4.44 - BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017) & Loneliness

This week our focus is he 2017 live-action version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. After some…contrasting reviews, we talk about how this film is a lot darker and more serious than the original, how it has a lot more to it (both good and bad), and how it might be a different sort of fairy tale to the 1991 film.

Next Time
Next in line for our Disney focus is he 1992 version of ALADDIN.

Recent Media
HORTON HEARS A WHO! (2008): Theodor Seuss Geisel, Jimmy Hayward, Steve Martino
X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX (2019): Simon Kinberg, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender
SNOWPIERCER (2020–): Jacques Lob, Josh Friedman, Jennifer Connelly
THE TOWN (2010): Chuck Hogan, Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall

Recommendations
COLOSSAL (2016): Nacho Vigalondo, Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudekis
FAST & FURIOUS 6 (2013): Justin Lin, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker
A LIFE LESS ORDINARY (1997): Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz
MR HOLMES (2015): Bill Condon, Mitch Cullin, Ian McKellen

Footnotes
This is an interesting presentation on one of the ideas Rob mentions early on: prezi.com/tovwsqhae1zq/the-art-of-metacommentary. Here’s more about the character of LeFou (including his name): villains.fandom.com/wiki/LeFou. And here’s more on the openly gay take on this character, including a very interesting idea from the director himself about one possible allegorical interpretation of the film: people.com/movies/beauty-and-the-beast-disney-first-openly-gay-character-lefou. And here’s a good response from Josh Gad to some negative criticism of LeFou: edition.cnn.com/2017/03/07/movies/josh-gad-gay-beauty-and-the-beast-character/index.html. And the final line of this short piece is particularly good: www.vulture.com/2017/03/heres-the-exclusively-gay-moment-in-beauty-and-the-beast.html. (Can you tell I went down an ‘internet hole’ reading about LeFou’s modern incarnation??) Finally, Rob may not have especially warmed to the result, but this was a really interesting article about the CGI transformation of Dan Stevens: www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/beauty-and-the-best-movie-dan-stevens-special-effects.

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