Beauty and the Beast Diamond Edition Archives

Discovering Beauty & The Beast Diamond Edition with Paige O’Hara

October 7, 2010 by Momstart 11 Comments

Thanks to Click Communications I had the opportunity to discover Beauty and The Beast with Belle herself, Paige O’Hara. Paige is just as spunky as Belle and listening to her sing in real life just amazes me. In fact, I would say she’s improved her singing skills since making the movie Beauty and The Beast. She was quite easy going and down to earth. As we all had dinner and enjoyed great conversation, we explored the Beauty and the Beast Diamond Edition Blu-Ray special features! And Let me tell you Beauty and the Beast Diamond Edition is all about the Blu-Ray features.

You know the story of Beauty and the Beast right? Belle is a beautiful young lady stuck in a small provincial town and practically bored to tears. The most adventure she has at any given time comes from her unpredictable inventor of a father. She is coveted by Gaston, and disguts him in return. Her father goes off to the fair and gets lost on his way. He looks for shelter in the castle that he finds but the Beast is not happy at all to have company. He locks him in the dungeon and when Belle comes looking for her father, her adventure begins.

Paige was interviewed and here are a few questions and answers:

How excited were you to be part of such a legendary Disney title?

You know, Mary Poppins is my favorite film and I loved Bambi and all the other Disney animated films. I was always an artist as well so I appreciated the animation too. Playing Belle was a dream come true.

What else do you remember about the experience?

It was fun being a part of the parties. Honestly, the worst part about the Oscars was that I didn’t like my dress—the one I performed in. They told the designer to put me in blue and it was this blue and white dress that looked more like Bo Peep or Dorothy. It was way too frilly and not very “Belle-y.” It was a checkerboard pattern. I had to perform in that dress, but afterwards I got to change into a beautiful Bob Mackie teal green gown. I even made one magazine’s Top 3 Best Dressed list!

You won a Grammy for a song from “Beauty and the Beast’s Children Singalong” too. What was that like?

It was incredible. Of course it won Best Children’s Album, which is the Grammy I have on my wall. The whole ride has been phenomenal. I am still recording as Belle all the time…CD ROMs and toys. I was just in the studio recording Belle the other day. 99% of the time I record in a studio here in Vegas. They patch me in over the phone.

Zoe has quite a hard time deciding between watching this new Princess and Tinker Bell and The Great Fairy Rescue. She likes Belle, Belle was the very first Princess dress that we found on sale and that was her first Halloween costume. Zoe said she likes Beauty and The Beast more than The Princess and The Frog because it wasn’t scary. She likes the Beast as a Beast and not when he turns into a Prince. Even though she enjoys watching Belle in Beauty in the Beast, her favorite princess is still Sleeping Beauty and we don’t even have a copy of that movie.

To me, Beauty and The Beast Diamond Edition blows my mind away. The color looks like it was pumped up and the details are quite amazing. It seems that cartoons were meant for Blu-Ray. The special features are quite amazing too, even though all of the insert disc one, insert disc two is a little frustrating. The way our system is set up whenever I try to go back it exits the DVD all together, but that’s just our system. I think if you have a normal DVD player it’s probably not as bad. Most of the special features are on disc 2.

The Special Features are hours and hours of content. One of the features, I think it was Beyond Beauty was the story of the making of Beauty and the Beast. The story included the evolution of the story and one of the previous story lines was pretty bad. We’re very glad Disney went the direction they went. Wow, I just can’t imagine a better story line.

3-Disc BD Bonus Features as listed on Amazon:

• Restored film
• Three versions of the film
• Original theatrical release
• Special extended edition
• Original storyboard version (BD-exclusive)
• Original theatrical version with a PIP of the storyboard
• Disney sing along mode
• Audio commentary
• Beyond Beauty: The Untold Stories Behind Making Beauty And The Beast (interactive)
• Broadway Beginnings – Up close and personal celebrity interviews with Nick Jonas, Donny Osmond, Toni Braxton, and others who have starred in the Broadway production
• Composing a Classic: A Musical Conversation With Alan Menken, Don Hahn, and Richard Kraft
• Deleted scenes
o Alternate opening (boards)
o Belle in the library – never-before-seen moment where Belle meets three new characters in the library
• Art galleries – Only available inside the “Beyond Beauty Experience”
• Family play games
o Enchanted Challenge: help Belle and the Beast fall in love in order to break the spell before the last petal falls (Disney Quest)
o Bon Jour, Who Is This? A Disney TelePlay Game – Powered by BD-Live. Using your cell phone, guess the identity of the other players before they guess yours
• Music & more
o All-new music video featuring Disney Channel star TBD
• Classic DVD bonus features

As I said, hours and hours of entertainment!

Save 10.00 on Beauty And the Beast Diamond Edition.

I received a copy of the movie in exchange for my honest review and met Paige on the Disney Blogger Day Event.

Disney Blogger Day 2

September 1, 2010 by Momstart 8 Comments

So I’ve decided to extend my coverage to two more posts after this one. I experienced so much magic with Disney that it just couldn’t be contained in two posts, there had to be Four, so this if you are a regular reader you will see is post number two. I spent the night at the Marriott’s Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood. Just a hop skip and a jump to the Kodak Theater and the Walk of Stars!

The magic continued on day two with sleeping in. Oh, well my body wouldn’t let me sleep in so I got up at 6:30 just like any other day and decided to use a few hours to get caught up on blog reviews and giveaway posts. I can’t thank Disney enough just for the quiet time you provided me. I zipped out some writing and have 12 posts scheduled out. Woo hoo!

The day began with having our cameras taken away and with good reason. They revealed quite a few secrets and bouts of magic that can not be fully described with words and photos. Only a little pixie dust will do! Which is why there is another full post coming!

They fed us well again, in fact, I think I’m off my diet and back up again. We’ll see how my jeans fit when I get home. After lunch we had Ballroom Dancing lessons with Christian Perry, choreographer for Dancing With The Stars. I loved dancing and wished it would have lasted even longer. Everyone said I looked great on the floor, but I’ve taken lessons with my husband before (and I kicked my partner quite a few times ;-)). I think every wife should get their husband to take them dancing. Christian said to get your husband in a headlock and not to let go until you arrive on the dance floor. Let the dance hall take care of everything else. He was a great instructor as were all of the dancers he brought with him.

Christian Perry is in the picture on the right and I can’t remember the name of the guy on the left.

After dancing we had another break and then we met for dinner. The rest of the Disney magic was my favorite part of the entire event. They gave us beautiful books about Beauty and the Beast. Disney never forgets the details.

The tables for dinner were beautifully decorated and the lighting was excellent. I just loved every detail. then were we had the biggest surprise of all. We were provided with two Disney original sketches, what I mean by original is that they gave us drawings made right there and each one was different from the other. We watched the artists draw in front of us.

Magic Magic and more magic. we then met Belle, the voice of Belle. Paige. Wow, she is an amazing woman, animated character in real life, and constantly contributing to charity. And meeting her will be post four!

I also made some lasting friends and perhaps that will be another post altogether. Thank you Click Communications for inviting my to come out and experience some true Disney magic first hand.