Musicals

Musicals make me happy. Simple as that. Usually (not always) musicals are really happy, there is nearly, almost, always a happy ending and there is singing and dancing….. WHAT MORE CAN YOU WANT!!??!!

I love musicals because I am a movie nut and love to sing. I’m always singing – you can ask anyone I know – if we hang out, I’m bound to sing. I don’t what it is…what i love so much. Actually, I read somewhere that singing is actual good for your health. I dont know how or why but maybe that’s why I do it. I’m subconsciously trying to stay healthy through song. Anyway, singing just makes me happy and fluffy inside.

I would say I’m pretty open-minded when it comes to musicals, as in I pretty much love every musical I’ve ever watched. I love online musicals especially by the company Starkid. But I love musicals ranging from the 1950s to today.

One of my favourite musicals of all time is “Singin’ in the Rain”. It’s just a classic! It never gets old. It’s one of those musicals where you can watch it over and over again and never get bored. I love Gene Kelly!! Who could be considered the Prince of old hollywood musicals. I love his talent and he’s just such an inspiration to many. Other musicals he has starred in I absolutely love are; An American in Paris, Brigadoon, On the Town and many more. I remember watching Brigadoon for the first time. I was about 12 years old, just come back from holiday and it was about 1-2 in the morning and it was on BBC3 and I watched it with my dad. I stayed up to finish it, loved it so much I begged my mum for the DVD and the kind-hearted soul that she is… I received it the next day. There is just something about “old” musicals that will never age.

Grease is another one of the favourites – I mean I even love the terrible sequel with Michelle Pfiffer. Again I was introduced to Grease at a young age, I was about 8 or 9 years old. My older cousin who I was very close with, put it on when I sayed over one time. I loved it so much it was on repeat, pretty much all the time. For my 11th birthday, my cousin took me to see Grease in the West End on stage. I was so excited I wore a Pink Ladies jacket, black top, black sequinned leggings and brown wedged shoes. I dressed up for the occasion, had a lot of people stared at me, which made me a bit self-conscious, but I just kept telling myself, “You’re a fan and 11 years old. THIS IS OK.” Anyway, the show was incredible! I will remember it forever. Growing up I admired Frenchie, I felt like we had a lot in common – she was bubbly, friendly and just a kind soul. She never wanted to disappoint her friends. I related that, I still do now but I just don’t have that constant worry of disappointment in the back of my mind. I also have a more matured mind and I can actually understand what I relate to.

If I talk about every musical that I loved we would be here forever!! I’m going to stick to films musicals or film adapted musicals or musical adapted films. You get what I mean!! I will do West End in another post.

Burlesque – 2010 – Christina Aguleria and Cher – I like this musical due to the cast, the music and dancing. The musical is just amazing! You have some fun raunchy songs and some emotional ones, that hit you right in the feels!

Hairspray – 2007 – Nikki Blonsky, Zac Efron, Queen Latifah, John Travolta and so many more!! – This star-studded cast has created one of the best remade musicals! (In my opinion) This is not the original but it’s a bloody good remake. Everyone is just perfection when portraying their roles and it’s just brilliant. Hairspray is also great as one of the main plot lines is racism in america in the 60s – specifically Racial segregation within a TV show in the film.

Les Miserables – 2012 – Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Helena Bohem Carter – I mean what can I say?? This is a star studded musical and it’s amazing. Incredible moving musical about the French Revolution, I cry every time! I would love to see it on stage (One of my main goals in life), I sadly missed my chance to see the amazing Carrie Hope Fletcher perform as Eponine but I still really want to see it!!

I think I’m going to end it here because I can go on and on and on.

Hope you enjoyed this post!!

And I’m out

Wiseflower xx

 

Beauty and The Beast (2017)

Yesterday, I went to see Disney’s Live Action; Beauty and the Beast…

IT WAS MAGICAL!!!

Oh my goodness….Where do I even begin?

Let me start with the trailers, I was so excited to find out there was going to be a live action Beauty and the Beast as it is definitely one of my favourite Disney films of all time. Belle has always been such an inspiration to me, she was a Disney girl who read and said no to an extremely handsome man because he was ugly on the inside. Belle taught me its ok to read, its ok to say no and most importantly beauty lies within. When watching the trailers for this film, I was in pieces!! I was emotional and I was just so excited to watch this film. To see Emma Watson as Belle, singing and dancing. I was very intrigued. I have been a huge fan of Emma Watson from a young age because I grew up with her as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise. I was extremely excited to find out that Emma Watson was going to be portraying Belle as I felt she is the real life Belle; an intelligent head strong woman.

Now, time for the film, I had very high expectations because being the film nerd that I am, I wanted the live action to be an exact replica to the animated film. I knew that this was possible but i still hoped and dreamed. To be honest the live action is extremely close to the animated, there are obviously a few tweaks to make it slightly their own. However, I am extremely grateful to how close they were to the original. As I hoped it was also very musically, I can imagine myself watching this film being performed live on stage because it just had quality. The film had extra songs which I assume were from the broadway version. “Days in The Sun” performed by main characters in the castle – which I thought was beautiful and full of emotion. “Evermore” – performed by The Beast and I just…UgH!!! It was everything to me, it was after the dance between Belle and Beast and he sets her free so she can save her father and it just gave me all the feels. I was already emotional (teary not full on crying) during the dance because it was just so visually beautiful and again…gave me all the feels. THEN the Beast performs Evermore…thats why I lost it and full floods of tears were falling from my eyes. What made it so beautiful to me were the lyrics and then his vocals. As the song progressed he sounded even more human, he let her go because he loved her and this showed the human and prince inside him who knows hows to love and has fallen. One point that is related and kinda of unrelated, another reason why I loved this song so much was because of the broadway feel it gave off, as well as, to me, it felt a bit Moulin Rouge-y and I really enjoyed that… I don’t know why. I loved each of these new songs that I have never heard before. Especially the Beast’s song, I was so moved by it and was in tears. I’m basically just an emotional wreck!

This version of beauty and the beast was very clever in the way they filled one big question from the original…..What does Belle do other than read??? She’s an inventor! She invented a washing machine out of a barrel and horse power (literally). So instead of wasting time washing her clothes, she can use that time to continue to read.  I thought the link between the enchanted rose and the castle was really cool and clever. Every time a petal fell from the rose, a piece of the castle crumbled. The fact that during the song “Belle” the school children were all boys reinforcing that woman are not to be educated and then you have Belle challenging that stereotype and that’s why the whole village finds her strange. Also why they go back crap crazy when she is teaching a little girl to read so they throw her CLEAN laundry on the dirty ground! Like in this scene, I don’t even know how Belle kept her cool, because if someone was to throw my CLEAN laundry onto a dirty floor because I was teaching a little girl how to read….. I would have LOST MY SHIT! I would full on shouted, been violent and everything. I would be fucking pissed. Anyway, I digress, I’m sorry, I got angry and carried away.

More awesome things about this film is character depth. Unlike the animated version, Beast and LeFou have so much more character depth and I am so happy and they did things right in this film.

Beast – we get to know more of his back story; about his parents why he is a selfish little git – side note, when he turns into the beast he is an adult not an eleven year old boy – we get know details about his mum and dad and how they influenced him to be how he is by the way he was raised. In the animated, the Beast cannot read because he forgot or something but here he is says himself that he was highly educated as a prince would have been and gives Belle the most epic eye roll after she tells him that her favourite Shakespeare novel was Romeo and Juliet. He has so much sass and that gave him more of a comical approach which I enjoyed. A sweet moment is when Belle finds him reading in a romance book in the garden after he sassed her for enjoying them but the main reason he started reading romance was because they are Belle’s favourite.

LeFou – has so much more depth and is not a bad guy!! He is just in love. As most people know LeFou is an openly gay character in the film and loves Gaston as friend and more. It isn’t shown as obviously as you would think, however, it is shown through dialogue and body language. They made LeFou have more of a character arc and he was much more than a bumbling villain sidekick. LeFou doesn’t instantly follow him, but questions him. As the film continues, he gets more uncomfortable with Gaston’s behaviour and actions. He felt bad for leaving Maurice in the woods for the wolves. In the battle between humans and objects, he even switches sides and saves Mrs Potts from being smashed into a million pieces.(Him and Gaston are in a bad place right now). LeFou sees his wrongs, makes them right and therefore gets his happy ending. He is not a bad guy. LeFou like the animated, is incredibly funny. Josh Gad is a comical genius and represents this in his character perfectly. The casting was perfection!

One final thing about the film that made me extremely happy was the costumes. They were historically correct, especially the characters with higher statuses such as the prince and the servants. Beauty and the Beast is supposed to be set in the 1800s – the french revolution – so they have a certain fashion style and they got it right, the make up, the clothes, the white fancy wigs….everything was great. The main characters costumes were brilliant also because although they were slightly different to the animated, I’m totally cool with that. For example Belle’s costume, the iconic yellow dress, she didn’t have corset making her have a realistic waist, as well as allowing her to move when dancing. The blue “peasant” dress, she wore bloomers and brown boots which are much more practical. So even though the costumes were adapted from the original the colour palettes were spot on!! I was super thrilled by this.

I’ve gone on about this film for age….I will spoil no more!!

Hope you enjoyed this post – if you got to the end, my message to you is GO SEE THIS FILM!! IT IS EVERYTHING!

Speak soon!

WiseFlower xx