Beauty and the Beast
25th Anniversary Edition
Blu-ray Combo Pack
Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise
Music by Alan Menken
Cast: Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, Angela Lansbury, Bradley Michael Pierce, Rex Everhart, Jesse Corti, Hal Smith, Jo Anne Worley
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Release Date: September 20, 2016

Disney’s 1991 animated feature Beauty and the Beast, which is based on the classic French fairy tale of the same name, sees an intelligent young woman named Belle who’s grown tired of her predictable small-town life. She wants to read and learn, and yearns for adventure, which makes her an oddity amongst her fellow villagers, who think a beautiful girl like her should just settle down and have a family. But she’s not interested in that. She repeatedly rejects the proposals from the town’s hunk Gaston, a vain and musclebound airhead who swears he won’t relent until Belle agrees to marry him.

Belle eventually ends up at the castle of a prince who’s been magically transformed into a beast. In an effort to save her father, the young girl abandons her dreams of adventure and agrees to remain indefinitely at the Beast’s home, which is staffed by enchanted inanimate objects. (These were his servants who were also cursed.) Unbeknownst to Belle, there’s something that can reverse the spell placed on the Beast, but if it doesn’t happen in time, the irritable prince will remain forever in his monstrous form. In the meantime, Belle’s persistent suitor Gaston will do anything to have her, even if it means harming those she cares about.

It’s been one heck of a year for Lin-Manuel Miranda. After he took his last bow as the title character in the hit Broadway show Hamilton this summer, he’s been keeping himself busy working on the music for Disney’s upcoming Moana and signing on opposite Emily Blunt in Mary Poppins Returns.

But it appears that his Disney tenure isn’t quite done yet. Now Miranda will be stepping in as a producer and to work on the music for the not-so-surprising live-action take on Disney’s 1989 animated classic The Little Mermaid. More on the story below.

Sausage Party
Directed by Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon
Written by Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Starring Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek, Nick Kroll
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Rated R | 89 Minutes
Release Date: August 12, 2016

Sausage Party is advertised as a raunchy rated-R animated comedy. If that is what draws you to the theater, you will not be disappointed. Sausage Party contains some of crudest and most vulgar humor since… well, ever. Deadpool, which came out earlier this year, prided itself on being a rated-R superhero movie, and while there was sex, graphic violence, and language that would get you kicked out of church, it pales in comparison to the literal non-stop 90-minutes of lunacy that is Sausage Party.

Spoilers and more below.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame has always held a special place in my Mickey Mouse heart, as the film, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, significantly impacted me with its musical magnitude when first premiering in 1996 – at the time I was only a four-year-old kid.

Two decades later, the release of the studio cast recording from the production (which played at two American theaters over the past couple of years) reminds listeners of why Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz have crafted some of Disney’s most gripping and diverse music. The soundtrack’s successful sales figures is indicative that people are ready to embrace Hunchback again, and this serves as a great opportunity to review the studio cast recording, available on Amazon, iTunes, and other retailers.

Last year, ABC brought us an epic 4-episode run of a new musical adventure comedy, Galavant. It was funny, the songs were catchy, and the guest stars were a-plenty; Ricky Gervais, John Stamos, Rutger Hauer, and “Weird” Al Yankovic to name a few. Now the show is returning with an even epic-er 5-episode second season.

Watch the hilarious musical preview below.