Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I thought it was good. I had thought Emma Watson would be a bad match for the movie, because it's all about magic and she looks sort of like a naturalist, and she probably is one because she's intelligent and went to college and got a degree. But she really did fit the part well, and at points I could even see the magic in her eyes, which is rare/sublime. I also found out that she's been in love with Beauty and the Beast since she was like 6, and her heart was bursting on the ceiling when she found out she was going to be doing this movie, which means it's not at all like she just did it because of the prestige and the pay, etc. while not really resonating with it.

I also thought the graphics were nice and stunning, especially the clock and the candlestick, thought the CGI for the beast sort of looked like CGI, like all living beings made with CGI do. It's a shame they didn't do it with makeup like I've heard the director actually wanted to.

I also liked that they changed a couple of things in the movie from the first one that surprisingly actually made it better rather than worse, such as making the reason Belle takes her father's place in prison be that the whole reason he was in there was that he was getting the rose that she had asked for, and also supposedly there were lyrics that were added to the song "Gaston" that were originally written for it but didn't make it into the 1991 film and are more mature-themed.

Oh, and the acting was pretty good in general—Gaston's, Belle's, her father's, everybody's. It's especially impressive that Gaston's acting was good since he's also good-looking in a way that fits the part.

One notable thing was that I had "a moment" when the movie showed Lumiere's (the candlestick's) life slipping away from him as he gradually turned back into an inanimate object after the last petal of Beast's enchanted rose fell, but only for a moment, as soon after he was revived as a human being (his original form before the castle became enchanted). This turn of events really put me in "the zone" of understanding life and death in the universe and how, albeit tragic, death is a relative thing, and one will always find themselves back in the context of life somewhere in the world at some time... again and again.

Groundhog Day

This is one of my all-time favorite movies and has been for over thirty years. Besides being funny and a good love story and a story of personal transformation, I love any story where people loop through the same time period over and over—especially when they're able to prove it to others by predicting events. I also happen to be a big fan of Bill Murray.

Other stories involving such time loops that know of are...

• Run Lola Run
• Edge of Tomorrow (aka Live Die Repeat)
• Russian Doll
• Omni Loop

The chemistry between Bill Murray's character (Phil) and Andie MacDowell's character (Rita) is pretty good. They both played their parts very well, and Phil's intelligent self-loathing and cynicism complements Rita's easy-goingness, cheerfulness and personability. The film also set it up well where Phil first sees Rita and you can tell she made an impression on him, but it's subtle and he doesn't really reveal it until later in the film.

I especially liked Bill Murray's acting regarding Phil's bewilderment the first time his day repeated, his love affair with Rita, and his general malaise with his job and life—it was subtle but just barely perceptible before it was made obvious how much he actually hated everything. And I thought the actors in this movie in general were good at portraying everyday realistic people.

One particular touch I liked was when Rita said she felt déjà vu, like she'd experienced the same thing before, even though Phil was the one who was actually experiencing the time loop. This is a nice touch because it has subtle philosophical/metaphysical implications that aren't further explored or resolved in any pat way; it's left open-ended.

I also just realized a deep metaphor in the movie as I was writing this. Phil's name is the same name as that of the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, who predicts six more weeks of winter if he sees his own shadow when he's pulled out of a box. A couple of people even teased Phil about this in the movie. This is profound because the whole movie could be said to be about Phil going through the same bleak winter day until he works through and resolves his own "shadow self," to use a Jungian term.

I laughed out loud several times during this film, which is rare for me when watching a comedy. Most comedies aren't very funny to me; even my three favorite adult sitcom cartoons I rarely laugh at. 

I also related to Phil's womanizing tendencies (my only fictional hero is Don Giovanni) and liked how he was so successful with women as well as being extremely self-promoting in that respect. Phil was reminiscent of Bill Murray's character in Ghostbusters (another one of my all-time favorite movies) in that sense.

One minor oversight maybe worth mentioning is that Phil never bothered to see what would happen if he stayed up all night until 6:00 AM (the time when he'd wake up and start the same day over again) instead of going to sleep. Of course anybody in his position would do that!

So, overall, this is a great movie. The only caveat is that it's a bit dated and some people may not like old movies. I don't usually, but this movie doesn't seem to suffer from the cheesiness or overall crappiness that most old movies do.

The Smurfs (2011)

I really liked that The Smurfs wasn't just CGI but was CGI + live action. Seeing real-life people react with horror to encountering Smurfs for the first time was very satisfying; usually, when fantasy characters encounter real-life people in movies, the people don't react with nearly enough astonishment. I also loved seeing the invisible membrane between the real world and the Smurf village being penetrated (which makes the Smurf village visible) and seeing the Smurf village for the first time. The animation scene with two Smurfs riding on he backs of Storks was pretty nice, too.

Gargamel was also very well done, including his facial attributes. It was fun to see that character interact with the real world, including him getting tased by the police, someone yelling at him to take his meds, and him doing powerful CGI sorcery. 

I liked the look of the Smurfs' animation better than that of the 2025 version of The Smurfs according to the trailer. The latter seemed to unnaturally "flatten" the shading of the Smurfs, while the former seemed more realistic and vivid. I also liked the general shape of the Smurfs and the slightly furry look of their skin to make it not so sterile. 

The animation of Gargamel's cat was done very well—I wouldn't have known it was CGI if not for its unrealistic antics, including a couple of places where it actually laughed...I found seeing and hearing the cat laughing both disturbingly bizarre and somehow funny at the same time.

One thing that seemed kind of lacking, though, was physical interaction between the Smurfs and real-life characters. E.g., they didn't impart any kinetic energy onto the people when they jumped on them and such, I remember one part where Neil's character was looking all around mystified like his house was infested with ghosts rather than at the actual Smurfs, and when he was patting one Smurf on the back, it didn't seem like his hand was actually touching the Smurf. But that seems like it's par for CGI + live action movies.

It was cool to see Neil Patrick Harris of Dougie Howser fame starring in it, as well as the beautiful Sofía Vergara playing Neil's character's boss. 

The narrator's style of speaking seemed kind of like it was catering to dumb people, similarly to the Animal Planet series Too Cute!, but maybe that's just me. It's also probably forgivable since The Smurfs is a children's cartoon. 

I found the storyline not bad, and it had a moral to it if not more than one.

Overall, I'd recommend this movie for children. For adults? Maybe, at least/especially if they share my appreciation for movies that mix cartoons with live action.