Les Miserables

After watching the trailers even in that makeup I still want to crush Anne Hathaway 5 times to Sunday.

Phantom as a movie....sigh.

I think Gerard Butler did a great job with what he had to work with but Michael Crawford will always be the only voice of the Phantom for me. Liked Emmy Rossum and Minnie Driver I thought did well.

Saw some other clips of Russell Crowe singing....fucking sigh.

Side note folks - if you are ever tempted to see Weber's Phantom Sequel (musical) in London - let me be the first to tell you....CANNOT BE UNSEEN. My husband and I were laughing out loud at how refucking tarded it was. Its called "Love Never Dies." Fucking horrible. Horrible musical.

10am tomorrow.

I was about to post that "horrible musical" is a pleonasm, but then I remembered South Park: The Movie. Oh... and West Side Story.

Etoille_sl said:

Phantom as a movie....sigh.

I think Gerard Butler did a great job with what he had to work with but Michael Crawford will always be the only voice of the Phantom for me. Liked Emmy Rossum and Minnie Driver I thought did well.

Saw some other clips of Russell Crowe singing....fucking sigh.

Side note folks - if you are ever tempted to see Weber's Phantom Sequel (musical) in London - let me be the first to tell you....CANNOT BE UNSEEN. My husband and I were laughing out loud at how refucking tarded it was. Its called "Love Never Dies." Fucking horrible. Horrible musical.

10am tomorrow.

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Minnie diver was the only actor that was dubbed, she didn't sing her parts but a extra song during ending credits, at least from what I remember and what I read... Butler did great, Crawford was great...but needed to stop... Don't listen to his collection stuff..old dude is old... As for love never dies, its been through so many revisions its stupid.. If it makes a Broadway debuts it will be a full revision, yet again...only hope.

the clips we have of Crowe are indeed cringe worthy... But I don't think they would let him tank the entire show... Unlike Hathaway etc he is more than one or two songs like cossete, etc... I still look forward to this one.


not spoiling, but a good thing about love never dies is... Confirmation that indeed Erick hit that!

This is confirmed miserable.

I'd give the movie overall 2-2.5 out of 4 stars.

Hugh Jackman did a good job. Would say a solid B+ compared to the other Valjeans I've seen.
Russell Crowe managed to be fucking WORSE than I expected. Not only could he not sing for shit, he like didn't act at all either for the entire fucking movie. This alone cost the movie .5 stars in my opinion. It really was that bad.
Eddie Redmayne is the best Marius I've ever seen. Managed to transform the character from the whiney bitch Marius is so often played as to a character with depth. Stellar performance. Best rendition of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables that I've seen.

However, there will never be a better Fantine than Anne Hathaway. I expected her to do well, but not this fucking well. Was unbefucklievable. I was choking back sobs from I dreamed a dream until come to me (when she was in the scenes). I'm not kidding, I was completely blown the fuck away.

The movie tried to do a lot of things, some good, some not so good. Someone above mentioned that the second act drags (which it does on stage) - and they try their very best to remedy this. They cut short some throwaway songs (Turning and Dog Eat Dog for example), disappointed they cut out Beggars at the Feast pretty much almost to nothing. They also inverted the order of some of the songs which was frustrating to watch until I understood why they did it to make the story work (Do You Hear the People Sing and On My Own for example).

Speaking of on my own, expected SO much more from Samantha Barks. Her performance was ultimately entirely forgettable and thats usually not the impression the audience is left with whatsoever.

They made a completely clutch fucking awesome decision for the finale and I'll just leave it at that.

They tried (and in my opinion succeeded) in filling in some of the gaps in the first part of the story in terms of how Valjean evades capture etc but unfortunately at the expense in my opinion of some of the greater parts of the intro - the part with the priest at the beginning is some of my favorite music and that was cut down or made into dialogue. (For those who don't know, the role of the priest is played by the original West End Valjean I believe and you can completely hear it in his voice - majorly epic). Who Am I (first) is rather annoying to watch because its basically the camera hanging on Jackman's face for like 3 mins straight and it gets a little boring to watch.

Costumes were excellent, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter deliver on comedic relief and are wonderful from an acting sense. The vocals are about a C but I'd rate overall their performance as a B.
Amanda Seyfred does a solid job as well - B.


Bottom line, this movie should really only win three awards. 1) Costumes/makeup. Stellar fucking job. 2) Whatever Anne Hathaway is nominated for. 3) Scenery/setting etc.

Its not in my opinion best picture worthy and thats not to say that its bad its just not of that caliber in my opinion. There are moments of complete brilliance but unfortunately Crowes god fucking awful performance keeps it from even being a nominee for best picture in my opinion. Its an enjoyable movie when you're jonesing to see the musical, but it was at best (before Crowe fucked it up) a 3 star movie, and even Hathaway's performance can't cancel the awful out because she's a supporting role and Javert is so huge. There were literally moments when I said to my husband "I don't think anyone explained to Russell Crowe what the song he is singing is about. He looks confused." I'm usually crying my eyes out at on my own and some of the barricade scenes...the only times I got really emotional were the aforementioned Hathaway scenes, empty chairs at empty tables, and the finale.

And this should have been kind of a mulligan for the movie because I'm pregnant. It should be easy to make my ass cry. Just was not the case.

had long reply, stupid phone must have lost it.

short version: seems like they did everything right they could and wrong they could... In the end I am still excited to see it!

Got dragged to see this.. Really wouldn't say I'm a fan of musicials so I was dreading it; but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Crowe was completely awful, definitely the weakest link on the cast. I completely agree about Anne Hathaway though, she was amazing. I wasn't expecting that from her at all. The people in the theater actually clapped after she finished singing "I Dreamed a Dream"

It did seem to drag a bit, felt like the end would never come. I would have preferred to see Django... but I guess it was enjoyable.

3.5/5

Is there tits?

No tits. There was a point where Hathaway seemed like she was about to unleash her lactoids, but it didn't happen unfortunately.

Do they sing "Drink With Me?"

I'll go see this at the Scottsdale Movie Grill just so I can have a large beer at my seat for this song.

I think this was great and personally thought crowe did a great job. His character is a complex one and difficult to play. He didn't take the easy way out by playing the character as a pure villian but rather gracefully walked the line between good and evil as a morally absolutist representation of the government. Watch "stars" again if you get a chance.

I will add that I thought Sasha Baron Cohen's acting, while humorous, was fairly one dimensional. He was too much of a sleaze ball to be a believable landlord/unkeep.

And of course, "dream" was amazing and devastating.

To be fair, i watched this over two nights (dvd sceener) so i can't speak to pacing.

etwynn_sl said:

I think this was great and personally thought crowe did a great job. His character is a complex one and difficult to play. He didn't take the easy way out by playing the character as a pure villian but rather gracefully walked the line between good and evil as a morally absolutist representation of the government. Watch "stars" again if you get a chance.

I will add that I thought Sasha Baron Cohen's acting, while humorous, was fairly one dimensional. He was too much of a sleaze ball to be a believable landlord/unkeep.

And of course, "dream" was amazing and devastating.

To be fair, i watched this over two nights (dvd sceener) so i can't speak to pacing.

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From when I first heard of the casting I loved the idea of Crowe as Javert- but it was always the question of his singing... this is the musical adaptation not the book adaptation that it seems he would have been better at- so there will be judgement on the director/casting etc for that...

Personally I was never a big big fan of Cossette or Fauntine - they are characters that are simply there to drive ValJean's character as his growth and change etc is the pourpose of the story...to me the revolution is always a background...they try and make it foreground in the 2nd act and it gets in the way and gets boring...even the songs... AT THE BARRICADE...AT THE BARRICADE AT NIGHT...AT THE BARRICADE AGAIN SECONT ATTACK...HOLY SHIT WE ARE ALL DEAD- AT THE BARRICADE! omg....

As for Borat, if they cut the sewer song then yeah, he just looks over slimeball is...but thats the point of the song (masters of the house) etc- he is a fucking slimeball.

Needless_sl said:

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Lol. Would read again.

I went with my entire family Christmas day and we all basically loved it.

I was not put off by Crowe's performance. I have seen it done on stage and listened to the tapes since I was indoctrinated as a kid and I not once had the feeling his voice was off. Sure it was different, but fuck, the movie was great.

It makes me happy that we can get quality films done like this, it seems everything now-a-days is pants-on-head retarded action / gratuitous soft-core pornography.

I say go see the film, if for only the reason that you want to contribute and encourage more quality films in the future.

etwynn_sl said:

I think this was great and personally thought crowe did a great job. His character is a complex one and difficult to play. He didn't take the easy way out by playing the character as a pure villian but rather gracefully walked the line between good and evil as a morally absolutist representation of the government. Watch "stars" again if you get a chance.

I will add that I thought Sasha Baron Cohen's acting, while humorous, was fairly one dimensional. He was too much of a sleaze ball to be a believable landlord/unkeep.

And of course, "dream" was amazing and devastating.

To be fair, i watched this over two nights (dvd sceener) so i can't speak to pacing.

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uhm...did you not ever see the musical? Everything they did on screen was how it's depicted in the musical. Crowe did an OK job at the acting, but, they gave him a lead role and he CANNOT SING.

Lol @ the landlord. Yeah, you never saw it. ;-p

edit: The movie was a little long. But, the musical itself is pretty long as well. Pacing was OK. You could literally spot where the intermission was/is during the movie that goes in the musical because the scenary change is so drastic.

I loved this movie. First half could have been a bit slower in some parts and the second half could have been a bit faster. Crowe could have been a bit better and Seyfried's vibrato drove me insane. I gained a fuckton of respect for Hugh Jackman watching this. Planning to see it a few more times on the big screen as I'm sure watching it on a dinky tv will detract from the experience.

edit
Saw this a couple more times and I actually really like Russell Crowe's voice. If he would have just belted the songs out and gone for that shit he would have been a lot better. And yeah, Hathaway's performance in this movie is one of the best things I have ever seen in my life. People are just fucking weeping in the theater every time.

Saw this today and liked it. I think Anne Hathaway gave the best performance I have ever seen. I can't put into words how great I think she was. I think Crowe did a decent job.

Javert is one of my favourite tragic characters in all of fiction--every single time I see Les Mis, regardless of format, I am *always* hoping that he will accept forgiveness and live a new life, only to be gutted when he doesn't.

Can smeone tell me if Crowe evokes that kind of emotional tie? Crowe is the one thing holding me back from going to see it...i couldn't stand it if the Gladiator turned Javert into John Nash...>_<

Archangel_sl said:

Javert is one of my favourite tragic characters in all of fiction--every single time I see Les Mis, regardless of format, I am *always* hoping that he will accept forgiveness and live a new life, only to be gutted when he doesn't.

Can smeone tell me if Crowe evokes that kind of emotional tie? Crowe is the one thing holding me back from going to see it...i couldn't stand it if the Gladiator turned Javert into John Nash...>_<

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I think Crowe does a very good job of making Javert seem relatable. He doesn't play the character as "the bad guy" but rather as an innocently misguided and flawed character firm in his beliefs. I have not seen any stage production so I have nothing to compare it to. However, given that people I know who've seen the stage production liked it, I would say seeing it is definitely worth the risk of being disappointed.