Beauty and the Beast

[bluemuna]

To be honest, I'm not sure why he has to do a French accent at all. That was one of the things that sort of bugged about the original as well. None of the main characters had French accents except for Lumiere. I guess you could argue that the Beast's family brought their staff over from England, but what about the towns people? What about Belle? Gaston? The Beast? Why bother having the candelabra and the feather duster speak with French accents if no one else is going to? If none of the characters had French accents it would bother me less.

[chonies]

Mar 19, 2017 20:23:23 GMT -4 luminosa said:

Mar 18, 2017 18:05:08 GMT -4 @roisin54 said:

True, but he has four daughters. I'm just kind of shocked that it didn't make it into the video rotation at Casa McGregor. Stephen Colbert was shocked too.

Anyways, at least I know to be prepared for his bad French accent.

Even if you haven't seen it pre-hiring, wouldn't you go out and watch it to prepare? Or I don't know? Not admit that in every interview you do? It feels like a dick move or he's just trying to save face bc he knows he is garbage in it. I wish they would have hireda French actor or someone who can do a passable French accent. Doesn't Bradley Cooper sing and speak fluent French? Jean DuJardin not available?

Jean DuJardin would have made me buy tickets.

I have a general question--I'm not a Disney person at all, so I'm just wondering about how an actor would prepare for this. How close is this supposed to be to the animated version? Does it really matter if Ewan has seen the movie if he's cast to play a role? How many versions of Jane Eyre does each new Jane or Rochester need to watch?

[ratscabies]

Just got home. I thought they did a fine job.

Chonies, some of it (especially the opening) seemed shot by shot. There were liberties taken some places. I enjoyed the in-joke during "Be Our Guest", and while filler, some of the new stuff actually added to the story.

On a personal front, my niece didn't wait, and went to a late night showing Thursday night, and she loved it unabashedly both times. MissP also seemed to really like it.

Anyone see it in 3D? That 360 degree shot when Belle enters the bedroom was dizzying in 2D, I wonder how off-putting it is in 3D?

[sardonictart]

Mar 18, 2017 11:41:57 GMT -4 ratscabies said:

I might let Ewan slide on that. It really wasn't a "boy" movie, after all, and I still have to stop and think about Lennie Briscoe being a French candlestick...

Meh. You are being far too charitable. Ewan not doing his research on an iconic role played by a revered Broadway theater and Hollywood screen actor WAS a dick move. It would be like you never studying up on the work of Les Paul. It's Jerry freaking Orbach, and any actor worth his salt knows both who he is and how fabulous he was. The man has a freaking theater named after him on Broadway - that's how badass he was. I haven't seen it yet, so perhaps Ewan isn't bad in it, but if he is he was definitely covering for the fact that he sucked by relaying that story. And if he sucks, it would mar the movie for me a bit because Orbach was so damned awesome in it.

[Deleted]

I've seen it now and while Ewan wasn't as bad as I thought he would be he was still badly miscast. And I agree, it is a dick move on his part to not even acknowledge Jerry Orbach. I can understand why he didn't want to watch the original so he wouldn't be influenced by it, but he hasn't even mentioned Orbach's name. On Colbert he just referred to him as "the guy who did it before." That's really what irked me about that interview. And it's disappointing because I like Ewan.

But aside from that and the fact that Emma Watson can't really sing all that well I loved it. Luke Evans was absolutely perfect as Gaston, and Josh Gad was great as Le Fou. I also liked the additions to the story and I think the overall plot made more sense in this version.

Emma Thompson ain't no Angela Lansbury though. Her accent was just a touch too much for the song.

[lea1977]

I always thought that Alicia Vikander would have made a good Belle but Emma was a total sweetheart.

[jynni]

I was 11 or 12 when the movie came out and probably wore out my VHS copy. To this day I could probably quote it word for word. Have also seen multiple amateur and professional productions of the musical so going into this I was kinda skeptical that it could possible live up to even my lowest expectations. Especially after hearing the brief clips of Emma singing. I ended up really enjoying this. It's a great movie interpretation of both the original animated movie and the Broadway show (even if they didn't use any of the extra music it felt like some story, tone and visual elements were used). I think my only quibbles:

1. Emma Watson's singing - that was some hardcore autotune and thankfully they kept her singing to just the bare minimum. It was a little distracting as she sounded like she was singing from the bottom of a well and her singing voice sounded way off from her speaking voice. Her voice never mixed in right with any of the other singers. It was especially noticeable in "Belle" due to all the back and forth. If her real singing voice is so bad that she needed that much artificial help, just go old-Hollywood and get a voice dub.

2. They should've just used "If I Can't Love Her" from the Broadway show instead of the new song they wrote for the Beast and maybe tweaked the lyrics a bit to make it fit the change in the solo's placement to after Belle leaves from when she first arrives. It's musically and lyrically superior. The new song (Evermore?) even had some of the same musical cues and patterns so much so that I'm guessing they used IICLH as a template and just wrote something similar.

3. Ewan McGregor's "French" accent leaned a bit too much into caricature but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting from some of the reviews I've read.

Overall though, really well done. Loved the way they were able to work in backstory for pretty much all the main characters and used the extra run time to actually show some relationship building and character development. My criticism of her singing aside, Emma Watson was excellent as Belle. I actually thought she felt much more natural in this role than she did as Hermione. Her acting felt much less forced. Really like the character moments they gave to her and her father and Kevin Kline did a great Josh Gad and Luke Evans were standouts and played really well off each other. Dan Stevens was great even under all the makeup and CGI. I actually thought the Beast looked much better on screen than in still production and promo photos I'd seen. Great visuals and production design. Felt more real world and fitting with a more specific time period but still had a fairytale quality.

[Ladybug]

We saw it and enjoyed it a lot. Luke Evans was the standout for me. I don't think I've ever seen him in anything else but he was a perfect Gaston.

[mrpeanut]

Mar 20, 2017 12:58:17 GMT -4 Ladybug said:

We saw it and enjoyed it a lot. Luke Evans was the standout for me. I don't think I've ever seen him in anything else but he was a perfect Gaston.

I quite liked his performance in Dracula Untold (movie wasn't that great, though).

I think that's the only thing I've seen him in, but he appears to have nailed this role.

[TrafficChick]

Here's the thing: Gaston

In the cartoon version, Gaston is a buffoon. An idiot who is full of himself, but doesn't come off as creepy-dangerous from the get-go.

In the movie version? To me, he comes out swinging. Right from his first moment on screen, he reads as creepy, misogynistic, stalker, and imminently dangerous. I didn't find him humorous in the least. To me, he read as every man who's ever put a woman in an uncomfortable position. As every man who's ever been an abuser. As the guy who would lock you in the basement and treat you like garbage. To me (again, this is just my feeling), he came off as a slightly less creepy Buffalo Bill (Silence of the Lambs). I was *very* uncomfortable with him.

Just my $.02.

Overall, it was a very pretty movie. I thought it dragged a LOT.

I thought Audra McDonald was *amazing* and Ewan McGregor, while no Jerry Orbach, did a fine job.

Emma Watson was fine. At least it wasn't Anne Hathaway...