I had always thought the cartoon version of Beauty and the Beast was the most wonderful cartoon. (Yes, I am a hopelessly sentimental romantic.) I skipped the live action version because of claims of a homoerotic relationship between LeFou and Gaston. Just watched it, LaFou is cloyingly toadish, but this is only homoerotic if you are not getting enough fawning in the gay bars, I suppose.
A beautiful combination of real people, amazing CGI, mattes, and the wonderful songs of the original. The Busby Berkeley/Esther Williams/Inquisition in History of the World Part 1 sequence to "Be Our Guest," is amazing, and who can't love "Tale Old as Time"?
Best version is still Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete (1946), from which all of the others brazenly steal, er "pay homage."
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