Post by Bertie Moreland on Aug 24, 2010 18:29:41 GMT -5
*comes in with a two liter bottle of root beer, looking a little sleep deprived* Okay. I survived Belle's Magical World. That's saying something. I just hope that no one asks me to do another of those God Awful sequels…*spots an envelope* What? *opens it* Oh, no. No, no…please no…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*starts running away but gets stopped short* No, that's just not fair! You can't make me do this! *beat as incriminating photos are produced* Okay, I guess you can…Damn it. *sits down again* This is horrible. I think I'm going to have to review this piece of crap. *pained look* Someone shoot me.
So. Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. You're probably thinking "After Belle's Magical World, what are you so worried about? This can't be as bad as that." Oh, foolish and naïve people. *pained smile* This is far worse than Belle's Magical World. Because it's a full-length animated monstrosity of a film. So, once more, I remind you of my undying love of the movie Beauty and the Beast. That's pretty much all that will be keeping me from going on a homicidal spree as I watch this thing.
We open to the see the Beast's Castle in the dead of winter with…a huge mob coming towards it singing "Deck the Halls?" And who the hell is this kid?
…Chip? What did they do to you, kid?! *winces* I knew the animation would be bad…*deep breath* but it's still better than Belle's Magical World, so we won't bother with it anymore. Before we go really crazy about the characters, let's check the cast list.
…
No words describe the absolute destruction of my childhood that has just occurred. They are all there. With new people who are good! They have TIM CURRY on the cast list!!! *sucks in breath sharply. But this can't possibly be as bad as Belle's Magical World, so we'll just keep going.
…Who is this lady? She sure wasn't in the original film. *beat* And why does that Christmas Angel look so damn much like her? It's uncanny!
Moving on. Chip finds a present for him and begs and whines--Haley Joel Osment again, ladies and gentlemen, you can start getting out the earplugs--before his mother lets him open the box. You know…I always wondered how Mrs. Potts could be Chip's biological mother. She's old enough to be his grandmother in a time when women weren't trying to have kids beyond a certain age. *pause* Forget it, if I try to bring logic into this, the Time/Space continuum with implode and the Doctor will have to come and save my ass. As much as I would love the second part of that to happen, I like the Time/Space continuum in one piece.
So Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts all talk about how crappy their Christmases were before last year--which I guess was when they were all still objects from what they're implying--and in the background, Chip discovers that the big-ish box he's opening contains only…socks. I'll admit, that joke is kind of funny, but not enough to get me to laugh out loud.
Cogsworth and Lumiere get into a fight about which of them who saved Christmas and Mrs. Potts threatens them with the story to get them to stop fighting. Apparently not much of a threat, since Chip is all gung ho about it. *beat* If it was only last year, wouldn't Chip remember it fairly clearly? Granted, kids have notoriously bad memories, but I think he'd remember such a big event as what everyone is making the last Christmas they had out to be. And how old is this kid, anyway? He looks about seven, but that would mean he was conceived during their time as objects…
Yeah, that's the face I made when I thought about that too hard. *cough* Anyway! Mrs. Potts does the whole "Once upon a time" spiel, telling how all this happens after the wolf attack. *beat* So is this after or before Belle's Magical World? *considers* I'm going with after. Well, Lumiere acts like an arse and hijacks the narration, but we don't hear from a narrator for the rest of the film, so that's sort of unimportant.
It seems the Beast is sulking out on the ice, so Lumiere decides to cheer the Master up by getting Belle out on the ice, too. *sarcastic* Yeah. This is gonna end well. Meanwhile, Belle is contemplating the fact that tomorrow is Christmas Eve when the objects find her. Apparently Chip has no idea what Christmas even is, because the Beast seems to have put an end to the celebration of that holiday. Maybe he's Jewish.
Lumiere seems to be Jewish, too because he interrupts Belle's talking about Christmas by insisting she go out to ice skate around the Beast. She opens the door to see the Beast and calls out to him, causing the Beast to promptly land on his backside.
…Seriously? This movie has to turn to slapstick to keep its audience entertained? *whimpers* Can I go now? *gets told no and headdesks* I hate you all.
So Belle starts to teach the Beast to ice skate so he doesn't "fall and land on his…on--on the ice" again. Beast tries it, and Lumiere encourages them with his French laughter of looove. You know the one. The camera pans away into the castle and we meet…
Tim Curry the pipe organ and…that other…musical instrument. *beat* How they managed to get Tim Curry to do this, I have no idea. I thought he knew better than to take part in such pieces of crap.
…Okay, maybe he doesn't. Whatever. Tim Curry is, you guessed it, the villain in this story. Because at this point, Gaston is too busy getting it on with those three blonde bimbos from the original film while waiting for Lefou to tell him when Belle and Maurice get back to be our villain this time around. *beat* Goddamn continuity.
So our very subtle villain *cough*yeahright*cough* is named Forte. *sarcastic laugh* Like the musical term. How fitting. And the little dude from before is named Fife, but apparently he's a piccolo…what? Whatever. So it seems Fife's motivation in this is to get his own solo in a musical piece.
…I've heard worse motivations.
So Forte tells "Fifey" to look out the window and tell him what the hell is going on outside because he "Thought he heard merrymaking." God forbid people should be having fun in the snow. Well Fife goes and looks and tells Forte about Belle and the Beast skating and Forte doesn't like that. *beat* Am I the only one getting the feeling that Forte's a very possessive boyfriend already? And the guy's only been onscreen for less than two minutes. Wow, Disney.
Well Forte doesn't want his love slave to become Belle's boy toy, so he orders Fife to go out and put a stop to all the fun and games so that the Beast won't be happy with Belle and come crawling back to Forte. Of course, he's more subtle about his possessiveness than that…or as subtle as a Tim Curry villain can be. Well, Fife seems to have a crush on Forte, because he goes right ahead to do so. So he goes flying toward Belle and the Beast--don't ask how--and trips them up, sending them flying into the snow. It doesn't seem like he did his job well until Belle makes a snow angel and the Beast sees that he made a snow monster on the ground.
*beat* And this is the intellectual high note of the film. I think my childhood just died.
Beast goes to sulk in his music room where Forte gets all…creepy boyfriend…What the hell Disney?! Forte has to be at least twice the Beast's age if he was an adult when the spell was put on them! That's just…creepy and wrong on so many levels, I can't even begin to count them! *shudders* Gnah!
In the hall, Belle complains about the Beast being a grump two days before Christmas--that Jewish Grinch!--and Chip asks what Christmas is. Now, this does make some sense to me. If Chip is as young as I guess, and the Beast hasn't celebrated Christmas since his transformation, then Chip wouldn't know what this holiday is. *pause* That one moment of reasonable character development won't save the film, though!
Belle explains and wonders what she would get the Beast for Christmas. Chip suggests giving the Beast a story, since that's what Belle would want to get herself. *beat* I'm not going into how flawed that logic is. Well, Belle likes the idea and we get…our first song.
Not quite at the same level as the songs of the original film, but this is the best one in the film, so you better enjoy it while you can. Though…the moving illustrations of Belle and the Beast makes me wonder if Belle was on something when she sang this. Paige O'Hara, you can make the dictionary sound like a fun song and you just failed epically. You are dead to me.
Moving on. Cogsworth explains to Belle that the Beast has forbidden Christmas and we get a lot of different arguments and whining, leading to the worst pun in the entire film.
Wine Glasses: *whining* He's right! It's not fair!
Cogsworth: Don't whine, glasses.
Yeah. We're in Disney hell, people. Anyway, after tempting Cogsworth with all the dainties and dishes that they will eat on Christmas, Belle and Lumiere go off to get the castle decorated. Fife is still stalking them, so that B plot is still going strong. They climb up to the highest room in the tallest tower with Haley Joel counting out the steps. Annoying brat. At the top of the tower, they find Angelique, who is voiced by Bernadette Peters.
Oh. So that's who the girl from the beginning of the film is. Apparently Lumiere and Angelique have a history together. *beat* Wait, what happened to Fifi? Did she dump Lumiere? Did she die? No…that last one isn't likely, as she's still around at the finale of the original film. *pause* So Lumiere's being a cheating bastard. Ah, don't you just love the French?
Belle tries to convince Angelique--it's funny because her name means "Angel" and she's now a Christmas angel--to help decorate the castle for Christmas, but Angelique is too jaded to do so. Hello, bitch with a hidden heart of gold. Didn't expect to find something like that in a Disney movie! Since she can't convince Angelique in the old-fashioned way, Belle begins to sing!
*wince* I warned you that the first song was the best. Honestly…what are these people on while they sing? *shudders* Forget it, I don't want to know. So after that God awful number, Lumiere decides that if Angelique won't decorate, he will. Fife watches the whole thing and tells Forte, who tells the Beast. This leads to a flashback.
I have to give the directors and writers a little credit here. This is a rather creative idea linking everything together. However…the animators need to be shot. The prince had to have been ten when he was transformed, and he looks at least twenty. And Forte's human form?
I'm going to have nightmares now. Thank you for that, you animation bastards. It doesn't help that Forte acts like he has a gay crush on the Beast even when they were human. Pedophile.
Moving on. Belle goes down to the boiler room to find a Yule Log. *beat* So that's where Witherspoon was taking those messages. There she meets a Jewish stereotype axe. In France. Not unheard of, but really unnecessary. I know I've been making Jew jokes throughout this review, but that doesn't mean I want to have to listen to this guy:
So the Beast shows up, shouts at Belle, gets shouted at in return, and everybody's pissed off with each other. Rather like how I feel with regards to this film right about now.
Chip convinces Belle to get a tree and they stop at the West Wing to drop off Belle's present for the Beast. *beat* Whyyy? She was just angry with him! And what happened to not going into the West Wing ever?! *facepalm* Shoot me.
So they go out to the grounds, hefting the Jewish axe with them, but all of the trees are saplings and none seem to be the right one.
Well, the Beast watches her and sulks before finding her present for him. He tries to open it, but Lumiere says no, because it isn't Christmas yet. He also says that the Beast needs to give Belle a gift back, so the Beast goes to talk to Forte about composing a song for her. Forte starts getting all bitchy, clingy boyfriend and plans to get rid of Belle so he doesn't have to lose the Beast to her.
That's when Belle, still tree hunting, hears someone playing beautiful music. Three guesses who it is, and the first two don't count. She goes to investigate and meets Forte. The fact that she's not freaked out by the guy says a lot about her. Well they get to talking about what to do with the Christmas plans. Meanwhile, Fife has a little crush on Belle. Not important. Forte tells her that the only way to get the best Christmas tree is to go to the Black Forest *scare chord*. *beat* I wonder if that's where the Easter Bunny lives. Belle says no at first, since she promised to not leave the grounds. Forte convinces her to go ahead anyway. *sarcastic* What a wonderful lesson; it's okay to break promises for Christmas.
So Belle goes out to the forest with Fife following along and the Beast tries to get Cogsworth and Lumiere to bring Belle to his chambers so Forte can play the song he composed for her. Ladies and Gentlemen, the climax can't be far off. Well with Lumiere's brilliant deduction that Belle and Chip went to the Black Forest *scare chord* they follow after them to bring them back to the castle. Mrs. Potts, meanwhile, tries to keep the Beast distracted. She fails, reveals that Belle's gone, and we get Forte singing…this…
It's official. Half of this film was made by someone on an acid trip. And they got away with using the word "hell" in this song. *beat* I'm rather impressed by that, but not much else.
So, Beast rushes out to bring Belle back. Belle has gotten herself a nice sized tree, but Fife causes chaos and both she and Chip are dragged under the water. Wow. Fife just attempted murder. They got away with that in a Disney film? *beat* How…dark…
At the last moment, the Beast arrives in time to save Belle, but when they get back to the castle he throws her in the dungeon. *beat* Uh…Okay. So everyone's depressed, Fife has a change of heart, the Beast reads the story that Belle made for him--which is really lame, of course--and there's a song in the dungeon where Angelique realizes her jaded attitude was stupid.
The Beast has a change of heart, comes to let her out, but Forte won't let his boyfriend go without a fight and starts…playing music so loud that it starts tearing the castle apart…
…
…
…
How does that even work?! You know what? The film's almost over, and I am going to rush through this to make my life easier. They kill Forte, have Christmas, the story ends, we see everyone as humans all happy and in love and the movie ends!
This film is crap. The villain is creepy and uninteresting, the plot is all over the place, the animation is horrible, and you just want to kill yourself half way through the lame songs! If I never have to watch this again for as long as I live, I will die a happy woman.
I'm Miss Roberta. I'm going out to get high on root beer after that horrible thing.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*starts running away but gets stopped short* No, that's just not fair! You can't make me do this! *beat as incriminating photos are produced* Okay, I guess you can…Damn it. *sits down again* This is horrible. I think I'm going to have to review this piece of crap. *pained look* Someone shoot me.
So. Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. You're probably thinking "After Belle's Magical World, what are you so worried about? This can't be as bad as that." Oh, foolish and naïve people. *pained smile* This is far worse than Belle's Magical World. Because it's a full-length animated monstrosity of a film. So, once more, I remind you of my undying love of the movie Beauty and the Beast. That's pretty much all that will be keeping me from going on a homicidal spree as I watch this thing.
We open to the see the Beast's Castle in the dead of winter with…a huge mob coming towards it singing "Deck the Halls?" And who the hell is this kid?
…Chip? What did they do to you, kid?! *winces* I knew the animation would be bad…*deep breath* but it's still better than Belle's Magical World, so we won't bother with it anymore. Before we go really crazy about the characters, let's check the cast list.
…
No words describe the absolute destruction of my childhood that has just occurred. They are all there. With new people who are good! They have TIM CURRY on the cast list!!! *sucks in breath sharply. But this can't possibly be as bad as Belle's Magical World, so we'll just keep going.
…Who is this lady? She sure wasn't in the original film. *beat* And why does that Christmas Angel look so damn much like her? It's uncanny!
Moving on. Chip finds a present for him and begs and whines--Haley Joel Osment again, ladies and gentlemen, you can start getting out the earplugs--before his mother lets him open the box. You know…I always wondered how Mrs. Potts could be Chip's biological mother. She's old enough to be his grandmother in a time when women weren't trying to have kids beyond a certain age. *pause* Forget it, if I try to bring logic into this, the Time/Space continuum with implode and the Doctor will have to come and save my ass. As much as I would love the second part of that to happen, I like the Time/Space continuum in one piece.
So Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts all talk about how crappy their Christmases were before last year--which I guess was when they were all still objects from what they're implying--and in the background, Chip discovers that the big-ish box he's opening contains only…socks. I'll admit, that joke is kind of funny, but not enough to get me to laugh out loud.
Cogsworth and Lumiere get into a fight about which of them who saved Christmas and Mrs. Potts threatens them with the story to get them to stop fighting. Apparently not much of a threat, since Chip is all gung ho about it. *beat* If it was only last year, wouldn't Chip remember it fairly clearly? Granted, kids have notoriously bad memories, but I think he'd remember such a big event as what everyone is making the last Christmas they had out to be. And how old is this kid, anyway? He looks about seven, but that would mean he was conceived during their time as objects…
Yeah, that's the face I made when I thought about that too hard. *cough* Anyway! Mrs. Potts does the whole "Once upon a time" spiel, telling how all this happens after the wolf attack. *beat* So is this after or before Belle's Magical World? *considers* I'm going with after. Well, Lumiere acts like an arse and hijacks the narration, but we don't hear from a narrator for the rest of the film, so that's sort of unimportant.
It seems the Beast is sulking out on the ice, so Lumiere decides to cheer the Master up by getting Belle out on the ice, too. *sarcastic* Yeah. This is gonna end well. Meanwhile, Belle is contemplating the fact that tomorrow is Christmas Eve when the objects find her. Apparently Chip has no idea what Christmas even is, because the Beast seems to have put an end to the celebration of that holiday. Maybe he's Jewish.
Lumiere seems to be Jewish, too because he interrupts Belle's talking about Christmas by insisting she go out to ice skate around the Beast. She opens the door to see the Beast and calls out to him, causing the Beast to promptly land on his backside.
…Seriously? This movie has to turn to slapstick to keep its audience entertained? *whimpers* Can I go now? *gets told no and headdesks* I hate you all.
So Belle starts to teach the Beast to ice skate so he doesn't "fall and land on his…on--on the ice" again. Beast tries it, and Lumiere encourages them with his French laughter of looove. You know the one. The camera pans away into the castle and we meet…
Tim Curry the pipe organ and…that other…musical instrument. *beat* How they managed to get Tim Curry to do this, I have no idea. I thought he knew better than to take part in such pieces of crap.
…Okay, maybe he doesn't. Whatever. Tim Curry is, you guessed it, the villain in this story. Because at this point, Gaston is too busy getting it on with those three blonde bimbos from the original film while waiting for Lefou to tell him when Belle and Maurice get back to be our villain this time around. *beat* Goddamn continuity.
So our very subtle villain *cough*yeahright*cough* is named Forte. *sarcastic laugh* Like the musical term. How fitting. And the little dude from before is named Fife, but apparently he's a piccolo…what? Whatever. So it seems Fife's motivation in this is to get his own solo in a musical piece.
…I've heard worse motivations.
So Forte tells "Fifey" to look out the window and tell him what the hell is going on outside because he "Thought he heard merrymaking." God forbid people should be having fun in the snow. Well Fife goes and looks and tells Forte about Belle and the Beast skating and Forte doesn't like that. *beat* Am I the only one getting the feeling that Forte's a very possessive boyfriend already? And the guy's only been onscreen for less than two minutes. Wow, Disney.
Well Forte doesn't want his love slave to become Belle's boy toy, so he orders Fife to go out and put a stop to all the fun and games so that the Beast won't be happy with Belle and come crawling back to Forte. Of course, he's more subtle about his possessiveness than that…or as subtle as a Tim Curry villain can be. Well, Fife seems to have a crush on Forte, because he goes right ahead to do so. So he goes flying toward Belle and the Beast--don't ask how--and trips them up, sending them flying into the snow. It doesn't seem like he did his job well until Belle makes a snow angel and the Beast sees that he made a snow monster on the ground.
*beat* And this is the intellectual high note of the film. I think my childhood just died.
Beast goes to sulk in his music room where Forte gets all…creepy boyfriend…What the hell Disney?! Forte has to be at least twice the Beast's age if he was an adult when the spell was put on them! That's just…creepy and wrong on so many levels, I can't even begin to count them! *shudders* Gnah!
In the hall, Belle complains about the Beast being a grump two days before Christmas--that Jewish Grinch!--and Chip asks what Christmas is. Now, this does make some sense to me. If Chip is as young as I guess, and the Beast hasn't celebrated Christmas since his transformation, then Chip wouldn't know what this holiday is. *pause* That one moment of reasonable character development won't save the film, though!
Belle explains and wonders what she would get the Beast for Christmas. Chip suggests giving the Beast a story, since that's what Belle would want to get herself. *beat* I'm not going into how flawed that logic is. Well, Belle likes the idea and we get…our first song.
Not quite at the same level as the songs of the original film, but this is the best one in the film, so you better enjoy it while you can. Though…the moving illustrations of Belle and the Beast makes me wonder if Belle was on something when she sang this. Paige O'Hara, you can make the dictionary sound like a fun song and you just failed epically. You are dead to me.
Moving on. Cogsworth explains to Belle that the Beast has forbidden Christmas and we get a lot of different arguments and whining, leading to the worst pun in the entire film.
Wine Glasses: *whining* He's right! It's not fair!
Cogsworth: Don't whine, glasses.
Yeah. We're in Disney hell, people. Anyway, after tempting Cogsworth with all the dainties and dishes that they will eat on Christmas, Belle and Lumiere go off to get the castle decorated. Fife is still stalking them, so that B plot is still going strong. They climb up to the highest room in the tallest tower with Haley Joel counting out the steps. Annoying brat. At the top of the tower, they find Angelique, who is voiced by Bernadette Peters.
Oh. So that's who the girl from the beginning of the film is. Apparently Lumiere and Angelique have a history together. *beat* Wait, what happened to Fifi? Did she dump Lumiere? Did she die? No…that last one isn't likely, as she's still around at the finale of the original film. *pause* So Lumiere's being a cheating bastard. Ah, don't you just love the French?
Belle tries to convince Angelique--it's funny because her name means "Angel" and she's now a Christmas angel--to help decorate the castle for Christmas, but Angelique is too jaded to do so. Hello, bitch with a hidden heart of gold. Didn't expect to find something like that in a Disney movie! Since she can't convince Angelique in the old-fashioned way, Belle begins to sing!
*wince* I warned you that the first song was the best. Honestly…what are these people on while they sing? *shudders* Forget it, I don't want to know. So after that God awful number, Lumiere decides that if Angelique won't decorate, he will. Fife watches the whole thing and tells Forte, who tells the Beast. This leads to a flashback.
I have to give the directors and writers a little credit here. This is a rather creative idea linking everything together. However…the animators need to be shot. The prince had to have been ten when he was transformed, and he looks at least twenty. And Forte's human form?
I'm going to have nightmares now. Thank you for that, you animation bastards. It doesn't help that Forte acts like he has a gay crush on the Beast even when they were human. Pedophile.
Moving on. Belle goes down to the boiler room to find a Yule Log. *beat* So that's where Witherspoon was taking those messages. There she meets a Jewish stereotype axe. In France. Not unheard of, but really unnecessary. I know I've been making Jew jokes throughout this review, but that doesn't mean I want to have to listen to this guy:
So the Beast shows up, shouts at Belle, gets shouted at in return, and everybody's pissed off with each other. Rather like how I feel with regards to this film right about now.
Chip convinces Belle to get a tree and they stop at the West Wing to drop off Belle's present for the Beast. *beat* Whyyy? She was just angry with him! And what happened to not going into the West Wing ever?! *facepalm* Shoot me.
So they go out to the grounds, hefting the Jewish axe with them, but all of the trees are saplings and none seem to be the right one.
Well, the Beast watches her and sulks before finding her present for him. He tries to open it, but Lumiere says no, because it isn't Christmas yet. He also says that the Beast needs to give Belle a gift back, so the Beast goes to talk to Forte about composing a song for her. Forte starts getting all bitchy, clingy boyfriend and plans to get rid of Belle so he doesn't have to lose the Beast to her.
That's when Belle, still tree hunting, hears someone playing beautiful music. Three guesses who it is, and the first two don't count. She goes to investigate and meets Forte. The fact that she's not freaked out by the guy says a lot about her. Well they get to talking about what to do with the Christmas plans. Meanwhile, Fife has a little crush on Belle. Not important. Forte tells her that the only way to get the best Christmas tree is to go to the Black Forest *scare chord*. *beat* I wonder if that's where the Easter Bunny lives. Belle says no at first, since she promised to not leave the grounds. Forte convinces her to go ahead anyway. *sarcastic* What a wonderful lesson; it's okay to break promises for Christmas.
So Belle goes out to the forest with Fife following along and the Beast tries to get Cogsworth and Lumiere to bring Belle to his chambers so Forte can play the song he composed for her. Ladies and Gentlemen, the climax can't be far off. Well with Lumiere's brilliant deduction that Belle and Chip went to the Black Forest *scare chord* they follow after them to bring them back to the castle. Mrs. Potts, meanwhile, tries to keep the Beast distracted. She fails, reveals that Belle's gone, and we get Forte singing…this…
It's official. Half of this film was made by someone on an acid trip. And they got away with using the word "hell" in this song. *beat* I'm rather impressed by that, but not much else.
So, Beast rushes out to bring Belle back. Belle has gotten herself a nice sized tree, but Fife causes chaos and both she and Chip are dragged under the water. Wow. Fife just attempted murder. They got away with that in a Disney film? *beat* How…dark…
At the last moment, the Beast arrives in time to save Belle, but when they get back to the castle he throws her in the dungeon. *beat* Uh…Okay. So everyone's depressed, Fife has a change of heart, the Beast reads the story that Belle made for him--which is really lame, of course--and there's a song in the dungeon where Angelique realizes her jaded attitude was stupid.
The Beast has a change of heart, comes to let her out, but Forte won't let his boyfriend go without a fight and starts…playing music so loud that it starts tearing the castle apart…
…
…
…
How does that even work?! You know what? The film's almost over, and I am going to rush through this to make my life easier. They kill Forte, have Christmas, the story ends, we see everyone as humans all happy and in love and the movie ends!
This film is crap. The villain is creepy and uninteresting, the plot is all over the place, the animation is horrible, and you just want to kill yourself half way through the lame songs! If I never have to watch this again for as long as I live, I will die a happy woman.
I'm Miss Roberta. I'm going out to get high on root beer after that horrible thing.
