tale as old as time

[glass_icarus]

Went to see the live-action Beauty and the Beast with friend K after class today! Still narratively satisfying, still entertaining (if sometimes inadvertently), and my inner child remains stubbornly in love with almost every retelling of this fairytale regardless of more objective standards of quality, but I think the Disney cartoon works best in cartoon form.

Also:
- what world is this where Emma Watson!Belle is born in Paris, retains her British accent, throws in random bits and bobs of French address at the villagers, then turns around to obsess over Romeo & Juliet and later quote Shakespeare? MENTAL CONFUSION!
- not personally 100% sold on Emma Watson as Belle, which may be related to the above, or may have to do with singing voice quality, or something else I'm failing to grasp...
- I'm no expert on French 18th(?)-century powdered wigs, drawn-on beauty marks, fancy cake-y dresses, etc. but the whole huge sequence with all of the above plus RAINBOW CARNAVAL-ESQUE FACE POWDERS nearly made me expire in the theater (was this an actual historical thing or was someone feeling over the top?)
- also architecture?!? props on the village adorableness level, but what is going on with the castle? if you wanted crazy fancy elements you could go epic flying-buttress BUT NO, instead there are no buttresses whatsoever, a bunch of haphazardly placed not-gargoyles on the roof, FAR TOO MANY COLUMNS SUPPORTING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the entry hall, and staircases that are apparently not supported by anything? forever side-eying that one tower featuring one such inner staircase with no railing, a large empty gap between the side of the staircase and the wall, and what looks like a good chunk of outer wall THAT IS LITERALLY A SECOND STAIRCASE ARE WE IN AN ESCHER PAINTING, and random door-sized holes in the outer walls (WHY??)
- ... yes it's possible I spent too much of the movie going ?!?!?! over the castle
- internal story timing confusion that I was not drunk enough (i.e., not at all) to deal with~~ (which includes a running winter in June bit which made me laugh, but again, WHY??)
- I will never understand why they made LeFou the gay one (HOW IS LUMIERE/COGSWORTH NOT THE OBVIOUS ESTABLISHED-RELATIONSHIP CHOICE IF YOU WANNA DO THAT), but at least they didn't make him tragic?
- casting hilarity; K and I were walking down the stairs to leave the theater and looked up to see EWAN MACGREGOR as Lumiere roll past in the credits and cracked up because... what????

ANYWAY. A good time was had by all, but I'm super glad K had a 2-for-1 ticket deal. xD

Comments

[firecat]

HOW IS LUMIERE/COGSWORTH NOT THE OBVIOUS ESTABLISHED-RELATIONSHIP CHOICE IF YOU WANNA DO THAT

Well, it could be Lumiere/Cogsworth/Featherduster as a poly triad.

[alexseanchai]

I can roll with that, or with Lumiere/Cogsworth as an independent thing (possibly love triangling Lumiere with Cogsworth on the one hand and Featherduster on the ohter).

I'd rather roll with Belle/Lesbian!Beast, tbh.

(I had a good rant about this when I first saw the live-action.)

[firecat]

Oh yeah, that's a good one.

[glass_icarus]

Haha, I'm also down with that!

[tielan]

Now I feel like I want to go see it, just to observe all the little things that you're talking about. :)

[glass_icarus]

Hee! Well, it was good fun, but tbh I'm not sure I would have watched this for full-price.