Sunday Funday: Weekend Update, Book Haul, & Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Happy Sunday everyone!  It's been quite a couple of weeks!  My car has finally been repaired and it looks good as new.  I got to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie in 3D on Tuesday in a newly remodeled movie theater with big comfy chairs - keep reading for my review!  I also had the opportunity to attend the Ohio Library Council's Central Chapter Meeting for professional continuing education programming.  It was great to see libraryland friends and I came away with a lot of interesting ideas to put into use.  Plus, I was able to pick up an ARC of Slade House by David Mitchell for our library.  In other library news, my library has applied for the NASA @ My Library grant which would be an absolutely amazing opportunity for our community if we are one of the 75 libraries selected to receive the grant, so fingers crossed!

This Friday and Saturday, the weather has been pretty outstanding (if a bit breezy) which is a nice change of pace.  Finn really enjoyed his time outside on Friday evening - he looks pretty relaxed there in the field, doesn't he!  Of course, he wanted to explore everything and we were outside for nearly two hours.

This Saturday I went to the Scott Antique Market which is a huge antique show for it's last show in Columbus for the season.  I had a few things I was looking for, but I ended up coming home with three books, including Unwind by Neal Shusterman (an ex-library Playaway), Worthy Brown's Daughter by Phillip Margolin (the vendor totally talked me into this one!), Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer (I haven't read it's companion, but this sounds very cool).

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I've been ready to see this movie since I heard that it was being made, honestly.  It's one of my favorite Disney movies, so I fully expected to enjoy it especially as more news of casting came through.  I mean, Emma Watson as Belle - I couldn't imagine a better choice for the character.  After having watched the movie, I can definitely say that I loved this quite a bit more than I expect to and when I walked out of the theater, my cheeks kind of ached from smiling so much. It's a faithful to the original movie in the best of ways while filling in a few holes, including some new songs, and giving a bit more depth to the characters. Everyone is pitch perfect in their roles.

Aside from Emma Watson and Dan Stevens playing our title characters, I was also looking forward to seeing the performances of Luke Evans as Gaston, Josh Gad as LeFou, and Ewan McGregor as Lumière and all three did their characters justice. I had no idea that Evans could even sing, but he's very good at playing the full of himself Gaston. With all of the talk about LeFou's sexuality, of course, I was curious about Gad's take on the character - it's pretty subtle and tonally he feels a lot like the original cartoon version of his character. Lumière has always been one of my favorite supporting Disney characters, and McGregor does a wonderful job bringing the character to life and "Be Our Guest" is the real showstopper of the movie.

Overall, if you haven't seen this live action reimagining of one of Disney's best cartoons, what are you waiting for? Luckily, it lives up to hype (and, as enjoyable as the live action Cinderella was, this is better by far) and is a joy to see on the big screen. The 3D looks great especially for the curse and transformations, but I wouldn't say it's absolutely necessary to make the most of your viewing experience. Emma Watson's the perfect choice to play this bookish heroine!

Theater notes:

Since the last time I was at this movie theater to see The Secret Life of Pets, it's been completely remodeled. Now, there's even the option to select which comfortable leather seat you want to sit in and everything. Plus, everything is much more roomy and everywhere was a good seat. 

Trailers included Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Coco. I'm really looking forward to both of these, especially Coco. If you haven't seen the trailer for Coco, you need to see it.

There was also a trailer for the next Wimpy Kid movie. I liked the original movies, and I have to admit that I'm disappointed that everyone has been recast.

I don't know about you, but I've watched a ton of "Tale as Old as Time" covers. The one that I've shared above is easily my favorite - it features a fellow local Ohioan, Lance Horsley, and his eleven year old daughter performing a duet of the song at her school library and it's features clips of her singing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes from Cinderella when she was younger.  Aren't these two really talented?  You can check out his YouTube channel here - be sure to listen to his covers of "Lego House", "Something Just Like This", "How to Save a Life", and "Mercy" which are also great.  Have you done anything interesting this weekend?  Have you seen Beauty and the Beast yet - if so, did you love it as much as I did?  Have you found any new-to-you reads?  Thanks as always for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone!