A Quote

Life is so unnerving for a servant who's not serving,

he's not whole without a soul to wait upon.

Ah, those good old days when we were useful,

suddenly, those 'good old days' are gone.

Ten years we've been rusting, needing so much more than dusting,

needing exercise, a chance to use our skills!

Most days we just lay around the castle.

Flabby, fat, and lazy, you walked in and whoopsiedaisy!

Beauty and the Beast, a tale as old as time...sorry I couldn't resist :) This movie is near and dear to my heart for a great many of reasons. In this Disney movie, things are not as they appear, the characters are all under a spell, punished, for a wrong done by one of their own long ago. They've learned to live with it, but still are unhappy, yet have given up hope of the spell ever breaking. Then, in walks someone willing to take a life sentence off of a man's shoulders so that that man could walk free. It was done out of love. Days go by and the Hero and Heroine never fell in love at first sight...unusual for a Disney movie if I do say so. Instead, it takes time. Emotions are all over the board. Anger, fear, sadness, longing, curiosity, guilt, remorse...the couple butt heads, save and take care of each other out of obligation, then slowly, begin to trust each other and start up a friend ship, and from there a bond is formed. The Hero lets his love go to take care of her dying father, because he truly cares and can't stand to see her hurt at this point, even though he knows that his curse will never break if she leaves. But he has learned to love. In the end, the heroine goes back to protect the thing, err, man, that she once was frightened of and despised, the bad guy dies, and an amazing transformation happens.

Belle was always my favorite Disney princess, probably because a 'princess' is something that she doesn't portray at all in the movie. She starts out, in a town, in a quiet village, every day like the one before. She reads books, multiple times, and is always going back for more. She doesn't run with that silly trio of half naked, blonde girls who are always fainting at the site of Gaston, and throws him into a pile of mud with the pig when he tries to convince her that he's the 'one for her'.

Her father is sane...but incredibly imaginative. She's odd, she doesn't really know it cause she herself feels just normal. "Normal is a setting on a washing machine." She "wants adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand, to have someone understand..." She wants sooo much more than these little villagers can imagine. She's not afraid of getting a little muddy, or using her brains. And when someone she cares about is nowhere to be found, she rides through creepy woods that are just screaming "GOOOO BACK! you're crazy if you keep going!" She's a lot of things, but a princess, she is not....until the end. :-D

and when a movie has a singing and dancing candle stick...well, you can't say no to that!