasia” in its day pushed every technical boundary there was. Its use of multi-channel surround sound was, to say the least, groundbreaking. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to hear Fantasound exactly as it was originally presented, as explained here…

YouTube doesn’t have a good copy of the Nutcracker Suite from “Fantasia,” so I have done my own transfer, in stereo, with the original, restored Stokowski soundtrack. Walt came up with the idea of using fish for the “Arabian Dance,” which I think is the only sequence that doesn’t work.

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