Revisiting Beauty and the Beast (1991) - Rank the songs!

By Lynn Lee

With the live-action remake of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast just around the corner, what better time to revisit the original animated masterpiece and its endlessly hummable songs?  If you saw the movie when it came out in 1991 and happened to be a bookish, musical theater-loving little girl (or boy) at the time, odds are you got the soundtrack and learned it by heart.  (I plead guilty on all counts.) 

While I have no idea what happened to my copy, every beat and lyric – by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman, respectively – are still firmly etched into my memory.  I never saw the Broadway musical, which restored a song that had been scrapped from the movie (“Human Again”) and added several new songs by Menken and lyricist Tim Rice, but reportedly the new movie isn’t including any of the latter.  Instead it’s adding four newly new songs by Mencken and Rice.  However, fear not, fellow original Disney B&B enthusiasts: it appears that all of the Mencken-Ashman songs from the 1991 movie will be in the mix.  As Cogsworth would say, “If it’s not ba-roque, why fix it?” 

We’ll have to wait to debate the merits of the new songs but we can discuss how the original ones stack up against each other.  With the caveat that this feels a bit like picking one’s favorite kid, here’s my ranking from lowest to highest...

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On this day: Howards End, George MacKay, '46 Oscars

A very happy quarter century to one of the best young actors working George Mackay (Captain Fantastic, Pride) born on this day in 1992. We're concocting a little series on young actors to debut soon (since we spend so much time on actresses, we'll throw a little love the other direction soon). But George's birthday isn't the only thing worth celebrating today,

Other things you can celebrate in today's showbiz history are after the jump... 

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Three Fittings: Haute Couture Hallucinations in "The Pirate"

New Series! Three Fittings celebrates costume design in the movies.

The whitest Caribbean ladies of all time! And why is Judy wearing a kilt balled up on her head?

We kicked off with La La Land and Allied but after a break for Oscar madness we're back with an old classic. Or perhaps this movie is better described as a notorious curio though that doesn't have the same blurb power. Regardless, Vincent Minelli's The Pirate (1948) has to be seen to be believed.

You must watch it while sober for the movie is its own pharmaceutical enhancements. I'm still having sudden flashbacks. Which is all well and good since hallucinations and fever dreams are plotted right in. 

Stay with me through this elaborate but crucial plot point. When travelling actor Serafin (Gene Kelly) hypnotizes the newly-engaged Manuela (Judy Garland) he realizes that she romantically fantasizes about the infamous pirate Macoco and promptly pretends to be him...

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Best Sound Mixer Kevin O'Connell: 21st time's the charm

Tim here. Somewhat overlooked in all the furor over the rightfully furor-inducing parts of the Oscars on Sunday, a little bit of history was quietly made.

When the four-member team from Hacksaw Ridge took to the stage of the Kodak Theater to accept the award for Best Sound Mixing, the worst losing drought in the history of the Academy Awards ended. Kevin O'Connell received his first nomination in that category in 1983, for the subdued domestic drama Terms of Endearment, which perhaps unsurprisingly lost to The Right Stuff. 33 years and 21 nominations later, in a career including 209 films to his credit as a mixer, he finally picked up his very first statue on Sunday. You may remember him as the guy who thanked his late mom for helping him to get his first job in the industry, and who asked as thanks only that he'd mention her one day as he accepted an Oscar.

Whatever feelings one might have about the film, it's hard not to be excited on O'Connell's behalf...

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New Facts & Trivia from the 89th Oscars

Before we begin, a quick note that we shouldn't have to share but we do because the rest of the universe has conspired against the proper way of doing things. When we refer to an Oscar ceremony year we are talking about the year of the films honored, not the random month of the following year in which the ceremony is held. What we just witnessed was the 2016 Oscars. We don't know who will even be nominated for the 2017 Oscars yet though we'll make some early bird predictions on April 1st as we do.

Anyway... FACTS. TRIVIA. FUN.

• La La Land's loss was shocking but its performance at the Oscars was not completely without precedent. Two other films in Oscar's 89 years have won the rare combo of Best Actress and Best Director without winning Best Picture. That would be Cabaret (1972, also the single film to win the most Oscars without winning Best Picture) and 7th Heaven (1927) in the very first year of the Oscars. That silent film is an unusual case though as Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for three roles including Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel (Oscar quickly changed the rules so nominations could only be for one picture.) 

• Arrival (8 nominations) is the first non-war film Best Picture nominee to win Sound Editing only...

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