Not worth the wait.

There was an advertisement from one of those charities that help out wounded veterans, and I felt both sympathy and a great feeling of gratitude to all those brave men and women who served in the military and fought in the name of this great country that I was lucky enough to be born in -- the United States of America.

They are the ones who were sent to fight, and while some were wounded physically, others came back with wounds of the soul, returning home only to find that the sunlight was no longer as bright as it used to be.

I knew a man like this. We weren't close friends, but he lived in my neighborhood and I'd run into him from time to time. I never knew his name but everybody knew him by the nickname "Easy", because he always took life that way. After high school, Easy joined the Marine Corps, and a year-and-a-half later he was sent Over There. I didn't hear about him after that, having moved on from the neighborhood myself.

A few years later, I was back home for Thanksgiving, and before meeting the family I had stopped at a bar for some liquid fortification. As I exited the bar, I saw Easy standing by himself across the street, his head tilted upwards, staring out at something apparently only he could see. He was unshaven, wearing a stained shirt, wrinkled worn out cargo shorts, and was now about a hundred pounds heavier.

I called out to him but he did not respond. I called out again -- louder this time -- and he looked over in my direction, a medicinally glazed look in his eyes. He slowly nodded to me while giving me a weak open-mouthed smile. Easy did not recognize me but had done his best to give a polite acknowledgement.

"It's no use, bro" said the man standing a few feet behind me, smoking a cigarette. "Easy hasn't been the same since he came back from Afghanistan. Something there broke him."

I looked back at Easy, who had gone back to staring at the invisible, and I nodded back to him before walking away.

Wow. This guy, Easy -- he seemed so together and now he's barely a shadow of his former self. The stuff he saw over there must've really messed him up, and if so -- what a fuckin' pussy.

Shit. It's one thing to have experienced war back in the 1930s and 40s when all Johnny America knew was small towns and Daisy the high school sweetheart, who he was going to marry as soon as he came back home. It was so innocent back then, when American ingenuity and know-how were Number One.

Back then, America was great, Negroes knew their place, and all Our Boys knew before going to battle was apple pie and "Moonlight Serenade". Back then everybody wanted to fight the Krauts and the Japs -- and they had no idea what was in store for them, so of course it made sense that they came back with scarred souls after seeing their friends lose arms and legs and their dying buddies piss and shit themselves while crying for mommy. But c'mon, man. Since then, we've had countless films that have presented war in the most vividly graphic terms -- exploding heads, severed limbs, miles of exposed guts, rape, murder, suicide, dehumanization, atrocity after atrocity, and the screaming OH MY GOD the screaming.

After all those movies and television shows and documentaries with old survivors, how can someone still come home all fucked in the head? You've been fuckin' programmed to be desensitized to it by now, how the fuck can you come home all wacky in the cabeza?

Jesus Christ, Easy -- you played hours and hours of "Mortal Kombat", "Grand Theft Auto", "Call of Duty", you watched fake death on Faces of Death and real death on YouTube and yet somehow the sight of Private First Class Duggan shoving the barrel of his M4 up some Haji's rectum is gonna give you nightmares?

Yo yo yo yo yo Easy Easy Easy -- how is it that you, a fuckin' failed cholo millennial who's seen all those movies and actually trained for that madness still come back a shell of your former self, while a soldier in the 18th Century -- a Frenchman, of all people -- not only came back OK from his battles, but still had a thirst for killing that he satisfied by being a badass hunter? I'm talking about Gaston, you fuckin' Hispanic Birdy, I'm talking about the motherfucker from the 2017 film Beauty and the Beast.



This is a request from Karen from Orlando, Florida and I will withhold her last name to save her from both public humiliation and possible loss of employment due to being associated with me. Karen has requested this film over a year ago and like everything else, it took forever but I finally got around to rambling about this film -- thanks to it being available on Netflix, which I was able to easily access through my sister's account.

Beauty and the Beast is a live action adaptation of Disney's 1991 animated film of the same name. Yes, I know about the 1946 version directed by Jean Cocteau, but that wasn't part of the request, so you film geeks can quit your whining and go back to throwing yourselves off bridges because they got rid of Filmstruck. 

It's directed by Bill Condon, who also directed the Oscar-winning film adaptation of Dreamgirls, the Oscar-nominated film Kinsey, and a movie that I'm sure someone with the name "Oscar" really liked, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. He also won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film Gods and Monsters.

This is a tale about a strapping young beast of a man named Gaston, a former captain in the French army turned current animal hunter who has the whole town of stupid peasant proles wrapped around his strong finger. This man knows he's the shit and everybody else agrees, as we see and hear during one of the film's many musical sequences, this one focusing on the man himself.

Gaston has everything he needs: the admiration of an entire town, the company of his close gay friend Lefou, and all the single ladies are on his jock 24/7. But like most of us human beings, Gaston doesn't know how to appreciate what he has and instead wastes his time and energy on going after what he doesn't have -- some weirdo bookworm named Belle.

She's played by Emma Watson, who turned down the lead in La La Land to do this movie, which financially was a good move on her part; Beauty and the Beast didn't get the Oscar attention of the other film, it ended up making about three times more at the box office -- profits of which Miss Watson was contractually entitled a decent chunk.

Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling turned down this movie to do La La Land, and so he and Watson passed each other like two pretty ships in the night going opposite directions.

So yeah, this chick thinks she's too good for my boy, she has this whole thing about wanting to leave the village she lives in because she thinks she's too good for this town. I don't get people like that, but maybe it's because I never grew up in a small boring ass town either. I grew up in a decent suburban area with malls and mini-malls and plenty of chain restaurants and movie theaters and bars and that's really all I needed. If I wanted to see a beautiful view from a mountain side, I could go the local library and rent Cliffhanger. Nowadays, I can just look that shit up online.

Eventually, I moved but I always remained in and around Southern California because I like the weather and I like the women. The women don't like me -- neither do the men, for that matter -- but that doesn't stop me from introducing myself to new ones at a friend's baby shower and making a bigger ass than usual: Oh hi guys, I'm Princess Sparkle, oh hi I really appreciate how you would thank me by my name when I picked up my tickets at the booth, oh hi there, you go to the New Beverly Cinema too? Did you hear about how the owner Quentin Tarantino installed new cameras on the floor, that way  he can see everybody's feet a-hyuk a-hyuk a-hyuk hey, where's everybody going? Hey sir, can I borrow your gun, I just need it for a second *gunshot*

Then the pain ends.

Except it didn't, because nobody had a gun -- this is pussy ass Southern California, after all, the only thing these liberals carry concealed is their medical marijuana card.

Anyway, yeah, Belle -- a name that sounds a lot like Bella, the name of the girl from the Twilight books and movies. No wonder they got Bill Condon to direct this -- he also directed some of those Twilight movies. But don't hold that against him, I mean, homeboy's gotta make those mansion payments somehow.

So Belle is bored with her small town because they don't have Applebees or a Sonic, and she's not down with the same routine day in and day out, and reading all those books have infected her brain with the idea of a great big old world out there filled with so much to do. She wants a life like the ones in the books she reads, and well, guess what, honey -- it is! This film and the 1991 animated joint are based on the French fairy tale La Belle et la Bête and if you only knew what was going to happen to you, girl!

And what does happen to her? She ends up in this spooky run-down castle somewhere out in the boondocks because that's where her goofy-ass father ended up. The poor old man was trying to get some peace and quiet because he can't even fix a goddamn clock at home without hearing his daughter sing all over town, so yeah, he took off with his horse and then some wolves try to eat him and now he's locked up in a dungeon and his jailer is this big ugly beast named Beast.

We never know what Beast's real name is but I'm guessing it's Prince Douchebag, because the opening scene shows us that before he was the Beast we all know and fear, he was this young handsome wealthy prince, and like most handsome wealthy princes, this guy was a douchenozzle twatface asshole who wouldn't know empathy if it came into his home on a dark and stormy night asking for shelter. Nope, he would look at this old lady and laugh in her face -- this fucking human garbage who grew up with everything and yet that wasn't enough for him, he's taxing people and using the money to buy more stuff he doesn't need. Yeah, not only does he laugh in her face, even his servants and employees laugh at her.

It fuckin' figures it'd be that way; we all want to be the motherfucker, and if we can't, we'll settle for  riding the motherfucker's coattails because even being on the motherfucker's coattails is a higher level than the rest of the peons. And I'm like OK fine, if you want to be that way, then enjoy your slightly higher status in life, but don't look down on those below you as if you were King Shit of Fuck Mountain, because you're not. That's the same kind of unearned asinine behavior exhibited by maitre d's and house n's.

But if you are gonna be that way and join your master in Ha Ha Ha-ing the poors, then you better be ready to take any possible punishment headed your boss' way. Because this old lady? This old lady that the prince and his people are laughing at, well, she actually happens to be a beautiful enchantress -- and these people are so fucked, it's fucking beautiful, man.

The enchantress curses the prince and his servants and makes it so that the people who knew them don't know them anymore, so basically these assholes won't be missed. Prince Douchebag is turned into a beast and the servants are turned into walking/talking furniture, appliances, and various other housewares -- even the dog gets it, which I'm fine with because I'm sure that dog ate human food everyday like a king and ran around biting beggars in the butt.

This prince tried to beg forgiveness from the enchantress, but when it comes to this chick once you're fucked, you're fucked and there's no turning back, you can't even offer an insincere apology the way most celebrities do on social media after they've been caught being scumbags.

I like that because that's how I roll. I don't believe in forgiving pieces of shit. Like the song says, it's easy to be hard -- and that's why I use up so much energy everyday in not being an asshole. It's why I get so exhausted at the end of the day and go to sleep after I get home from work, causing me to not work on this blog/podcast and next thing you know, I have a backlog of three or four of these goddamn things and I still haven't written about the Aero Horrorthon back in October even though it's just about Christmas right now. But as tired as I get, I still manage to say Please, Thank You, and Excuse Me to people -- people who don't even have the common courtesy to return the favor.

Everyday I have to see these people living awesome lives despite having zero empathy or sympathy or any pathys for their fellow human and very rarely do these amoebas get their comeuppance -- so when I see or hear of actual justice being served to these people, well, lady and gentleman, to be as delicate as I can be with what I'm about to say:

It gets my dick hard.

So imagine how much Viagra I didn't need seeing what happens to this dude -- cursed to live as a Beast all alone in that castle -- talking furniture doesn't count, chief -- and nobody from the outside world even remembers that he exists.

Later in the film, we find out that his assholishness wasn't something he was born with, he was raised to be a shit by his shit father -- much like our current president. But unlike *that* walking shit stain, Beast eventually shows himself later in the film to be a kinder and deeper person than we took him for -- which I think is supposed to be a way to get the audience to be more sympathetic towards the guy, but I don't buy it. I think that's just what the curse did to him.

What I'm saying is, if you live an awesome life with zero consequences, you're not going to change. If anything, you might actually start pushing it to see how much you can get away with, because that's just human nature. But if something or someone knocks the wind out of your sails and your awesome life isn't so awesome anymore, you're going to eventually have to adapt to a new way of living, not out of a sudden realization that your fellow man deserves respect and kindness, no -- but because you have no choice.

It's like this: say you're a hot chick, right? You're a hot chick and so your life is pretty cool because everybody wants to bang you. But then somewhere along the way, you hit the wall and guess what? You don't look like Ava Gardner anymore.

Suddenly your jokes aren't so funny, you start getting called out on your lack of manners, and your questionable personal hygiene isn't acceptable anymore. No longer fuckable, you have to adapt your way of life and be nice to people, and you better learn to juggle or play the piano or something because these bills aren't gonna pay themselves either.

Well, the Prince was a hot dude and so there you go.

So Belle goes to the castle to free her father and ends up taking his place as the Beast's prisoner, but ends up getting to know the Beast better in his adapted state and she starts digging the dude and he's starts digging on her because she's a nice person who appreciates his immense library -- plus it's been a long time since he banged a lady, and I'm sure he hasn't even been able to get rid of the poison on his own, on account of all this sentient furniture in his castle.

I mean, I wouldn't be able to jerk off knowing that my bed is alive and can see and hear what I'm doing. I can't go the bathroom to do it because the sink, toilet, and shower can see what I'm doing. I can't go outside because then one of those wolves will bite it off and even if they didn't, I certainly can't convince one of them to let me put it inside him, because I don't know if you know but wolves are extremely homophobic.

In the meantime, my boy Gaston tries to help free Belle, but when her stupid father tells Gaston that she would never marry him, Gaston leaves his ungrateful ass out in the weeds where he belongs.

But I think the movie is trying to say that what Gaston did was wrong.

Once I got over the fact that the film was going to focus on Belle and the Beast and not on the awesome Gaston, I was able to enjoy what played out for the most part. The new songs didn't really do it for me but the songs from the 1991 film still sound nice. Emma Watson does a fine job singing them but she was nothing spectacular, either. But hey, she doesn't embarrass herself and I think the dude playing the Beast is a better singer overall but maybe I'm the last person you'd want an opinion on singing, considering that I thought Pierce Brosnan did OK in the Mamma Mia! movies.

Acting-wise, I thought Watson and the Beast were pretty good together, there's nothing wrong there.
I also dug the interactions between all the items in the castle; they're voiced by Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ian McKellan, and Emma Thompson. They were my favorite characters in the film, and I honestly would've preferred a lot more of them and less of Belle and the Beast because there scenes are a lot more fun to watch. What I'm saying is that I felt that in their attempt to make a more grown-up version of the animated film -- specifically during the scenes between Belle and Beast -- the filmmakers sometimes confused "grown-up" with "dull" and so I found myself checking the time more than I should.

It's not like I had anywhere to go or something, but I kept checking my non-existent watch as if I did. This film is about forty minutes longer than the animated film, and I definitely felt the extra running time without feeling I got much out of it. It felt less like a deeper and more detailed version of the story and more like a simple story being padded out for reasons I don't understand. If I did understand, I'd be making these goddamn movies rather than bitching about them.

Things get a lot more interesting in the final third, when things come to a climax with the stupid villagers storming the castle and getting their asses handed to them by a candelabra, a harpsichord, a feather duster, and a teapot and teacup. They'll never be able to live that embarrassing shit down.

But a few of them will leave the experience wiser and happier; three of these assholes are Gaston's friends, or as Cogsworth the walking/talking clock calls them, "third rate Musketeers". And when they end up getting swallowed up by a walking/talking wardrobe, they are spat out dressed in women's clothing. This freaks out two of the Musketeers, while one is left digging his new look -- a moment that I'm sure left the more conservative members of the audience walking out in a huff over what they feel is Disney's pro-perversion propaganda:

"How am I supposed to explain to my child why there are Men who like to dress up as women?!"

It's easy, sir. In the same manner that you take your kid aside to tell him or her why the Chinese can't be trusted or that the Jews control the media, you tell this fucking tyke that much like there are people who like Coke over Pepsi and vice versa, there are dudes who go out as dudettes and some of them still dig women while others dig on each other, and there are also chicks who dress like guys and some still dig guys and some dig on each other, and there are both guys and girls who don't even dress like the opposite sex but they play for the home team, and that's just the way of the world.

Then you can go back to telling your kid Obama almost turned the entire country into Muslims.

By the time the closing credits come up, things have ended happily ever after for the characters and if you think I'm spoiling the movie, then you need to go blame your parents for homeschooling your sheltered ass and leave me alone. Now I'm gonna spoil something else -- the end credits look like the opening credits to a soap opera. OK, I'm done.

Between watching the film nearly a month ago and rambling about it today (thanks flu!), my opinion more or less remains the same -- leaning towards the "less" section. The reason for that is because after watching the live action Beauty and the Beast, I wanted to make sure if this version did in fact suffer in comparison to the 1991 film or if I was just looking back at it with rose-colored contacts. Because it's easy for me to say "oh, the original was better" when the last time I watched the original, it was 17 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock.

And so, I immediately went to the movie site Vudu and plunked down twenty bucks on the 1991 version because Disney doesn't believe in a Rental option when it comes to streaming, the greedy fucks.



Well guess what? Not counting the hooker in San Antonio last month, this was the best twenty dollars I spent in a long time. The 1991 version is the same story as the 2017 one, only before that one gained all that extra fat over the years. This one is lean, mean, and damn near obscene in how goddamn good it is. When you compare this one, the 1946 Cocteau joint -- are you happy now, geeks? -- and the 2017 version, what you'll get is one that's more fun, one that's more dreamy, and one that's more, well, uh, blah.

Holy cats, does this sucker move! Maybe it doesn't feel that fast, but after watching the slower current version, the '91 film feels like you're riding shotgun in one of Dominic Toretto's muscle cars and he just unleashed some NOS. It gets down to the nitty gritty -- the brass tacks, as it were -- and brings you up to speed in a couple minutes by telling you about the whole backstory between the Beast and the Old Lady; how he turned down her request for shelter, and how she cursed him and gave him a rose as a kind of countdown in which he'd have to find a woman who will love him for who he is before all the petals fall, otherwise he's cursed forever.

We get our introduction to Belle which is similar to the live action version only this one is better; it's a lot more energetic, a lot more entertaining, and Paige O'Hara is a far more talented singer than Emma Watson, who has a nice voice but is no Paige O'Hara. I turned on the subtitles and started singing along to the songs in this version, it was so infectious! My neighbor started shouting at me to keep it down but then I stepped out with the Sig Sauer P320 and continued singing while waving my piece around like a conductor's baton, and that bitch went back inside to watch the rest of "America's Got Talent" faster than you can say "justifiable homicide".

Not only is Paige O'Hara a better singer, everybody's a better singer in this version, like Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts, and my man, muthafuckin' Walk Proud himself, Robby Muthafuckin' Benson as the Beast. I know, he was the bomb in City Limits, but you gotta see my Semitic brother Robby B play a Chicano gang member in Walk Proud. As far as I'm concerned, he's got a permanent invitation to my Sunday afternoon carne asada backyard cookouts.

This Belle is a better Belle, that's what I think. She just comes off more likable, while Watson carries too much of that snotty English girl vibe, which to be fair is probably closer to fitting the character of a French village girl than some All American type like O'Hara's portrayal, but hey, this is merely my opinion. I like nice people or at least people who exude the illusion of being nice and 1991 Belle does a better job of that. I mean, look at how everybody seems to like her, despite being a weirdo bookworm.

In this version, Gaston comes off more -- ahem -- cartoonish, like some big dumb oaf who thinks he's the shit, and he doesn't seem particularly threatening, but that's why his heel turn later on is far more effective than in the 2017 film. You look at the live action Gaston and you don't have to had already seen the '91 movie to know this guy is trouble, you just have to look at this guy's face to know you don't say No to him. Or you just had to have seen Fast & Furious 6.

There's more humor in this, compared to the more recent film, which does feature the occasional gag but they all stand out like studio-mandated sore thumbs, whereas the older film does a better job segueing between the moments of levity and the stronger emotional scenes.  Plus, the jokes are better here, they hold up. The live action version has jokes but they already feel old seconds after they play out.

Look, I'm not bashing the newer film, I think it's fine. But watching the older film immediately after, reminded me how much more lovely and magical it is in comparison. Your mileage may vary, but I feel this one goes a lot farther in a lot less time.

By the way, if you're gonna watch the animated film, may I suggest you watch the Special Edition cut? After watching the movie, I looked at the accompanying special features and saw the Special Edition was one of the viewing options. Still under the film's spell, I ended up watching it again for the first time and I found out that in addition to fixing some continuity issues and mistakes here and there, this cut also includes an extra musical number, adding some welcome character detail to the Beast's cursed servants. This isn't a George Lucas kind of Special Edition, it's more like what Ridley Scott did when he released the Final Cut of Blade Runner, and I think it's the one to check out -- but it's good times with either cut, either way.

Both films will appeal to most people; if you're a comic book nerd, you can pretend that the castle in the film represents your house and that the rose the Beast keeps protected under glass is like your most prized issue of Spider-Man, that way when the scene comes up when Beast loses his shit over Belle fucking with it, you can nod your head and be like "I know what that's like".

I figure ugly people can also enjoy watching a beautiful woman learn to love this hideous smelly hairy fuck for the good person he supposedly is on the inside. And if you're half a fuckin' furry, I already know you love this movie. You probably dress up like the Beast all the time or have your significant other dress like the Beast before you guys get it on -- doggy style, of course. AWOOOO!

In conclusion, grow some fucking balls, Easy.