"Beauty and the Beast"

If I had to choose one Disney princess I would like to be, it would most certainly be Belle. She and I share many similarities; she loves to read books, I love to read books, she sings, I sing, she's a brunette, I'm a brunette...you get the idea. If fact, when I was younger, I can remember arguing with a childhood friend over who was more like Belle, her or me. Oh the memories.

I do love this story. It is a story of a girl who doesn't seem to fit in with those around her. She's different from the others, and feels that there must be more for her than just an ordinary life. I wonder how many of us felt that growing up? How many of us still have that desire within us of wanting to do something extraordinary in our lives? Belle has this desire that I think is within all of us, the desire to be so much more than ordinary. The desire to hold that child like wonder that anything can happen, even something magical!

This story also teaches us to not judge a book by its cover, to borrow the old cliche. Belle learns how to see beyond the Beast's appearance, and see his potential for good, and for love. And she in turn falls in love, breaking the spell. What a beautiful story!

-Bethany

This is one of Disney's best films...simply put.  As a kid I always enjoyed this movie for the great story, fantastic music, and wonderful fairy tale that it is.  Now as a  adult, I can glean even more however.  What this film deals with is learning to see beyond the surface, and learning to not fear what you do not know.  The beast of course, personifies both the fear of the unknown, and is the embodiment of a man with whom you have to look beyond the surface to truly see who he is.  Even then, he himself has to "learn how to love" before we can even see him as anything more than a beast.

There are of course many more light hearted things that I love about this film.  Things like Gaston's semi-automatic blunderbuss, and his fantastically chiseled features.  Then of course the litany of french maid jokes that I can make whenever Lumiere is making passes at the dusting broom.  (How weird is that.)  To be honest, I like the characters as objects better than I do after the curse is lifted.  Especially the beast...he just seems way more manly and cool as a beast duking it out with Gaston after being shot by an arrow. 

Beauty and the Beast is a great film that is luckily still fun to watch, which in my opinion cannot be said about more than a few of the older Disney films.  I am looking forward to the rest of Disney spread throughout our movie collection.

-David