Final Reflective Post

We’re finishing spring semester in a week.  I’ve almost finished my freshman year of college.  It’s honestly kind of hard to believe.  I’ve learned a lot in the last year, about things I never thought I could take classes in (like fairy tales, or even Disney 😉).  I think it was kind of fitting to start the first phase of my life as an adult by revisiting some of the movies of my childhood.  

This class has taught me to think critically about the films I grew up with.  Honestly, going into this class I really hadn’t thought much about villainy in Disney films.  Most of the time, I mainly paid attention to the protagonists.  So discussing the various ways Disney films portray villains, and how those portrayals have (or haven’t) changed over the years was really interesting.  This class also gave me the chance to look critically at a lot of issues I hadn’t really thought about in association with Disney films, like the portrayals of race and gender, and particularly how these issues intersect with the various Disney villains.  

I discovered there’s a lot more to these films than meets the eye.  They aren’t just pure and innocent movies, they are a product of the standards and biases of both the people who created the films and society as a whole when the films are made.  They have to be looked at critically with these factors in mind.  That doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy Disney and the films it produces.  It just means that I am armed with more knowledge about the negative and positive aspects of these films.

It’s also been interesting to approach Disney, which I have not really worked with in an academic context, from the perspective of academia and academic writing.  

Starting with films I knew and loved, I was able to build my writing skills, and have fun along the way.  Working with Big Hero 6 for the semester on my papers was also really fun.  I got to rewatch and analyze the movie in ways I hadn’t before, to look for the specific messages the films sends about villainy and grief.  BH6 is interesting because it’s a film where the hero actually comes close to crossing the line into villain territory.  The villain also starts out as a “good guy”.  It really shows how over the years Disney is moving toward a more nuanced portrayal of villainy.  Instead of the big, showy villains who are easily recognizable with their capes and horns and creepy snake staffs (looking at you, Jafar and Maleficent), Disney is trying to use their villains as ways to surprise viewers, to show that anyone can become dangerous or villainous, and that good and evil aren’t always black and white.  This also shows up in the last batch of films we watched.  Wreck It Ralph and Frozen both wait to reveal their villains till the end, and Maleficent takes arguably the most quintessential Disney villain and makes her into a (at times morally questionable, she still curses a child) good guy.

I also really liked our class discussions on the films and texts we read about the films.  I feel like hearing other people’s perspectives and interpretations really enhanced my understanding of these films and the messages they portray.  It’s been a great semester reading, writing, and discussing Disney.  

It's Friday!  Work!

My parents sent me Aristocats socks for Easter, and I'm rather disproportionately by this.

This is probably my very favorite Moana song.  It's an outtake that was cut from the final movie, but it's really good.

I'm pretty sure it fits where "How Far I'll Go" ended up in the final film.  It also have a reprise, like "How Far I'll Go."

Quote for the Week:

I think "Song of the Ancestors" may be my favorite song in the movie.

One more Let It Go cover for this week, because I never get tired of this song.  :)

Let It Go Miscast:

In the video, Jeremy Jordan references his and Jonathan Groff's performance from the year before, so I thought I'd put that up here too, because the video's pretty funny (although the sound quality isn't too great, be warned).  They've both worked for Disney, so it's at least semi-relevant to this blog.

I'm just gonna keep going with the whole "Let It Go" theme for this week, and give you...

...Prince Hans performing "Let It Go."

Since we watched Frozen for this week...

Quote of the Week:

Ba-dum-tsshhh.

Beware the Frozen Heart: Frozen Response Post

Frozen is an interesting movie to look at regarding the nature of villainy.  The movie actually has multiple characters that could fit into the villain slot before the true villain (spoiler alert: it’s Hans) is revealed.  

The first potential villain is really Elsa.  In the original Hans Christian Andersen story, the Snow Queen is actually a villain, although she really is not a major figure in her own story.  I’m pretty sure I also heard that the original plan for this movie was to have Elsa as the villain.  However, when the writers heard “Let It Go,” they decided it was too powerful a song to give to the villain and gave her a redemption story instead.  That said, I would say that for a large part of the movie Elsa views herself as the villain in her own story, and she does reach a point where she almost becomes a villain.  

Elsa’s characterization is interesting because her villainy (or lack thereof) stems from fear (whereas Hans’s villainy comes from a desire for power).  She fears her own powers, and she is afraid of what people will do if they fear her powers as well.  This causes her to flee and then to take drastic measures in order to keep anyone from following her.  

Then she is attacked, and in her fear, she fights back.  

Interestingly, however, the thing that stops her from being a villain is Hans’s comment: “Don’t be the monster they fear you are.”  At this point she realizes that she has let her own fear consume her to such an extent that she is actually becoming the villain she thought she was.  After this point, Elsa switches from trying to push people away, to simply trying to flee from those around her.  She still views herself as dangerous, but she is no longer willing to potentially injure someone in order to keep them away.

The next (slightly less important) villain figure is the Duke of Weselton.  I like to call him the decoy villain, because that is essentially the role he fills.  Once we establish Elsa (and Anna) as the protagonist(s), there needs to be some form of adversary.  Weselton fills the role of antagonist mainly to throw people off the scent of Hans until the big reveal.  So we see him calling Elsa a monster, yelling at Anna, and sending his goons to kill Elsa, which are classic villain maneuvers, but he doesn’t become any more of a threat than that.  Because soon after his henchmen try to kill Elsa, we have the big Hans reveal, and at that point, he becomes a minor, fairly annoying character.

The Duke of Weselton: he is a rather annoying secondary antagonist, but really not much of a threat.

The third main villain is, of course, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles.  I think Hans is really the first of Disney’s new-age, plot-twist villains, or villains that no one suspects until they suddenly turn on the main characters, so he marks a shift in the way Disney presents their villains (Wreck It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia follow this pattern as well). To Disney’s credit, I will say that their plot twist did surprise me.  I had already figured Hans wasn’t going to be the true love interest (if the promo material showing mainly Anna and Kristoff hadn’t tipped me off, his “sandwiches” comment made it pretty obvious that he was hanging out with Anna mainly to get status and probably money through marrying her), but I was not expecting him to go rogue and try to kill everyone (on a related note, why do the other dignitaries not go check on Anna’s body when Hans says she’s dead, and how is he able to charge Elsa with treason?  Even if Elsa did horrible things, she is still the ruling monarch, so I’m pretty sure she actually can’t be accused of treason).  The fun thing about Hans as a villain, though, is to watch the subtle hints that the movie drops in advance to foreshadow the big reveal.  They really aren’t noticeable if you don’t know they are coming, but if you look for them, they become fairly obvious. Especially during "Love is an Open Door". Look for them next time you watch the film.

"I've been searching my whole life to find my own place."

Frozen is a really good movie (if rather over-hyped), and it is a lot of fun to pick apart the different aspects of this film.  I’m excited to discuss it more in class.

Wreck It Ralph Live Blog

Today I’m watching Wreck It Ralph.  I’ve seen this movie a couple times, and I really like it.  The story is unique and interesting, and the movie is really funny and uses a lot of puns.  What’s not to like?  So now I’m going to live-blog anything I notice or find interesting this time around.  Here we go.

I like the video game music version of Steamboat Willie.  That’s really cute.

So is there a “Fix It Felix, Sr.” game?  Was there a Ralph Sr. in that game (since Felix got his hammer from his father, so it stands to reason that his father would be the one who used it first)?

This part makes me laugh every time.  I think it’s the Pac Man sound effect.

I think it’s really clever that “Game Central Station” is the power strip all of the arcade games are plugged into.

Why are the other 3 Pac Man ghosts not at Bad-Anon?

“That cherry-chasing dot-muncher isn’t even part of this game!”  Why wasn’t Ralph invited to the party.  Like, I get that during the game they have to treat him as the villain, but why does everyone else in his game and in Game Central Station dislike/fear him?  That’s really sad.

How long did it take Mary to bake tiny little cake apartments for all of the Nicelanders?

“Flattery don’t charge these batteries, civilian.”  There are some quality quotes in this movie.

Why is there a stockpile of Cybug eggs in the tower?

I like Vanellope’s comment about “So you just meant like the ‘royal we’?”  

Someone had way too much fun naming the Sugar Rush racers.

The Oreo guards are kinda great.

Kudos to Vanellope for making herself her own pedal car.

This reminds me of the scene in Cinderella when the stepsisters shred her dress.

Product placement.  It’s a solid pun, though.  

I love this moment.  I feel like this is probably one of the first times Ralph’s been told he did something good, instead of just being told he destroys everything (if we think back to the time he tried to join the anniversary party).

“That’s not blunt force trauma ma’am.  That’s just the honey glow in my cheeks.”

I like how the castle’s welcome mat just conveniently has a trap door.  I bet King Candy installed it.  Seems like the sort of thing he’d do.

Aww.

“You really are a bad guy.”  Harsh.  I mean, that’s probably the most hurtful thing she could have said to him (not that it wasn’t somewhat warranted from Vanellope’s perspective).

Why does Felix attempt to hit the bars with his hammer?  If he was gonna try to break them, he should know better than to use something that literally fixes anything.

Felix is honestly the most adorable character.  I love the word choice they used for his dialogue.  (“I don’t have to do boo.  Forgive my potty mouth.  I’m just so, so cross with you!”).  I really like how so much of the characterization in this film comes from different characters’ ways of speaking, through accents, tone of voice, word choice, and the phrasings they use.  For example, Vanellope speaks with the phrases that children tend to use, and furthermore, a lot of her slang and catchphrases center around sweets/candy (as is the case for most of the Sugar Rush characters).  The attention to detail was really nice.

King Candy was literally about to kill Vanellope by smashing her into a wall.  That is horrible!

King Candy is seriously terrifying.  Also, whose idea was it to make the cybugs mutate into whatever they eat because this is serious nightmare fodder.

They are definitely in like my top 3 Disney couples.

Why isn’t Vanellope ever included in the Disney princess lineup?

I like how everything comes full circle in the end.

This movie’s interesting because it assesses the nature of villainy, and how changing the perspective of the story changes whether someone is really a villain or not.  It’s also about accepting who you are, and not trying to take others’ thunder either (looking at you, King Candy).  It’s also just a really fun, clever, hilarious movie.

#TBT to this time last year when I was rehearsing for Sumner High School's production of Tarzan.  Check out our promo video!

P.S. Shout out to Ben Morawek for writing, directing, and filming the video.

Quote of the Week (albeit a day late):

Maleficent Live Blog

Tonight we’re watching Maleficent.  This is the first movie we’ve watched in this class that I have not seen yet, so this should be fun.  Going in, I know it’s basically a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, that’s trying to do for Maleficent what Wicked did for Elphaba (which, having read and seen Wicked, is probably going to be hard to top, but I digress).  I also watched Sleeping Beauty quite a bit as a kid, so this should be interesting.  Without further ado, let’s get started.

Fancy castle.

Scenery’s pretty.  

How is this tree “great”? Or this cliff for that matter?  It’s not that big or impressive.

This was cool.

Look how cute baby Maleficent is.  She doesn’t seem that terrible.  Why does she still start with a name that comes from “malevolent”?  Just saying.

Maleficent and Stefan are cute together.  The whole “iron burns fairies” thing is going to come back.  Calling it now.

Are we not talking about the 16th birthday parallel?  Because I think that’s cool.

“It was not to be.” Sad day.  I’m not all that surprised humans are being the problem children here, though.

This seems excessive.

This whole fight scene is really weird.  Although Maleficent smacking people in the face with her wings is entertaining.

What kind of king ascends the throne with the sole promise of conquering and robbing the next-door kingdom, especially when that kingdom is full of weird tree people that will beat all of them in a fight?

Did he just drug her?

What the HECK Stefan?  Although, in his defense, this was probably an effective way to make sure someone else didn’t kill her.  That doesn’t by any means justify viciously mutilating Maleficent, but that might have been his thinking in this situation.

Epic walk.

The Diaval scene was kinda weird.

I like how she gets mad and starts using the classic villain lime green magic instead of the pretty gold magic.

If Maleficent’s so powerful, why doesn’t she make new wings?  Or devise an alternative method of flying, like say, I don’t know, turning into a dragon?

This turned dark rather quickly.

I have a major problem with them changing the names of Flora, Fauna, and Merriwether.  They were the best part of Sleeping Beauty.  They also changed the gifts the fairies gave Aurora.

On a related note, what happened to Merriwether being the one to soften the curse?

Just leave the baby outside on a tree stump, why don’t we?

Not that I dislike what they did with Maleficent’s character, but did we have to make the good fairies entirely incompetent to get there?  They kind of butchered their characters.

How long are we going to sit and watch Maleficent play petty pranks on the pixies?

I like the parallel between this and Maleficent with the deer.

Diaval the crow-dog is really freaky. Diaval is actually a really cool character, though. I like how they made Maleficent's pet raven more of a central character.

Did Maleficent just kill all those guards?

Are these the wisps from Brave?  Nope, they appear to be mermaids that fly around like jellyfish.

I love Maleficent’s “What the heck?” face when Aurora says she’s her fairy godmother.

Stefan, are you ok?

The gold and green clash was cool!  Also, how did the pixies not notice Maleficent YELLING in their house?

Phillip and Aurora are cute together.  I miss their song, though.  

The Aurora-Phillip and Maleficent-Stefan parallels!

Poor Aurora and poor Maleficent!

Lol at the lady’s maid who doesn’t even try to stop Aurora from running off.

Why can’t Phillip be conscious while we run to rescue Aurora?

What is this?

Iron thorns?  Uncool irony, Stefan.

I appreciate Phillip being hesitant about kissing the unconscious girl he barely knows, even after they explain she’s been cursed.  Slightly less creepy than him just showing up in the castle without knowing her name and just kissing her.

What kind of promise is “No harm shall come to you” if she’s already basically dead?

I get it, Maleficent provides true love’s kiss.  That’s kinda cool, I guess.

The iron net was uncalled for.  Also, why is Diaval the dragon now?

The wings are back!

Shoot, Stefan died!

So, Aurora’s queen of the Moors now.  Fair enough.  Also, the narrator is also Aurora?  

The credits version of “Once Upon a Dream” is freaking me out!

So overall, it was a pretty decent movie.  I’ve been meaning to watch this film for a while, so I’m glad I watched it.  The thing that bugged me was that going in, I was expecting Sleeping Beauty as told from an alternate perspective.  What this movie ended up being was basically a new story inspired by the original, with some of the same plot points.  It doesn’t work quite as well as a defense of the Maleficent from the 1959 film when so many of the core plot points have changed (such as Maleficent, rather than the fairies, modifying the curse, the queen and Stefan being dead at the end, etc.).  I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, it was just different from what I expected.  That said, the storyline itself was interesting, and I liked what they did with flipping the conventional views of Stefan and Maleficent on their heads.  I would definitely watch it again, but I’m not sure that it’s one of my favorite Disney films.

Beauty and the Beast Review

So my friend and I went and saw the new Beauty and the Beast over spring break, and it was really good.  It was a solid reinterpretation of the original, and they added some backstory to some of the characters that brought a lot of depth to the story (more on that later).  It wasn’t perfect, but I would highly recommend seeing it.  Be warned, there are spoilers ahead (and even if you’ve seen the animated film, there are still things you don’t know about this one).  Also fair warning, this post is going to be pretty long (it’s a long movie, there’s lots to talk about).  So screw your courage to the sticking place, and join me as a talk about some of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) parts of the film.

• My favorite casting in this movie was probably Gaston and Lefou (Because first, I think Luke Evans was probably the best singer in this film, (except maybe for Audra McDonald because she is really good) second, Josh Gad is always a fun actor to watch, and third, they played really well off each other, particularly in scenes with comedic moments). Their characters also probably saw the most changes from the original film. I really like the depth they added to these characters.  Both characters in the original movie were fairly cartoon-ish.  You have Gaston who is this ridiculously strong and buff guy, and you have Lefou, who is used in a lot of animated physical comedy (like being thrown around, stepped on, etc.) that you can’t really replicate in a live-action.  This movie, then, made them more realistic and human. First of all, it really played into the more dark and sinister side of Gaston, and I thought that was really interesting. There was a backstory added that gave him a background as a soldier and a war hero. This seemed a lot more realistic than him just being this really buff guy whom everyone worships for some reason. At least there was a reason people looked up to him. The other part of this, though, is that he is also a very violent character. He is used to always getting what he wants, and when that doesn't happen, he is not afraid to eliminate anyone who gets in his way (he literally tries to kill Maurice at one point… by leaving him to be ripped to shreds by wolves).   Closely tied to Gaston’s character arc is Lefou’s.  The thing is, in both the cartoon and the live-action, I do think Lefou is a genuinely nice guy, if a little too willing to overlook Gaston’s flaws (and the fact that he is kind of a big jerk). This version of Lefou, however, doesn't just blindly follow everything Gaston does. As Gaston's actions become more and more questionable, Lefou becomes less willing to go along with them and tries to distance himself from what Gaston is doing. We see Lefou visibly relieved when he sees Maurice, alive and well in the tavern, and he is one of the few to be hesitant about going to hunt the Beast. He even changes sides during the fight scene in the castle, allying with the Beast’s servants (the line goes something like “I was on Gaston’s side, but we're kind of in a bad place right now.” And to be fair, Gaston did just leave him to be squished by a piano.).  
• One of my favorite parts of the movie was the “Mob Song”.  For some reason, I had that song stuck in my head for like a week after I watched it. Some lines were added that illustrate a lot of the changes in the characters.  Gaston points out how using fear allows him to manipulate the crowd because “at times like this they’ll do just as I say.”  And then Lefou has a line about how “there’s a beast running wild, there’s no question,” but it may not be the one they are hunting.

• There also are a lot of comedic moments with Gaston and Lefou, such as:
• During the Gaston song, you can see Lefou slipping change and bribing the other bar patrons to sing with him, which I thought was funny.
• At the start of the film, Gaston and Lefou are talking about Belle, and Lefou suggests she has a certain “Je nais se quoi”, and then Gaston says he doesn’t know what that means.  (Get it? ‘cause they’re in France, and Lefou just spoke French and Gaston didn’t get it… Anyway, I got a kick out of it).
• "Who makes up these endless refrains like Gaston?"
• The CGI overall was pretty good.  I had quite a few concerns about some of the characters going in, and some of those I think were justified, but overall everything looked really pretty.  The “Be Our Guest” sequence, in particular, was gorgeous.  I liked the designs for most of the household objects as well, and I thought the Beast looked really good.  That said, there were a few characters I didn’t like as much.  I had some minor issues with Mrs. Potts and Lumiere.  This might just me being picky, but I wish they had made Mrs. Potts’s face on the front of the teapot, rather than the side, like in the original.
• In after seeing ads for this movie, I thought Lumiere looked a bit too much like a person holding candles instead of a candlestick, and after seeing the full film, I still think that
• 
  Though, I did like this design.
  
• The big ones I didn’t like were Madame Guarderobe (the wardrobe) and Plumette (the feather duster).  Guarderobe’s face was curtains, and that really weirded me out.  It was like she had eyes and a mouth, but they weren’t actually eyes and a mouth.  
• I think they could have done something different with her.  Also, Plumette was a bird.  Like, she flew around and everything.  That makes no sense at all.  Could she fly as a human?  I doubt it.  Why is she able to fly as a ceramic bird?   It just pushed my suspension of disbelief.  
• The other major issue I had with this film was its use of autotune, which is a bit of a pet peeve for me.  I just don’t think it’s necessary in most cases, and a lot of the time it’s excessively applied.  There were a few times in this movie when it became really noticeable and distracting.  This was especially an issue with Emma Watson’s singing.  A lot of the times she sang, it sounded very computerized, and she sings in quite a few of the songs.  She didn’t necessarily sound bad, per se, just… fake.  She wasn’t the only one who’s singing was altered, but it seemed like her singing in particular was messed with excessively, to the point where it didn’t really sound natural, especially when compared to the ensemble singing.  I don’t blame Watson for this, I’m pretty sure this was a director or editor’s choice, but it still bugged me.  I haven’t heard her sing live, so I can’t judge how good her regular voice is, but I can’t imagine it needed that degree of touching up (and if it did, they could have maybe had someone else dub over the singing, since in movie musicals everyone is lip syncing anyway, and the actual singing is recorded separately, but again, I don't think that was the issue here).  
• The movie also altered quite a bit of the original story, and it tried to fix up a bunch of plot holes from the original.  Some of the ones that stood out to me the most were:
• They established Belle’s mom’s backstory, which was interesting (spoiler: she died of the plague).  The scene itself where they visited Belle’s childhood home was really nicely done.  However, the way they got there was a bit odd (a magic book teleporter).  The book was cool, it just seemed like they used it once and then forgot about it.  Like why didn’t Belle use it to poof herself back to the village when she had to save her dad?  I bet it would be a lot faster than riding the horse through the big giant forest, and she could poof herself back right after to warn the Beast before he gets shot by Gaston (I think that’s how the book works, they didn’t explicitly address how they got back from Paris after their visit).  So they kind of closed one plot hole by opening another. (On a related note, why didn't she change out of her huge ball gown before riding off through the forest to save her dad? I felt like the only reason they kept her in the yellow dress was so she could be seen really easily from the tower where the Beast was having his angsty solo song.)  Other plot holes they addressed included having the Beast actually know how to read (and also having him hate Romeo and Juliet, which I found hilarious), and having the enchantress cause the villagers to lose their memories of those in the castle, so they didn’t just happen to not notice the disappearance of the monarchy from the region.  They did miss the biggest one though, which is that they forgot to give the Beast a NAME (I know it’s supposedly Adam, but no one in any of the movies has ever called him that).  My favorite it when Gaston calls him Beast, and he tells Gaston that “I am not a Beast,” which is such a great line and a good moment for his character, but he then also doesn’t give Gaston an actual name/title to address him with.
• Maurice became an artist, which allowed Belle to become an inventor.  I actually really liked this idea, but I again think they could have done more with it.  It really only comes up once-- at the beginning, when Belle makes herself a washing machine, which freed up her time so she could teach a little girl to read (in one of the cutest scenes in the film.  After that, though, they didn’t really do much with it.  In the original, the dad’s invention was referenced multiple times, and was even used to help Belle and Maurice escape being trapped by Gaston.  (In this one, they escape when Maurice picks the lock, and all Belle really does is hand him a bobby pin.)  I just think they could have had Belle do a bit more with her inventing hobby (although there is quite a bit of other stuff Belle does as well, so maybe they just ran out of time).
• There were a couple scenes from the original that I felt were downplayed too much in the new film.  For example, the library reveal seemed anticlimactic.  The Beast’s lead-up to Belle’s big surprise is one of the cutest scenes in the animated film.  In this one, it was just like, “Oh yeah, I have all these books.  Have fun.”  The set itself seemed smaller than the animated library as well. The other issue with cutting the scene where the Beast plans to give the library to Belle as a surprise is that it forced them to cut Cogsworth’s “flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep” line, which in my opinion, is one of the funnier one-liners in the film.  That said, I liked that they showed Beast and Belle bonding over picking out books together.  I thought the scenes in the library were really sweet.
• Similarly, Gaston’s proposal scene also seemed downplayed: it’s a big scene in the original, and a song in the stage version, but here the scene seemed really short, and we didn’t see him get thrown out of the house into a mud puddle.
• Speaking of songs… There were a few new songs added.  For the most part, they were awesome (Alan Menken is quite good at what he does).  The Beast’s song in particular is really good.   This is just a little thing, but I think it would have been fun if they would have added a couple songs from the stage version (especially since the running time is pretty close to a stage musical’s length).  Also, where was “Human Again”?  I think they replaced it with “Days in the Sun,” which, frankly, is my least favorite of the songs they added.
• The movie also added an element from the musical-- the fact that the household objects were steadily becoming more inanimate-- and it worked really well. They even took it to the point where they all froze, right before they turned back into a human (which was rather sad, especially for Chip and the dog).
• A couple other little things I liked:
• The additional characters, particularly the piano (I forget his name), and the connections between those in the castle and those in the village (like Mr. Potts!).
• The references to the original tale, when Beauty asks for a rose, and taking the rose is what causes her father to be captured.
• Little nerdy thing I liked: Belle really likes Romeo and Juliet, which is what she teaches the Beast to read in the cartoon, and later the Beast reads King Arthur, which is the book used in the equivalent scene in the stage version.
• They cut the bookseller, but I really liked the character they replaced him with, who was a priest, and one of the few to stick up for both Belle and her father when they were ridiculed or attacked by the villagers.
• The Beast's reaction to Belle liking Romeo and Juliet.
• I also appreciated that they gave Belle multiple versions of the blue dress. It was a nice way to acknowledge that she wore that dress quite a bit in the cartoon, but also to allow her to change clothes each day like a normal human would.

So, to conclude, the new Beauty and the Beast is pretty awesome, and you should totally go see it.  Thank you for actually making it this far down and for sticking with me through this very long post.