It's a tale as old as time, and one that has warmed the hearts of all ages for over 20 years. Beauty and the Beast is one of those staple Disney classics that will never grow old despite the dozens of times we've popped open the VHS as a kid. But could Disney successfully translate this magic and wonder into a live action remake?
Definitely.
First and foremost, the casting is perfect. Emma Watson stars as Belle, and is simply adorable in the role. She is everything we loved about her Harry Potter persona, Hermione - she's independent, intellectual, and unconcerned about fitting the status quo. Emma's new role comes with a twist that never graced the Hogwarts halls...she can sing, and really well too!
Dan Stevens plays the fearsome yet loveable softy that is the Beast, and the two radiate chemistry on screen, despite his paws, fur and horns. The ballroom dance scene is simply perfect as the two sway to Mrs. Potts singing "Beauty and the Beast." This is the moment that everyone associates with the original, and it is surreal to see the golden dress and blossoming love between the two come to life.
Despite Emma and Dan's outstanding performances, the enchanted objects steal the show. Lumiére (voiced by Ewan McGregor) and Cogsworth (Ian McKellen) are like a minuscule married couple, and I never thought it possible to feel so strongly towards a friendship between a candelabra and clock. Lumiére is the unsung hero of this tale, who sets off from the start to unite Belle and the Beast to break the curse.
As soon as the movie ended, I already wanted to see it again. From the flashy "Be Our Guest" number to the epic ending fight scene, every second of the movie is captivating. This live version brings a whole new life to the animated classic, with little twists for the modern era (LeFou gets a dude!). Beauty and the Beast shows us that beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder, and is never just skin-deep. Belle also teaches us that there is always something new out there to learn and explore, and we should never settle for a "provincial" commoner's life, pining after jerks like Gaston.
This week, I ignored my inner old lady who despises public places packed with kids. Instead, I embraced my inner five-year-old and saw Sing, which was one of the cutest, most inspirational animated films I've seen in a while. The movie follows the determined little koala, Buster Moon, as he attempts to save his theater from closing with one last production - a singing competition.
Sing is exciting, comedic, and tugs at your heartstrings no matter what age you are. Below are five reasons to get your butt to the movies ASAP to see the cutest movie of 2017:
1. ACTION
For an animated film, there is no shortage of adventure. From car chases to robberies, you will find yourself fearing for the lives of those cuddly animals. Mike, played by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane, gets mixed up with some tough grizzly bears despite his tiny size and soothing Frank Sinatra-inspired voice. The mouse narrowly escapes capture and being eaten alive several times, speeding away in a sleek, red convertible with his new girlfriend by his side.
2. ACCENTS
Ever hear of an Australian gorilla? You have now. Johnny has the sweetest accent ever, not to mention the voice of an angel and insane piano playing skills. Unfortunately, he has no choice but to get caught up in his dad's gang of robbers, all of whom have beautiful accents as well, despite their criminal backgrounds.
3. LOVE Sing captures love in every shape and form, from caring for family members to romantic love. Rosita, voiced by Reese Witherspoon, wants to audition for Buster's new theater production, but is hesitant to put herself before her family of 25 adorable piglets. Even after Buster's warning that all participants need rest to prepare for rehearsal, Rosita pulls an all-nighter and fashions a machine that makes breakfast, does laundry, and gets her kids ready and out the door for school. She is able to go for her dream while making sure her family is still well-cared for.
On the other hand we have Ash, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, who is the definition of girl power and revenge packed into a tiny hedgehog body. Ash and her boyfriend audition together for Buster's production, but only she makes it through to the next round. After discovering the boyfriend with another hedgehog, she calls it quits, and releases all of her hurt and anger into her first solo track. Ash finally realizes her full potential and is able to love herself and recognize her own talent.
4. MUSIC
As the title of the film suggests, Sing is full of amazing songs and vocals. The standout performance comes from Meena the elephant, played by the amazing Tori Kelly. Meena has a beautiful voice, and is constantly told this by her family. However, she suffers from stage fright and extreme shyness, which makes it almost impossible for her to perform in Buster's production. After the koala gives her some words of wisdom, Meena is able to gain confidence and ultimately steal the show.
5. HOPE
If you've ever had a dream that seemed downright impossible, you can relate to Buster Moon. When he was young, he fell in love with the atmosphere of the theater and knew he wanted to open one of his own someday. With help and encouragement from his father, his dream came true. However, none of his productions were successful and his theater was under severe threat of being shut down. Buster's determination, drive, and support from Meena, Johnny, Rosita and the rest of the performers allowed him to make his theater better than ever, and keep his dream and passion alive.
Bottom line, if you believe in something and work hard enough for it, anything is possible.
It was about a month ago. I was in the kitchen when I heard it. That beautiful, magical theme song from Harry Potter coming from my living room television. I bolted into the other room like a crazy lady.
Harry Potter? Where?!
To my disappointment it wasn't my favorite boy who lived, but a trailer for J.K Rowling's new movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. At first I wasn't pleased.
This isn't Harry Potter. They can't use the same theme song!
But after some research, I soon discovered that Fantastic Beasts takes place in the same magical world, with connections to Harry, just seventy years prior in New York. Needless to say, I had to see it, and this week I finally got to the movies to feed into my wizarding world obsession.
While the original Harry Potter series will always be my true love, I thoroughly enjoyed Fantastic Beasts. The story centers around Newt Scamander, a British wizard who travels to New York and accidentally sets his suitcase full of magical creatures loose on the city of Muggles, or No-Maj's as the American wizards call the non-magical community.
Eddie Redmayne plays Newt, and he is absolutely adorable and charming (despite his Hufflepuff colored scarf...). His mission in life is to rescue various creatures in the wizarding world who most deem to be dangerous, not unlike our old Hogwarts friend Hagrid with his love for dragons and hippogriffs.
Many of the creatures that find their way out of Newt's case are actually taught to Harry and his friends in Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures classes. These include a rather clingy bowtruckle and a fuzzy little niffler that you can cuddle with AND set loose to collect gold. Think PetSmart has any??
In addition to the creatures, Fantastic Beasts has a few more links to the world of Harry that fans have become so familiar with. Many times, Rowling mentions how Dumbledore defeated the powerful wizard Grindelwald years before. It has always been a sort of fun fact about the headmaster that no one elaborated on until now.
In Fantastic Beasts we see Grindelwald (played by Johnny Depp) firsthand, masked as another wizard, trying to control the young Credence who just learned about his magical abilities. In one scene, Grindelwald places a necklace upon Credence's neck with a triangular pendant symbol on it - the Deathly Hallows. I guess Krum was right in wanting to fight Xenophilius Lovegood for wearing the symbol at Bill and Fleur's wedding.
Voldemort's loyal supporter, Bellatrix Lestrange, is also touched on in the film, or rather her ancestors. Spoiler alert, the leading female character Tina, played by Katherine Waterston, starts to fall in love with Newt. However, a picture of a young woman is spotted by Tina's friend, Queenie, in his room. When asked about her, Newt explains how she is a Lestrange, and how she was a friend of his at Hogwarts. Queenie warns him that the Lestrange's aren't the best wizarding family to be involved with, so it's clear that they supported the dark arts years before Bellatrix even existed.
For me, Fantastic Beasts had everything - action, comedic relief, a love story, subtle connections to Harry, and a cute British lead. Rumor has it that Rowling is creating a series of movies, and if it's going to consist of another eight, I'll need some time to track down a niffler....
Black Friday. A day where we get to trample other shoppers for awesome deals on televisions, clothes, and endless other things we don't need. Do you want to know the extent of my Black Friday shopping? A trip to Target at about 3:00 in the afternoon to get Finding Dory for ten dollars.
You might be thinking "that's it??" Yes, yes it is. When Finding Dory came out in theaters a few months back, I saw it twice in the span of a week and loved it even more the second time. I'll admit, I wasn't crazy about Finding Nemo growing up. I always liked Toy Story and other Disney movies much better. So when this little blue fish made me die of laughter and almost cry several times, I knew she was something special.
If you're NOT familiar with the movie (I promise I'm not judging...too much), here's a quick summary of the plot. The movie starts out with Dory during her childhood, and OMG she couldn't have been cuter with her giant pink eyes that take up half of her face. Dory has suffered from short-term memory loss since she was born, and her parents work extra hard to show her love and praise for her accomplishments.
Dory tries her hardest to make her parents proud but accidentally gets swept up in the undertow and through the pipes, and ends up miles away from her home. Fast-forward a bit, and she meets Marlin and Nemo and starts her new life with them. It's not until she's assisting with Nemo's class one day that memories of her parents start to emerge, and she sets off on a quest to California to find them.
Along the way, Dory manages to befriend Hank, the cranky octopus (septopus, if we're being technical...), Marlin gets imprinted on by the twitchy, cross-eyed bird named Becky, and we meet various other lovable characters like Dory's old pipe pal, Destiny the whale.
But most importantly, Dory is able to find her parents. Despite her choppy memories and lack of confidence in herself, she accomplishes the seemingly impossible goal that she put her mind to. Lessons that her parents taught her as a child keep coming back in flashes, particularly one from her father when she was having trouble lifting a rather large shell. He told her, "There's always another way," and this allows her to assess her difficult situation, take a new path, and succeed.
Dory's mom also told her, "You can do whatever you put your mind to," which is a piece of advice we can all live by. In life, we are constantly questioning our ability to succeed, whether it be starting a new career path, maintaining a quality relationship, or just making ourselves better people. There's always that voice of doubt in the back of our minds, but we need to create a new voice that encourages us and pushes us forward.
Dory may not have had it all figured out when she set off across the ocean with Marlin and Nemo, but she taught me a lot. I don't have to have a set plan. I just need to recognize my overarching goal, take some pretty crazy chances, and "just keep swimming" until I get there.
Every morning before going to middle school, I would eat my Frosted Flakes and watch music videos on MTV. One particular morning, I stopped dead in my tracks, spoon in one hand, backpack in the other. There was this dark haired, tattooed man on my television screen singing something about walking alone and a boulevard. I was immediately drawn in to this band, who looked so unlike anything that I was listening to at the time *insert cute, blonde boy band members here.* Thus began my love of Green Day.
Fast forward 12 years and a few albums later, I'm driving in torrential rain after working from 4:00am on a Saturday to pick up their newest release in several years, Revolution Radio. Did I feel like getting drenched? No. Did I know it would be completely worth it? Yup.
Revolution Radio is everything that I could've asked and more for new Green Day music. It has that 21st Century Breakdown political, angsty vibe, but with a more punk feel, much like their early work on Dookie.
While the whole album is freaking amazing, there's a select few songs that I've been listening to about 20 times a day since the release on October 7th:
"Bouncing Off The Wall"
This song......SO CATCHY! It's been a little while since I've gotten so excited over a song, but when I heard the first verse, I literally squealed like a teen girl because it was just SO good. While the lyrics talk about Satan, bombs, and idle threats, the melody makes you want to blast it in your car on a sunny day with the windows down, which is simply genius on their part.
"Ordinary World"
Two weeks ago, I saw Green Day live at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia as part of their small venue tour. After the supposed encore of "American Idiot," only Billie Joe walked back on stage with his acoustic guitar. With no introduction, he starts singing this song, and it was such a perfect and intimate moment with the crowd. Fans were screaming and carrying on around me, but I was so entranced by his performance and delivery of the lyrics, it was like they weren't even there. "What would you wish if you saw a shooting star in an ordinary world?" Ugh, perfect.
"Still Breathing"
This is one of the few songs that I heard before the full album when they released a lyric video for it. Much like "Ordinary World," the lyrics are extremely inspiring and something that I can relate to at this point in my life. "Just shine a light into the wreckage, so far away..." Even though we may be going through some difficult times and hardships, we're still alive and there's always a light trying to break through the darkness. When it comes to life struggles, Green Day gets it.
As if this wonderful masterpiece of an album wasn't enough of a treat, Billie Joe is starring in a movie called "Ordinary World" (I'm going to assume the song is in the soundtrack...) which hits theaters Friday, October 14th. Unlike his extremely cool and still attractive true self, Billie Joe will be playing a washed up rocker trying to get his life back together. If his acting is even 1/5 as good as his musical talent, we're in for a treat.
