#how they think he's miscast and that he's not attractive enough he's supposed to be “a man's man” he's supposed to look like a biker

[ciscowojciechowski]

one of the really unfortunate things about the audience of the Netflix original legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer and my tendency to read every discussion of characters I like to the point of doing myself severe psychic damage is that one of the only places people talk about Cisco is on reddit where they keep saying really awful things about Angus, in particular his appearance, and I get so angry reading them that I want to, like, put people in saw traps but like.

not even getting into the fatphobic shit or people just saying he's unattractive, two things I've legitimately seen people say is that 1. he doesn't look like a biker and that 2. he's not masculine. and to that I have to say 1. have you ever seen a biker??? and 2. have you ever seen a MAN????

[nellygwyn]

keira knightley acts as if she hasn't fully swallowed her mouthful of marbles and while i'm very gay and very into her in an aesthetic sense she isn't the be all and end all of acting/period dramas and i'm so pleased a blog i admire acknowledges this too

Here are my two thought processes about her (without sounding like a bitch):

1. A lot of my resentment towards her comes from being jealous of her. I admit, I personally never had my ~bisexual awakening~ because of her, I know other women did, but I was more interested in other celebrity women, I suppose, so she never really showed up on my radar. She was a fairly mediocre actress who was in a lot of films and genres I enjoyed but that was it. Unfortunately, everyone I’ve ever cared about romantically has been so vastly in love with her that it turned me from being just kind of eh about her to being irritated on sight. Like, my ex sent me a admiring text about her once, I guess because he was watching POTC that evening, and it filled me with so much all-consuming anger that I deleted the message and pretended it had never been sent to me. Not being funny but how can one be into women like her and then also, somehow, into women like me? Like, I don’t even look human in comparison to that. Do Not Compute. Idk, I guess it just makes me insecure and feel disgusting and I always find myself apt to hate women based on whether they’re more attractive to me. Just speaking candidly!

2. I feel like she’s miscast in a lot of period dramas and it has everything to do with the fact that she’s thin and pretty and she’s not the only woman to be used in this way but she’s the most prominent, especially if you like period dramas. Like The Duchess for example; Georgiana Cavendish was historically a curvaceous woman, not stunningly pretty in her face, but charming and sparkling enough to compensate for it and make herself magnetic. Her body was a great source of unhappiness for her, unfortunately, she would starve herself, make herself sick etc. but never meet with the desired effects, which I guess was to be tiny, even though 18th century beauty standards did not dictate this. Her obvious eating disorder and body dysmorphia was discussed at length in Foreman’s bio of her, which was the basis for the film, but we were still met with 21st Century Vogue Model Casting and I felt a little…insulted? Hayley Atwell, who was cast as Bess Foster in that film, was closer to the look. I can’t really speak for any other period dramas she’s been in (Jennifer Ehle will always be my Lizzie Bennet), mostly because the characters seem to be written for her specifically, rather than just a character that would still be that character if played by anyone else. It’s just another symptom of a film and television industry that claim they are making historical movies with rigorous attention to detail but seem to pick their cast on their own personal Hot or Not scale.

And if this sounds bitter, maybe it is a little bit, I’m only human, but I do think there is a lot to be said against casting women with the same Too Perfect 21st Century Look, in historical films. One of great things about history is that the past (at least pre Victorian era) tended to celebrate variety in female looks more than we do (obviously this is a nuanced topic but I feel it’s fine for me to simplify it this way) and casting crews have a real chance to make not only accurate looking period dramas but films that make a subtle statement about our own constricting beauty standards….but they won’t.

[dwarveslikeshinythings]

Guys i saw beauty and the beast last night...

and i just... 

was kind of... baffled (?) by some of the choices? 

caution: spoilers/controversial opinions/randomy thought-vomity thoughts under the cut. I didn’t hate it as much as this makes it sound... I promise! 

*This got WAY too long, so I’m breaking it into sections. I’m so sorry to anyone that actually bothers to read this. It’s honestly just a reactionary stream of consciousness, for the most part. 

THE ACTING 

To set this up/disclaim: I adore Emma Watson as a human being. She is absolutely lovely, she IS and will always be Hermione Granger, and I’ve liked her in most of her other projects. That said, I found her COMPLETELY flat in this movie acting-wise (and don’t worry, I’ll get to her singing). I don’t think that Emma by nature is what I would describe as “feisty;” there’s a classy, sophisticated, “prim and proper-ness” to her that definitely has it’s place... but just not here. 

Belle needs to be fiery, empowered, passionate, and she just has to EXUDE that in everything she says or does. I think they did a lot in the script to empower Belle through the dialogue she was given, but Emma just doesn’t exude those things naturally with her acting, which I think is where the disconnect ultimately came from. 

So unfortunately, I was worried this would be a case of miscasting from the beginning, and I was sadly proven right. She looked absolutely stunning, but I personally never felt like I connected with Emma’s Belle, which KILLED me, because like so many other people that grew up with the movie, Belle was the character that no matter where I was in life, I always gravitated toward. 

Honestly, I just felt like I got more genuine emotion from 2 minutes of Human!Dan Stevens as the prince there at the end than I did from Emma the entire film.

THE SCRIPT 

I wouldn’t have thought this would be possible, given that the animated film script is pitch-perfect and even the Broadway show manages to be good (despite some completely worthless additions), but the script for this film was actually pretty bad. I’d give it 3.5/10. The pacing through the whole thing was... off, somehow. The relationship development between Belle and the Beast felt off-balance to me, and there were several scenes that I genuinely sat there going “well that was rushed.” (*cough* LIBRARY SCENE *cough*) 

Specifically: 

Why on EARTH would they have given the “I’ll show you to your room” scene to anyone BUT the Beast. It’s like, the entire tee-up to the Belle x Beast relationship???!? 

Also, they BOTCHED the whole “join me for dinner” bit, BECAUSE they gave the “i’ll show you to your room” scene to the objects. 

I was not a HUGE fan of the one-line backstory they gave the beast, something about “his father turned him into a monster” or something to that effect. To me, that “woobifies” the character in a way I’m not a fan of...  I always liked the Beast because it seemed to me that he had CHOSEN to be a bad person, he got his comeuppance when he was cursed, and he consciously had to decide to change his heart in order to break the spell. It took something away from the Belle x Beast arc to insert someone else in there to tell her “oh, he’s this way because X,” and for that to serve as a catalyst for her feelings softening.

Also, the whole Paris bit was super extra, and to me, a sign that the writers were like “oh crap, we haven’t done enough to build up Belle and the Beast, so uh, here, let’s have them bond over sadness.” Like... meh? (Sidebar: if you’re GONNA do the Paris thing and you’re GONNA have HUGE SHOT OF NOTRE DAME SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING, I EXPECT A “HUNCHBACK” EASTER EGG. C’MON, DISNEY!) 

Shifting gears, NGL, I missed Gaston’s ill-attempted “wooing” scene at the beginning of the movie. It almost seemed to me like they were intentionally trying to excise some of the blatant misogny from his character... but... like... he’s SUPPOSED to be the biggest fuckboi in town... he’s supposed to be the character that you really hate. He should be narcissistic, mysogynistic and generally disgusting. I remember even being a kid being thoroughly disgusted by Gaston, and feeling like he really got what he deserved when Belle chucked him out into the mud. And I just... didn’t get that from this film. I mean, he became hateable later with what he did to Maurice, but there was a lot missing from the propsal/rejection scene for me. (Also I would have DIED to hear Luke Evans sing “ME” from the Broadway show.)

ANOTHER THING: not enough of the Gaston fangirls! They could have had SUCH FUN with Lefou and the girls all mooning over Gaston... not a huge deal, just a missed character/comedy opportunity, IMO. 

OTHER MISSING CHARACTERS: WHERE TF WAS MONSIEUR D’ARQUE?!? He was positively creeptacular in the original/stage version, plus YOU CAST ADRIAN FUCKING SCHILLER, WHY WOULD YOU NOT USE HIM!?!? My boy got seriously shortchanged. 

Also, how TF did Belle manage to pull off that full costume change while galloping away on a horse??? 

Final random casting thing: the village library guy was pretty young and hot (not at all like the old guy from the movie). If I was Belle, I’d have been all over that! :P

THE MUSIC: 

OKAY SO THE MUSIC: 

First thing’s first: HOLLYWOOD. IF YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE RE-MAKING EVERY MUSICAL UNDER THE SUN AND INSIST ON CASTING ACTORS WHO CANNOT SING, WE HAVE GOT TO RE-EMBRACE THE CONCEPT OF DUBBING. BRING BACK THE MARNI NIXONS OF THE WORLD AND LET THEM SING. AUDREY HEPBURN WAS DUBBED. NATALIE WOOD WAS DUBBED. THIS DID NOT DETRACT FROM THE FACT THAT THEY WERE INCREDIBLE ACTRESSES. DUBBING IS AN ACCEPTABLE PRACTICE. LET’S BRING IT BACK. 

Seriously, I am so BEYOND done watching actors that cannot sing BUTCHER great scores. Emma was so autotuned, it was honestly cringeworthy-- wayyyyy too saccharine, way too overproduced. 

That said, Audra MacDonald was a VISION, as always, Josh Gad consistently impresses me as a vocalist/overall performer (and his upper register), Luke Evans was pitch-perfect and Emma Thompson’s rendition of “Beauty and the Beast” was absolutely everything it needed to be. Even Dan Stevens showed up with some vocal chops, but that brings me to another thing... 

COULD WE HAVE NOT JUST HAD HIM SING “IF I CAN’T LOVE HER” INSTEAD OF WHATEVER GODAWFUL POWER-BALLAD SOMEONE DECIDED WOULD BE A GREAT IDEA TO WRITE. 

Seriously... I had SUCH HIGH HOPES that they would at least carry over the Beast’s songs from the Broadway show, because of all the songs they added into the stage adaptation, I thought those added the most to the story and gave some much needed dimension to the Beast’s character, with some introspective moments that were missing from the original film. 

Instead (I’m assuming for the purpose of making people buy the new soundtrack), they wrote an utterly CRINGEWORTHY song that was musically cheap and lyrically terrible. I am getting so tired of saying this EVERY TIME a new movie musical adaptation comes out, but producers keep doing it and it irks me. So here (for the umpteenth time) is a PRO-TIP: When you have SO MUCH fantastic source material ALREADY out there, JUST USE IT. DON’T WRITE NEW STUFF. JUST USE WHAT’S ALREADY THERE. 

So in the meantime, I’ll just be over here cry/yelling in frustration about never getting to hear Dan Stevens sing “LET THE WORLD BE DONE WITH MEEEEEEEE!” 

They also lost WAY too much of the original scoring in favor of scoring that was just, well... BLAH. Really missed the original scoring during the scene in the West Wing when Belle finds the rose, in particular. [ALSO... they somehow managed to take like... ALL of the dramatic tension/sense of danger out of that scene. I don’t understand how that was possible, but they did it.]

HOWEVER, I was delightfully surprised to hear “Home” backing a few scenes throughout... I do like that song from the Broadway show, and while I had no desire whatsoever to hear Emma sing it, I’m happy that musical moment made it in somehow. 

FINALLY, whatever GOD-AWFUL song they had Celine Dion sing at the end just needs to never be heard by human ears again. But Ariana Grande and John Legend sounded pretty good. 

LAST THOUGHTS: 

Would never have thought I’d be attracted to Dan Stevens all dolled up in ostentatious French facepaint, but whoops, I was wrong. 

Shoutout to Hattie Morahan for being delightfully creepy and gorgeous as the Enchantress (also, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY FEELS with Edward/Elinor in the same frame!) 

To sum it up, though: Stanley Tucci remains one of my favorite things on God’s green earth, and I just want to be Emma Thompson when I grow up.