FILM Review: Disney's Beauty and the Beast

So today I went out to the theatres and took part in what many people label a cash grab on Disney's part. Maybe that's exactly what it was, but seeing it on the big screen was totally worth it. When Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991, I was way too young to go to the theatre and sit still through an entire movie (or so my parents decided) so when I was first introduced to the movie, it was at home on my TV Screen. I'm not exactly sure what sparked the re-release of the Disney movies back into theatres, but I'm assuming the success of The Lion King had a major effect.

Okay, so I kind of just lied there. Walt Disney, had originally wanted to re-release his films in theatres every couple of years, but this was before the beauty of home video. Sadly, Disney's plan was taken and twisted and what we have now is pure evil in the form of the Disney Vault (man I really want Aladdin on DVD).

So Beauty and the Beast. If you've been living under a rock since 1991, Beauty and the Beast is the story of a total douche-bag of a prince who has a spell cast on him to turn him into a Beast (and makes him forget his real name) and everyone in the castle is turned into talking household objects and supplies. There is hope though, if the Beast can fall in love and be loved in return, then the spell can be broken. But he only has up until his 21 birthday. This is about when Belle walks in. She's the pretty odd ball in her small French Town and wins over the audience with her "I want more" song. Her biggest problem is that she is being pursued by the "traditional hero" Gaston. She has no interest in him, at all but since she's pretty and proving to be a challenge Gaston gets his creeper on and tries to marry her. Also he abuses a book.

Belle's father takes a wrong turn and ends up at the Beast's Castle and becomes his prisoner, Belle a good daughter runs off to rescue him. When the Beast confronts her, she trades her freedom for her Father's, leaving her stuck in the castle. With Belle stuck in the castle, the movie is now set up for the usual Disney romance... you know what I'm talking about.

But wait, the Beast is a total douche. Did you forget that? The thing about Beauty and the Beast that always amazed me was that Belle doesn't actually fall madly in love with the Beast right away and give into the Stockholm Syndrome story that's waiting to happen. The Beast continues to be a jerk to Belle for a while, and rewatching it now I could believe that there was no hope for the flowers of love to blossom between them. But we all know in the end it does. The Beast saves her, and she in turn cleans his wound. The two of them begin to bond and get to know each other like normal people. Which is refreshing.

Don't get me wrong, I love this movie. I love the story (remember, hopeless romantic), I love the animation, the songs, the side characters, I love to hate Gaston. The movie is beautiful. It did lose some of its majesty in 3D though. This was a hand-drawn 2D movie (mostly) so by adapting it for 3D the movie looked flat. It was like watching paper cut outs play infront of you. There were some scenes were the 3D really did work. When Belle's Father first arrives at the castle, the castle is just made to seem that much lager by the 3D Animation, the Gargoyles look pretty damn creepy. The dance sequence with the title song was gorgeous in 3D and so was the Beast's transformation into the Prince.

The Beast as ???????? The Prince

Speaking of which, last term in one of my courses we were talking about the transformation of the Beast into a Human. When the Beast became a human, he just loses something. He's not as cool as he's been when he was a monster. I'm interested in other people's opinions on that. As a kid, I think I fell into the category where I liked the Beast more than I liked the Prince. He was cooler, he could protect Belle, he lived in a creepy castle and he looked hilarious in that blue suit that he had to squeeze himself into. When it comes to marketing the Beauty and the Beast, you don't really see the Prince. There are no posters of Belle with the Beast Prince-afied. I expect that has to do with marketing. But the bottom line is. When you watch Beauty and the Beast, you're there to see The Beast not a Prince, you're there to watch that giant water-buffalo of a creature. Just saying.

So all in all. I loved finally getting to see the movie on the large screen. I loved hearing the questions the little kids asked their parents as they watched the movie (probably) for the first time. If you love the movie, I highly recommend going to see it. Remember, you get to see the Tangled short too.

The Ducklerfish Mystery!

Today is the day of two posts and both of them had to do with The Fault in Our Stars! 

The mystery of my Hanklerfish has been solved. I noticed that Hank Green had commented on my tumblr, (meaning that both the vlogbrothers had commented on my tumblr in a two day time period which is pretty ridiculously crazy i don't know what to think or do) with an answer to my question:

"It says “Ducklerfish” and it is extremely rare. In fact, this is the only Ducklerfish in existence. It’s simply an Hanklerfish that looked kinda like a duck because I screwed it up.It’s nice to see he found a good home!"

Which is totally and completely awesome. I think this is the most random but awesome thing that has happened and is definitely and awesome start to 2012!

I also have to say that this is completely fitting. You see, when it comes to making purchases I have extremely bad luck. I'm the type of person who goes out and decides to buy an iPod or a computer monitor and when I bring it home find that it just happens to be faulty. So here I am with a faulty Hanklerfish and I absolutely love it. 

Thanks to everyone for all their help and theories :)

DFTBA

REVIEW: World War Z

World War Z by Max Brooks

To start this review off, I'm going to clear something up about yours truly and zombies. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love them, but I hate how they tend to keep me up for most of the night staring at my closet with a slight look of concern. I really wanted to read this book, but I didn't know if I would be able to get through it. Lucky enough for me, my lovely Christmas present of a Kindle came preloaded with a bunch of books. I thought what the heck, might as well give this book a try. So here we go:


World War Z is a collection of people's experiences during the Great Panic and the War against the Zombies. The book covers people from many countries, ethnicities and ages. Some of the stories are horrific, some creepy, some heartwarming and all paint an interesting picture of humanity. My view on this book is mixed. I loved the idea of it. It was clever, it wasn't scary, but it was creepy. I did have some wonderful zombie themed nightmares during the process of this book. Some of the stories were more effective then others. 

My major problem with the book was the length. I feel the book could have been a little shorter. I understand what the author was trying to do including all of the stories he did. He wanted to make the reader see as many different view points (from serious to minor) to help make the story believable. The book could easily pass off as a textbook, but even though this is one of the books major strengths, it also is the books major weaknesses. There comes a point as you're reading it when you just think I get the point already.

I like the different interviews, and even though the reader doesn't get to build a complete connection with all the interviewees, their voices are real and their stories help create the Zombie World. 

If you're a Zombie lover, or even if you love a good survival story, this book is a good pick for you. I just recommend you take the story in pieces, read a few interviews at a time. But other than that, it's a good read.

REVIEW: Falling for Hamlet

I'm just going to skip how much
this cover bothers me, okay?

Hamlet is a story of betrayal, dealing with grief, politics and madness. In the play, Shakespeare is able to hit on many themes and emotions, giving actors much to work with leading to some intense performance from talented actors. 

Then there is this book. 

Falling for Hamlet takes the story of Hamlet, sloppily butchers it and stuffs the remaining corpse with teen fiction tropes. The book is told from the perspective of Ophelia and how she is so in love with Hamlet... etc... etc... Hamlet is so hot... etc etc. The usual. The core of the story, the atmosphere and the depth has been removed and sacrificed to make the story flashy and hip. Don't get me wrong, rewrites and novelizations of Shakespearian plays can work (For example, Fool by Christopher Moore) but the author needs to take care with what they are doing and how they approach it. 

In the case of this novel, it is modernized. It takes place in Denmark probably present day. Ophelia is still the daughter of Polonius, an advisor to the King. She has been friends with Hamlet and Horatio forever. She also has dated Hamlet off and on again, recently getting back together with him at the distain of Gertrude Hamlet's Mother. 

So Ophelia? Is she likeable? Meh. Is she relatable? Not in the slightest. On many occasions it is shoved in the Reader's face that Ophelia is hot. She's so hot that she doesn't have to do anything and she will look hot. She's blond, well dressed and lives the celebrity life. But she doesn't want to celebrity life, she wants to be normal. Ophelia is madly in love with Hamlet, which we are constantly reminded of. In the play, Ophelia is a side character. She is in love with Hamlet and Hamlet loves her too, but this isn't that crucial to the story line. Ophelia's purpose is to act as a foil to Hamlet's character and to be a comparison to him and his "decent into madness". In this novel Ophelia comes off as being unbelievable. She reminded me of Bella from Twilight judging her existence on how much Hamlet loves her. Which makes me wonder... Ophelia acknowledges that she is that girl, the girl who drops her friends and her life to run after a boy, does it make it worse that she knows this, or does it make it better in some way? 

Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet in the 1996 film adaptation.
More entertaining then anything....

Then there is Hamlet, as I mentioned earlier, Hamlet is "hot". When we are first introduced to him his main characteristics are that he is hot and he is a great boyfriend. All of Hamlet's story arch becomes unbelievable as his actions are forced. 

What really got to me, was how the author tried to incorporate the soliloquies into the novel. This didn't really work. The speeches lost their power after being translated into modern english. All of the eloquence lost. This novel took the plot strands of Hamlet and stripped it down to the bare minimum (the romance, Hamlet going crazy) and simplified the characters. I understand what Michelle Ray was attempting to do here, but it wasn't effective. This novel would have been much better if it wasn't a direct adaptation, instead stood on its own with different character names and different locations (pulling a Lion King if you will). 

I highly recommend you take a look at the original play.

The Matrix Still Has Me...

Meet Mr. Smith,

The Mob of Mr. Smith at the end of The Matrix: Revolutions (Wachowski Brothers, 2003)

Errrr well.... meet a bunch of him...

Yes you guessed it. We're in Sequel Territory people.

The Matrix Sequels, somewhere few Nerds wish to admit they have tred. The confusing films that try to pass off their psuedo-philosophical ideas on the unsuspecting masses. And why you ask did I willingly submit myself to rewatching these movies? Well I had to write a paper for one of my film classes and one of the films of choice was The Matrix. At first I was thinking about writing something about comparing the philosophies in The Matrix Films and Inception, and how it was commoditized and sold to the audiences. Interesting idea, but not what the class called for. So instead I decided to do something about the sequels.... Bad plan I know. I fired up the faithful laptop, put on a pot of tea and settled down to watch the movies with my partner in crime Lucy (Read wasn't around at this time. She apologized profusely saying she had to go to work... I have a feeling this was a lie and she was avoiding the apartment until I was done).

So, where do these movies go wrong? I have a theory, and I think I can apply it to other films and books that spawn unintended sequels (I'm thinking about Pirates of the Caribbean right now). It's almost impossible to capture what you had originally. Your plot is tight. Your characters face the challenge placed in front of them and learn their lesson bcome better people, die, I don't know. But they reach their destination. Look at Neo. A computer geek living in a hole in the wall becomes a Kung-fu-Gun-Master sporting his trench and his sunglasses. He rescues his Tutor and defeats his nemisis Agent Smith. Congratulations Neo you've reached max level!

Enter the Sequels... and the first problem you find is our poor protagonist possesses God-like abilities and has no where to go from there. He flies around doing nothing but looking pretty and having philosophical discussions with the Oracle until he finally decides to go to "The Source" and end the whole thing.

Which brings me to the philosophy of the sequels. In the first film you have a tight belief system based off of many things (Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation and René Descartes Brain in a Vat to name a few) but when we hit the Sequels... it falls apart which made me realize something. The Matrix wants to be philosophical so it is philosophical. Much of the "philosophy" discussed takes a very Baudrillard approach, they flip sentences. Therefore:

I watch TV becomes The TV watches me

How profound does that sound? Don't get me wrong, there are still the usual Christian symbols thrown in there plus our ever needed battle between Good and Evil.

So this brings us back to our buddy Agent Smith. I caught something when I was watching the film this time around. Smith has this little speech at the end of the last movie. He has Neo in the bottom of a pit and he looks down at him and just loses it:

"Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?"

I think this sums up my thoughts on the last two movies. Why do you keep fighting? You can't win? You're digging yourself a grave. Of course dear Neo fires off a one liner and defeats the audience in what can only be described as a metephorical pounding of the audience. At least we drag him down with us... but nope the Oracle hints that he'll be back.

Does this mean that the Wachowski Brothers have more Matrix films in store somewhere down the road? Are we all still plugged into the Matrix? Well I fully admit I am... and I question it every day.