Waking Sleeping Beauty

This documentary is about the period at Disney animation from its nadir in the early 1980s through its incredible successes with "Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin" and "The Lion King". It talks about the process through which it regained its former glory as well as, ironically, the negative cost that success had on the studio as well. It's all very fascinating for fans of animation and is told through many interviews, archival footage and the like. It's about as interesting as you could expect--and much more interesting than another similar Disney documentary that was also recently released ("Walt and El Groupo").

The only negative about the film is that it had you wanting more. That's because although it was only recently released, it stopped in the early-mid 1990s--and a lot has happened since then (mostly with Pixar taking over most of the animation duties). Seeing the film through "The Princess and the Frog" (possibly Disney's last traditionally animated feature) would be a great follow-up to this splendid documentary.