Saturday, January 21, 2012

Movie Day: Beauty and the Beast 3D

King's take:
We're doing this on paper because the computer is not working. I can't believe this. I don't get it.
We saw Beauty and the Beast in 3D.
We went into the theater and got some 3D glasses. I used the gift card for tickets. We got a small popcorn to share, and then we headed into theater 14. We watched previews. There was the Arietty preview, that Miaka wants to see. There was the Disney Pixar Brave movie. I think that would be a nice movie to see.
It took a while for the lights to go out. Miaka said the lights reflected off the 3D glasses and made it hard to see.
First there was a piece called Tangled Ever After.
Then they started the actual movie. Belle went to get a new book. Her father was trying to make his invention work and then headed off to the fair. Until the horse, Phillipe, went the wrong way, and he wasn't at the fair, he was at the Beast's castle. The Beast was not happy and locked him up in the tower until Belle came to rescue him.
Gaston wanted to marry Belle, but she refused.
Gaston did not give up.
Belle went to the castle to rescue her father. Then she met the Beast. She said "What have you done to my father?" and she offered to take her father's place.
The Beast gave her a room. He wanted Belle to come to dinner, but she said "I'm not hungry." She wouldn't come out and the Beast lost his temper.
Then there was the Be Our Guest song. I think that was a great song.
Then Belle went to the west wing on purpose, even though the Beast had told her not to. She lifted up the glass case for the red rose and the Beast got angry and told her to leave. She ran away and then she was going to be eaten by wolves, until the Beast saved her life.
Then Belle was trying to treat the Beast's wound, but he said "Ow!" and wouldn't stay still. Belle said "this may sting a little."
Belle's father Maurice wanted to rescue Belle, but no one would help him. So he set off on his own.
Gaston's plan didn't work.
Best part: When the Beast and Belle got married and all the servants in the castle were human again.
It was a great movie. Except for when the Beast got stabbed in the back by Gaston. Gaston fell off the tower and the mountain.

(We got the computer to cooperate again about then, so we did a video interview.)
Video link: (will be added when I can get YouTube to cooperate and let me upload the video.)


Miaka's take: 
I'd been looking forward to seeing this movie since I noticed that it was being re-released, this time in 3D. I enjoyed Beauty and the Beast the first time it was in the theater, some 20 years ago or so, and I thought it would be a good way to see what a 3D movie might be like. Considering the 3DS tends to give me a headache pretty fast, I was a touch iffy on the whole concept, so trying it with a movie I already knew I liked was important.
Fortunately for me, the whole experience was quite smooth. Well, except for a minor hiccup with the tickets. I'd forgotten that 3D movies cost more to see in the theater. (I presume the extra cost is there to cover the glasses and equipment.) King had a gift card to be used for the purchase of the tickets, but it was $6 short of the cost of 2 tickets for a 3D movie. Fortunately, he was able to pull out 6 $1 bills, with a little coaching. Once we had the tickets, he headed over to the concessions counter and asked for a large popcorn. I assured him that a small popcorn would be more than enough for the two of us. "A large is for the whole family to share. There's only two of us, so a small is plenty."
He was loosing stray kernels of popcorn, like a flower-girl scattering petals, the whole way to our seats in the theater. We were the first to arrive for the showing, so we had our pick of seats. King chose a row in approximately the middle of the theater, a little to the forward side. The theater we go to has stadium-style seating, and King's selected seats were perhaps five or six steps up from the entry floor level. I poked at him to go sit in the very center of the row. My reasoning for this is twofold: it provides optimal viewing position, and it leaves plenty of end space in both directions for others to grab seats in the same row, if needed. This showing, it wasn't needed. I think about 3 or 4 other people came, though I suppose that's fairly expected for a noontime showing on a Thursday that's not during vacation week. It is a kids movie, after all.
King pretty well covered the events leading up to the movie--yes, I fussed a bit about the lights still being on, because they reflected on the glasses (which I kept trying on) and made it hard to see things through the glasses. Also they played the trailer for the latest Ghibli film, which I am already making plans to see with friends when it comes out next month, as we did with Ponyo.
The movie started off with a short about Tangled. Personally, I thought it was rather silly and was looking forward to it being over. Then again, I really only enjoyed Tangled because Flynn reminded me (and my friends watching with me) of one of Archi's characters.
Once the movie actually started, it was awesome! The 3D worked quite well, actually, even with the stained-glass set that starts off the story with the tale of how the Beast came to be. I have, of course, had bits of the songs stuck in my head all day. Also I could not quite resist singing along a little in the theater. The movie was just as excellent as I remembered it, and the 3D had been very carefully applied with a subtle hand. Backgrounds came to life even more, and it was like looking into a diorama (the edges of the screen seem quite sharp as they interrupt the picture). I was very pleased to see that they hadn't really changed anything to make the 3D more apparent, simply added it where it fit, seamlessly. I don't really know enough about the details of how animation or 3D effects work to go on about it much more. Well, that and I wasn't really paying attention to the 3D as much as to the movie itself.
After the movie, Archi picked us up and we headed back to my place. In the car, King and I discussed doing the video review and what to have for lunch. He decided he'd rather have a ham and cheese sandwich than wait around an hour for pizza to arrive.  Upon our arrival at my place, King enjoyed his ham and cheese sandwich, and a chocolate cupcake for desert (I made cupcakes Wednesday night because the house was cold). Lunch eaten, we went to the living room to try and create the video review. That was when I discovered that my computer didn't want to work with me today. We did a written review for a bit, and then suddenly the computer started cooperating again and we were able to craft a video review. Once that was completed, we put in the Rayearth dvd to watch until it was time for King to head home.
For some reason it takes forever to upload one of the video reviews to YouTube...

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