flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep

for once, i'm glad someone invited me to a movie that i wouldn't have seen otherwise but am glad that i did. we went to beauty and the beast in 3-D tonight and thoroughly enjoyed myself. going to the theater, i realized that it's been quite a while since i've seen the movie (sometime in 104, probably, when we excitedly found it on a saturday excursion to the used cd/dvd store), and not only is it a landmark in computer animation (the "beauty and the beast" ballroom dance scene) and the only animated movie (until up in 2009) to be nominated for best picture, it's also a really good movie.

last fall at school i saw a few minutes of the lion king on one of our big-a 3-D and was surprised at how good a 2-D animated movie looked in 3-D. every pencil line was clear and there was something about it that was fascinating. the different layers stood clearly and it was like seeing it again for the first time. it was the same seeing all of the details here. oddly, studying computer animation has made me more impressed with traditional animation, i think because i have no bloody clue how they do it. (bonus coolness: i had a class from the lady who animated maurice, belle's father.)

when the movie came out, i remember that we all loved chip's quip's. in tonight's theater full of college texans, he hardly got a response. but there was plenty that i did appreciate more than i have before, the standout scene being the beast pleading at belle's closed door for her to join him at dinner.

i heard something else that left me thinking more than was likely intended. when the beast is brooding at how difficult belle is being, lumiere (a subtle reference to the film pioneer brothers?) notes, "she's had a rough day. she's lost both her father and her freedom."
i thought of how that could feel like marriage, losing your family and your freedom and being trapped with a beast forever. that, in the creation, fall, and atonement stages of a marriage, the courting tale of la belle et la bête is the journey from fall to atonement. they're different, they clash, he doesn't know how to treat her but he wants to learn. and. slowly, stubbornly, things change. and they fall in love.

whatever it's about, i think you should go see it.
unless the artist is playing. then you should see that instead.