One of the greatest things about Disney’s Esmeralda’s costumes is how easy it is to translate into difference type of costumes and how easy it is to buy components for.
One type of trend that is easy to turn Esmeralda’s costume into is a Hipster. Let’s face it who doesn’t love Hispters in an ironic way.
Button Up Plaid Flannel in Blue TealOK, this a two-tier suggestion, This Flannel shirt works as her hip scarf and corset you just have to tie it around your waist.
There are some ideas for a Hipster Esmeralda.
Condamnés (Condemns)
Luck Mervil as Clopin performing Condamnés
I won’t beat around the proverbially bush, I don’t like Condamnés
In the context of the show, Clopin has been told that Esmeralda has been arrested and will die if she is not saved. I took Clopin telling Gringoire not to tell him anymore as like a code for like leave it to me, I got this. I’m not sure why I thought this but that is how I took that exchange the first time I watched the musical. So Clopin then sings about how unfair the world is, again but this time it’s outside a jail and he gets arrested. So either that was his way of saving Esmeralda or he was just complaining, take your pick.
As a song, this is pretty much the same subject matter as Le Sans Papiers but more desperate and angry. The emotions are good but I don’t feel the show needed it has second song.
The big issue I have with the song is the dancing and the costumes. I mean dear god what are they wearing? Rain Gear and why white hooded shirts? Who thought that would be good? Clopin makes it work but on the dancers it looks dumb. And then there are the weird spazzy turing movement and flinging into the other dancers, I like it not.
If there was one thing that could have help this song it would have been the music but alas it really does nothing for me. I think the point of this number is because they needed something to fill in between Les Oiseaux qu’on met en Cage and Le Procés. And as a gap filler it does work and makes Clopin being saved later make sense but this song could have been so much better.
Le Procés (The Trial)
Esmeralda and Frollo
Le Procés
But how is the song? It’s great, it has a creepy yet sexy tone to it and Frollo adds great tension as he knows what happened but plays it like Esmeralda did it. The strong beats are also wonderful at adding drama in a short time frame.
I also like how Esmeralda while scared does stand up for herself, she throws it right back at Frollo that he looks like one who stabbed Phoebus and she has nothing to confess.
The part where Frollo and the disembodied chorus sings, She’s a witch, Foreigner, Gyspy and a non-believer, I used to have that as ring-tone. It was pretty awesome though I never answered my phone but I never really answer it anyway. But I really to love that part.
La Torture (The Torture)
Esmeralda as Helene Segara performing La Torture
La Torture
I heard somewhere that according to Daniel Lavoie, original Frollo, that Frollo takes that confession with its wording because Frollo didn’t want to torture her, so her confession it was enough. And sure why not? Makes a level sense. But if you are just watching the show, it’s like huh?
As far as a song goes it serviceable for scene but there isn’t a lot to it.
I will say that that the original version and other versions are quite different in how the actual torture goes. In other versions Esmeralda is not in the huge cage for this scene though it is in the background. Instead she is tied up at the start of Le Procés. It seems like instead of the boot they tie something around her ankle and pull the two ropes in two opposition directions for the torture. It’s more dramatic than the boot but instead of compressing it’s pulling. Just a weird staging difference, I guess.
Get the whole GLORIOUS ALBUM HERE
The Man who Laughs Part II: Book 7: The Titaness
If you’re like me, you thought this book would just be Hugo describing Gwynplaine’s fancy, confusing new digs. Fortunately, no he does not.
Gwynplaine comes to the conclusion that he would rather have Dea and his own life back. So he tries to leave the house-mansion-palace thing. However he can’t because he gets lost. Instead of finding an exit he finds the tempting Lady Josiana. Josiana then tries to seduce him. Girl has to work hard because Gwynplaine, while he does want her, he is like a deer in the headlights. He likes the idea of a woman wanting him who can see him, apparently blind devotion isn’t enough.
However Josiana turns a little hateful when a letter comes from the Queen telling her that Gwynplaine is now going to be her husband, which means Gwynplaine isn’t going to fulfill the role of lover but husband and that is too boring, so she leaves.
Lord David then shows up and Gwynplaine learns that his old pal Tom-Jim-Jack, who I never really paid a attention to, is really Lord David, Lady Josiana’s former fiancee and rear-admiral. And they are half-brothers, Dun-Dun-Dunn.
I did like the part more than most, if only for Josiana’s waxing sexy poetics.
Maleficent
As some people might have guess from my clues, this week we’re looking at the 2014 movie, Maleficent. This movie is a re-imagining of the 1959 Disney version of Sleeping Beauty 
Also, all I will say on the narration is that it was over-done and bogged the movie down. It was the first red-flag of crappiness.
Angelina Jolie as Maleficent with Elle Fanning as Aurora
Basically, Maleficent is a fairy with bird wings and horns and she lives in the Moors and fucking shot me already. The Moors are clearly just a name but they don’t look anything like Moorlands of England. They could have called the mythical utopian fairy land ANYTHING else and it wouldn’t been an issue but now I have to think about how stupid this name is every time it appears on screen. Since the Moors are a discount failed Pandora from Avatar why not just called them something Greek or something, ANYTHING would have been better. Was that your first idea screenwriter? Really, off an a tangent already, great start.
So the “Moors” which is a land of fairies and Tree-ants a la Lord of the Rings and/or Groot are at odd with the Humans. Maleficent is a some kind of super fairy and she befriends and falls in love with a human named Stefan. The king gets his beard in a twist because Maleficent kicked with army’s butt with her tree-ants, so he offers the hand of his daughter to the person that can slay Maleficent. Stefan drugs her and steals her wings and gets to be the king while Maleficent’s heart turns cold or something and gets a crow minion.
Stefan has a baby girl and Maleficent curses her and this scene is ALMOST verbatim to the original expect Maleficent puts the clauses in about True Love’s kiss awaking her as a slap-in-the-face to Stefan who claimed he had given Maleficent a true love’s kiss. Also the green fairy who was the blue fairy didn’t get to give Aurora a gift, though the gifts in this version are stupid. Also Maleficent says it’s a sleep like death when in the original Maleficent just said she will die, so…… anyway.
Stefan must be smoking copious crack because he entrusts the stupid fairies with raising the princess (I think there was line about the fairies being good with human but WTF why?). The fairies are so stupid that Aurora would have staved to death and fallen off a cliff if not for Maleficent who helps care for the child on the sly and pranks the fairies for jollies. Aurora gets in to her head that Maleficent is her fairy godmother, oh dear god movie, I can’t, I don’t even know but wrong movie there. Maleficent then tries to revoke the curse but can’t because of her wording about nothing be able to break the curse.
Aurora meets Prince Mcgaffin erm I mean Phillip and they have a little attraction which crow-boy hopes means is true love. Aurora for some reason (I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at this point), goes back to the castle a day before she was suppose to and falls in to the death-like sleep coma-nap. Maleficent bring Prince-i-boy to help with that pesky curse but he fails, (fail sound effect from the Price is Right), so Maleficent kisses her on the forehead and in Frozen fashion Aurora wakes up and then there is a dumb fight, Maleficent turns her pretty-boy crow into a dragon, pffffffttttttttttttttttttt and stupid happy ending and it turns out all that annoying narration was done by Aurora. Hate this movie.
Isobelle Molloy as Young Maleficent with Michael Higgins as Young Stefan
On the one small hand, I sort of appreciate what Maleficent was trying to do in theory but on the other larger hand this movie missed the point of everything and meanders into the realm of idiocity.
The first major problem is Maleficent herself. Maleficent in no way shape or form should be the same entity as the Good fairies and for the record why did they change their names from Flora, Fauna and Merriweather to Flittle, Knotgrass and Thistlewit? Really, I could do another full post on these useless pixels but I will refrain*.
To have Maleficent as good fairy at the start with a name like Maleficent which means evil is dumber than naming a character Knotgrass or Flittle or Thistlewit. They could have made Maleficent change her name to suit her evil persona but nope a child fairy who ages for no reason that the film gives is given the name which means Evil. I mean for Fuck sake movie, you give the origins of her staff but no mechanic for how or why she grows-up when nothing else in her realm does? F-U!
Angelina Jolie as Maleficent after her wings have been cut off
Another issue is that original movie called Maleficent the mistress of evil. Given this, she didn’t NEED reason to be evil, she just was and rather enjoyed it. Actually she did have a reason for why she cursed Aurora, she got snub an invitation to a baby shower, I would have done the same thing.
But you what REALLY pisses me the fuck off about all this movie? SO the film takes the stance that true love between two platonic ladies exists and is a strong bond a la Frozen which is great HOWEVER this lead you down the path that the film as feminist bent BUT Maleficent’s anger and hatred comes from a guy betraying her. She is literally a scorned woman, a man made her become evil. Why can’t she just be evil? Why can’t she just have been demonic entity whose got a sense of humanity from a pure girl, kind of a Sleeping beauty meets Hades/Persephone dynamic. This movie spouts the power of women but evil unintelligible king caused the Maleficent to be evil.
Angelina Jolie as Maleficent
And that is another problem, Maleficent’s evilness is VERY infantile. Literally all she does besides the plot-curse is prank the fairies with rain magic and turns the Moors gloomy. If that is extent of her evil that means the curse on Aurora or the plot is very out-of-character for Maleficent. It’s like the movie took this awesome kick-ass bad guy but was afraid to make her evil because if she is evil than the audience wouldn’t like her but that was the point. Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the Mistress of Evil and they sap all of her likable-evil and just watered her down to the point of delusions.
Elle Fanning as Aurora
Then we have Sleeping Beauty herself. One BIG criticism of the original is that Aurora gets very little screen-time and this movie was chance to give her more of a character but nope fuck that. One of the fairies, and who fucking cares which one it was, gave her the gift of being happy. This makes Aurora a smiling simpleton with no other sense of character. Really all she is happy, I think the original Aurora had more of a range of emotions and that is so sad.
Angelina Jolie as Maleficent flying
But you know most modern movies have shit for characters because they more are all about being Bigger, Louder and having more teeth i.e technicals and CGs and you may ask how are they in Maleficent? OH dear god, do they suck, they suck much my friends. It’s like everything looked so fake and cheesy that it hurt, like I’m in pain just thinking about it.
But the REAL tragedy is that costumes which I need to distract me from a movie’s stupidity were not there, Maleficent’s costume were meh. Really, don’t recall anything, maybe Aurora wore blue and Maleficent had horn wraps.
Angelina Jolie as Maleficent with Baby Aurora
Maleficent
* leave a comment if you want me to bash the fairy and maybe the other characters.
This is off-the-cuff
There is something about Stephanie Bedard that just doesn’t work for me. She is a very good singer and she has a nice power in her voice but I don’t get any feeling here. It’s just a tepid version of Vivre. She is not performing it she just singing it, albeit nicely but still there is like nothing to it.
It’s ok. Laurent is sing nicely which is odd considering how he typically sings Quasimodo but he injects some feeling into it. However, he has been in something like 500+ performances of Notre Dame de Paris so I would imagine it would be second-nature to him at this point.
This is cute. I feel like I get something from Bedard other than nice singing maybe it’s fun and relax. Laurent’s fast paced and rockfish Belle is weird but fun and I liked the duet angle with Bedard.
Act II Commence!
Florence
Bruno Pelletier as Gringoire and Daniel Lavoie performing Florence
The second act opens in a very similar manner as the first act. Florence
Unlike Le Temps, Florence has a more melancholic tone or at least bittersweet. However neither Frollo or Gringoire point to how they feel about this transition, they present it more as fact.
If there is a negative it that tonally Frollo ends the first act by stabbing Phoebus and now he is wondering about the state of the age. It’s just weird.
The Song has a lovely melody and both singer add great emotion. The Song ends with Frollo and Gringoire commenting on Quasimodo being in love.
This was Daniel Lavoie favorite song.
Les Cloches (The Bells)
Garou as Quasimodo with a bell
One this I love about this number are dudes hanging from the Bells, that looks like so much fun.
Les Cloches
However in his duty he has to ring the bells for lover getting married and he knows this doesn’t apply to him and more over the bells never ring for him which makes him sad as he loves the bells.
This precisely captures not all Quasimodo’s relationship with the bells but his feeling on love and his future. There also a lot emotion in this song and Garou exposes Quasimodo’s inner working perfectly.
Patrick Fiori once said in the Frequentstar special that of all the songs in Notre Dame de Paris
Où est-elle? (Where is she?)
Bruno Pelletier as Gringoire and Luc Mervil as Clopin during Où est-elle?
What is this? Another trio about Esmeralda, this makes the second one of in the musical. This time it’s Gringoire, Frollo and Clopin. in Où est-elle ?
It’s a pretty simple song but it heart-felt even from Frollo even with all his weird confused lusty feeling towards her. And all their voice work well together.
Les Oiseaux qu’on met en Cage (The Birds in Cages)
Esmeralda in jail
Ok, I’m just going to say it, Les oiseaux qu’on met en cage
This song is a depressing duet between Esmeralda and Quasimodo. Esmeralda in jail asks for Quasimodo to save her and not Gringoire or Clopin as her and Quasimodo have a bond that she doesn’t seem to have with the other two. Quasimodo longingly wonders where Esmeralda is.
Esmeralda and Quasimodo have such pathos in their voices that it hard not to love this song. It’s also just a lovely duet with beautifully sad lyrics.
Get the whole GLORIOUS ALBUM HERE
The Man who Laughs Part II: Book 6: Ursus Under Different Aspects
Barky is a jerk, this is known earlier but MY GOD.
So Ursus sees Gwynplaine go into the jail and not come out. Naturally he assumes that Gwynplaine is really a powerful lord lost in childhood and now restored to his glory. Yeah, no he assumes the worse for his child. He returns to Dea. His plan is to tell her the true which he assumes will kill her, though he lies instead and pretends Gwynplaine for the act.
Then Ursus get tattled on by the inn keeper for his wolf. I think the police come with Barky. They tells Ursus he has to leave England by tomorrow with Homo or the will kill Homo. It is also here that Barky tells Ursus that Gwynplaine is dead, and figurity yes he is. And then Barky gives Usrus ten guineas instead of the two thousand that Gwynplaine told him to give to Ursus and then he pockets the rest because and I quote
“Barkilphedro loved money, especially money which was stolen.”
This guy isn’t even remotely likeable. Let me both this into perceptive here and you’ll pardon me from using Game of Thrones…….. but if Ramsey Bolton and Barky were in a fight I would still rather Ramsey Bolton, a fucking creepy-ass sadist, to win over this jerk and I HATE HOUSE BOLTON! I kind of want to call him Barky Bolton but I won’t. If Barky isn’t thrown off a famous English building I’m going to rage. (Not really but this guy needs to offed and if he is not I will rage.)
Then the inn keeper who snitched on Ursus gets arrest for harboring the wolf. I mean turn about being fair play and all but these guys are just asses. I mean Ursus had a loop-pole in the system and they didn’t honor it. Such Jerks!
The Princess Bride
Fair warning, this review is a gush-fest. If you want a movie that causes pain wait till next week and here are two clues for the next review, clue 1
As for The Princess Bride there isn’t much to say. It was based on a book 
I did read the book many years ago and while it was enjoyable I think the movie is better, the book is also weird if I recall.
Cary Elwes as Westley and Robin Wright as Buttercup
The story is pretty simple. Westley and Buttercup are young lovers but one day Westley goes off and is presumed dead. Five years later Buttercup is forced into an engagement to Prince Humperdink. Humperdink then hires Vizzini, a genius Sicilian, Inigo, a fencer out for revenge and Fezzik, a kind giant with a gift for rhymes (I know what a a cliche), to kidnap and kill Buttercup in order to start a war with a rival country. However the Dread Pirate Roberts follows them and defeats all of them and runs off with Buttercup. The pirate turns out to be Westley who took on the alias of the Dread Pirate. However Buttercup and Westley are caught by the Prince and his henchman the not very nice Count Rugen.
Westley is tortured and is mostly dead but Inigo and Fezzik get a miracle and storm the castle on Buttercup’s wedding day. Inigo gets his revenge for the murder of his father on Count Rugen who killed him and Buttercup and Westley are together. The whole story is told as a book a grandfather is reading to his grandson.
Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya
Typically when I review a movie I have to ask myself what was good about the movie as a general opener but with The Princess Bride it’s more of a question of what is bad and I’m hard press to have a negative.
I guess one thing is that film is very filmy. You can tell the stuntmen from a mile away and your blind. The sets look fake and there are tons of Anachronisms. Like the British discovered Australia in 1606 but the tone of the movie have a Renaissance quality. Even given those flaws they actually add to the atmosphere of fun swash-bucking fantasy romance. And characters more than make up for anything.
Wallace Shawn as Vizzini, Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya and André the Giant as Fezzik
The characters are one of the main highlights of the movie which is necessary since the story is fairly simple, which is fine. All the characters are interesting unique and memorable. A lot of that comes from the writing, everyone gets good lines. I just love these characters, argh damn you movie. Even SUPER minor characters are memorable like the king and the impressive clergy man with his “mawwiage speech.”
Wallace Shawn as Vizzini with Robin Wright as Buttercup at the Battle of Wit
Maybe it’s all the mold I have breathed in cleaning my basement and the exhaustion of it has melted my brain but I can really find a fault with this movie. I mean I guess the ending song is a prime example of 80s cheesy and Buttercup, the titular character is not the most interesting. But she is brave and once she knows her true love is alive she doesn’t lack conviction. I suppose agmonst the other kickass characters and quotes she isn’t that memorable but she is likable enough, I don’t have an issue with her.
Robin Wright as Buttercup with Chris Sarandon as Prince Humperdinck and Christopher Guest as Count Rugen
Also since I’m a costume person, the costume are very nice. Everything is one point and looks like the character actually have wore the clothes and have lived in them, which is rare on films. And props for Buttercup’s wedding gown being blue.
Cary Elwes as Westley and Robin Wright as Buttercup
So let us don our holocaust clocks and grab a M.L.T sandwich and watch The Princess Bride
Billy Crystal as Miracle Max and Carol Kane as Valerie
Notre Dame, Paris, France – Matted Photo
The wedding theme month might be over but now that wedding is over we can talk about hunchback inspired Honeymoons also I just don’t’ really want to end the theme month midweek and it was easy to get a wedding-related live action fairy tale movie.
The obvious pick for a honeymoon that is inspired by Hunchback is Paris, kinda of a no brainer and it is the city of love.
However let’s just say you would rather go somewhere else. You could go to Rheims as Esmeralda and her mom were from there. You could also so to Montreal which is a lovely city and has a lovely Notre Dame that looks very similar to Notre Dame de Paris.
Though you could also go to place that was a French colony, I would recommend New Caledonia, it’s not only gorgeous but it’s a popular honeymoon destination.
You could ALSO go to Notre Dame, Indiana because of the University.
Julie Zenatti as Fleur-de-Lys with Patrick Fiori as Phoebus, Notre Dame de Paris
As we close this theme month let’s think about the closing memory of a wedding, the song for the bride and groom’s first dance and wedding favors.
Starting with the song, Hunchback versions can give you a few options. I wouldn’t recommend dancing to Hellfire UNLESS it has special significance to you as a couple. Topsy Turvy could be fun but again would be weird.
Notre Dame de Paris gives a few options in a few languages. For songs from the show there is Ces Diamants-la which is about marriage. Ma Maison c’est ta Maison since that song is about sharing a life and a home. Or Vivre which is about the power of love and it’s english version Live for the One I love is very nice and you can choice between the Tina Arena version or the Celine Dion version.
Of Course there is also Out of Love from Der Glockner von Notre Dame or maybe In A Place of Miracles from the American version, which I haven’t heard but let’s hope it’s on the cast recording.
Fleur de Lys Wine Stopper
Then we have the party favors. Of the weddings I have been to recently I don’t really recall any wedding favors, well maybe some Almonds but there wasn’t assigned seating at that wedding so I didn’t take any. However for a Hunchback theme wedding I would just recommend keeping it simple.
You could give out Macarons which just scream France. Maybe you could get them in your wedding colors or the same color tones as Notre Dame. You could also give out cookies that have Notre Dame as design in like icing, they do it with the Eiffel Tower so why not Notre Dame. You could also do bell shaped cookies if you you want it a little easier or gargoyles, that would be cool.
However if you would rather give out some that is not food you could give out Fleur de Lys bottle opener or stoppers, I would doubt they make Notre Dame ones.
Of course if you’re creative and like DIY projects the sky the limit. You could make frosted candle holders with something Notre Dame related on it.