Amph Les Misérables movie

Happy Christmas from Les Mis

 

Should be 3 French Whores

 

Sometimes a "like" just isn't enough.

 

Phantom's one is better, but this works pretty well.

 

SO MANY VIDEO CLIPS.

First up: the new song!!

It's actually in the film, and is written by the original writers. So far, I like it. It seems very sweet.



And now some behind the scenes features on super important things that help make a film!

There's some clips of Lovely Ladies, Wedding Chorus, and Master of the House.


Production Design!!




Costumes!!
(with a little bit of Gavroche!)




Hair and Makeup!!

 

Nice that they included a new song actually in the film rather than just in the credits or as a special feature (as they did in the Phantom movie).

I hope Master of the House is good, It's one of the best songs I think

 

Well if Master of the House is anything less than masterful I'm walking out.

 

Master of the House is probably the one song I can emphatically say they will not screw up. I mean, it would be darned hard to screw up Master of the House when you've got Cohen and Carter on duty.

 

I am aware this performance may have ruined me for the movie, but I couldn't help being curious, and was absolutely floored by this song. Les misérables sans frontières, as it were:


Cheers,
Lauré

 

I really love that part of the 10th Anniversary concert. I'm pretty sure everyone does. Colm Wilkinson remains my favorite.

 

Oh, you people with your holiday I have nothing to do on Christmas and always go to the movies and a Chinese place, so this is perfect

In all seriousness, it does seem a bit odd to open the movie on Christmas.

 

My friends and I are probably going to do a double feature with this and Django Unchained. Just think. Nearly 6 hours in the movie theater!!

 

is helena bonham carter stuck playing these witchy types now?

 

I had no idea they cast Helena + Cohen as those parts. Now I kind of want to see this.

 

Wow - no one has linked the Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe karaoke from a week ago?


Not bad if you can ignore the laughter.

 

That's an....interesting double feature.

 

That was . . . substantially better than I was expecting it to be.

 

Yeah, that was actually pretty good.

 

I know. I'll get em' mixed up and assume I watched a violent Western musical.
Wonder what Tarantino would do with a musical.

 

The best comment on that video was the fact that it was like an epic rap battle between Wolverine and Maximus.


Also I get to go to an advanced screening tomorrow!!!! I cannot wait!!!

 

The sadly ironic part is that Valjean doesn't sing Do You Hear the People Sing.

Though I cannot wait for One Day More. <3

 

Just got back from a preview screening!

I'm going to put under a spoiler tag just in case.

Spoiler

I'll start with The Bad:

- For starters, the film was out of focus. I'm praying it was just our projector and not the film itself.

- Pretty much most of the movie is super close ups. Like seriously; a lot of the songs were single take super closeups. For example: I Dreamed a Dream. In the trailers, we have these nice mid shots and alternating angles and everything! What we got was a super closeup single take. I get it was trying to create intimacy, but this was way WAY too much. If you see this film, sit in the VERY BACK.

- When we're not in super close up, we're in shakey-cam land. Which I equally hate.

- Since we lived in a world of super closeups, there were like 0 establishing shots showing when we've jumped from one place to the next. We had title cards for when years changed, but that's it.

- There wasn't much breathing room between songs. We just plowed straight through everything.

- And finally, the dumb ***** beside me talked the entire last 30 minutes of the film, which really ruined the end for me.

And honestly, that's my entire complaint. The only faults I had were with the camera choices.



The Good

- Jackman. Amazing.

- Hathaway. Awesome.

- Eddie Redmayne. OMG this kid was superb. He was just so absolutely perfect. I was crying so hard during Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.

- Pretty much everyone was spot on. Yes, even Crowe did a good job.

- Stars. I'm glad they hid this song from the previews, because it was by far Crowe's strongest number. I sat with held breath as soon as he started singing it, and it didn't take long for me to release it in a sigh of utter relief that he was actually doing it quite well and didn't ruin my favorite song.

- They included so many details from the book and that pleased me so much. Someone after the film was complaining about how much it derived from the play, but all the times it strayed from the play it was going to the book, so I was super happy. It was a perfect blend between the two.

- The new song Suddenly was adorable and so incredibly sweet.




Overall thoughts:

They cut lots of lines and changed others to make it work. While I was bummed that a few of my favorite lines from songs got cut, in the interest of time, I understand why.


Will this film win Best Picture? No. I certainly don't think so. Lincoln wasn't in super-closeups, so that gives it a crazy advantage.

Will Jackman win best actor? He has a very very definite chance.


Overall, I give it about an 8.5 out of 10. I would love to give it much much higher, but camera work was just SO distracting and painful.

 

I just saw it today...

Spoiler

Bad:
-Miana is right about the closeups. Oy. I know they sung it live which is great, but my gosh do some different angels besides showing them in one take all the time. Even when they did like during Empty chairs it was kind of awkward. (Plus I thought some phantom faces would show up then, but none did, which is kinda a disappointment.) And if you hated the Hunger Games because of shakiness, you're going to have a bad time in this. It must be a current trend in movie genres now to do this. I know its camera mounted on the shoulder, but can't you edit it to smooth it out once its finished? If you watch the director's previous movie The King Speech, he did the same with closeups and stuff, but for this movie it hindered at times, because I want to see them fully doing something.

-My biggest peeve of this movie is what they did to Stars, not Russel Crowe, Tom Hooper the director. Russel Crowe was awesome. He hit the note. Right before the ending note, they switch the music already to start the transition into the next scene and start fading away from him which in a way completely ruined the moment and ending to that song. That transition is probably the worst to me ever. Plus it was a little distracting showing closeups of his feet walking on the edge during Stars and the Suicide. During the suicide fine, but during stars it took away the moment and made it somewhat comical which its not supposed to be.

Also screwing over was Eponine. Completely not really using her that much. She felt rushed over and wasted in a way. Samantha Barks was awesome don't get me wrong, but how it was handled and her shortened time was greatly annoying. I wished she did have more screen time.

-At different moments of the movie it felt way too rushed, some slow. I don't know what could be done with that but arg it annoyed me to no end.Turning was skipped over pretty much.

-It's small but wouldn't Fantine at the end have long hair? I mean to me if she's in Heaven she should of had long hair to be different than the miserable state we last saw her in. Just saying that could of been different.
Plus, the end felt a little..rushed as well. The ending song of Do you Hear the People sing I mean. It just looked a little weird.

Good:
-Acting was awesome and Russel Crowe has been greatly understated. Yes, Jackman deserves an Oscar nod if not the win.

-The entire beginning with the Bishop. Colm was outstanding and I was greatly moved at that part.
Jackman during the song to me felt real that he was in conviction and torment over what to do.

-End of Bring Him Home had VJ kinda praying over Marius which I liked.

-I had to go to the restroom during Castle on a Cloud, so I left to go and came back during Master of the House. If I get the dvd to this I will skip over that part every time I think due to my hatred of those two people. Ironically that's the song that keeps sticking in my head to even now. The Thenardiers were indeed shown as scum and were the part of stealing everywhere they went. I shouted for joy in my head when Marius punched him in the end. I never felt so happy to see someone get hit. Plus, is there any moment in the musical or book at all that says they were sad when their kids got killed? Because they completely blow it off.

- Combining stuff from the book was fine to me. I liked bringing in those elements.


Overall, I can't decide whether I like it or not. I'm going to have to see it again in order to decide. Watch it for yourself is what I say. Bring tissues because you'll cry at times.

 

Spoiler

I actually have no complaints about the camera work. I thought it was shot brilliantly. The close-ups didn't bother me. Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream" really was stunning.

Visually, I thought it was a beautiful film and it's tough for me to imagine how one would go about creating a superior film treatment of Les Mis.

Pacing-wise, I can understand some of the complaints but how do you remedy that? The movie already clocks in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. I agree that Eponine's arc feels short-lived, but is it really that much different in the stage version? Perhaps the pacing just doesn't translate the same way between stage and film. Of course there is the lack of an intermission. On that note, I think they made the right choice in changing the order of Do You Hear the People Sing?, One Day More, and On My Own in order to build things up towards the climax.

Jackman is a fantastic actor in this film, but how can anyone love his singing voice? He is super nasally. I do think that he performed well where it mattered, and hit the tough notes; but at less important times, the nasality was distracting. For the most important character in the film, his vocals were disappointing to me.

Crowe was better than expected, aside from a couple of moments where his voice sounded strained. Still not a great fit, vocally, for Javert's part, but he made the role his own. It wasn't the same "Stars" that I knew from the stage recordings - it was Crowe's "Stars" - but he played to his strengths and it was enjoyable to listen to. That said, his acting felt lackluster in comparison to the other amazing performances in the movie.

Seyfried's voice lacked some of the power and confidence of her counterparts', but I liked her more than the traditional super-operatic Cosette. Everyone else in the main and supporting cast was pretty much awesome. Sacha Baron Cohen was the right choice for Thenardier, even if he was inexplicably the only person to have a French accent. Gavroche was great, and it seemed like they emphasized his role a little more (e.g. giving him the echo part in "Drink With Me" normally sung by the women) in order to enhance the impact of his death.

I did miss Eponine's harmony with Fantine during the epilogue, but hey, I'll take Colm Wilkinson.

I enjoyed the orchestration, although at times it was mixed a little low for my tastes (or there was no music at all, leaving us grasping for a sense of key when the actor is singing). I do miss the lush arpeggios on the Soliloquies from the original orchestration, but the new string parts are still good. The expanded string parts in One Day More are great.

 

Okay, saw it today. My comments are mostly spoiler free, mostly just technical in nature so here we go...

First I'll say my overall reaction is positive. I'll be happy to see it again, this time not having to worry every time a song started if they were going to screw it up. Because I don't think they really did. It's definitely not perfect and it could have been better. But that doesn't make it bad. Let me comment briefly on a few things.

Russell Crowe. He was a bit better than I expected, but this is mostly because I had such abysmally low expectations His acting was indeed inferior to pretty much everyone else, and his voice isn't right for this role at all. But when he was solo, not having to match up with anyone else, he was better. So Stars and Javert's Suicide were okay.

Tom Hooper. *sigh* Here's the thing. He keeps making films and shows that I really like, while simultaneously really disliking his visual directing style. The shaky cam isn't actually bothersome to me. It's that he shot every single solo as a close up. It was fantastic for I Dreamed a Dream. But then it just genuinely seemed like he didn't know what else to do. As my directing mentors would say over and over, if everything's a closeup, nothing's a closeup. It robs those moments of their power. I would have liked to see more expansiveness in a few scenes (e.g. On My Own. The notion of the song is being lonely in a large, empty town. Being in close completely counters that notion). I would have liked to see him force himself to shoot 2.35 instead of 1.85 and therefore actually have to be more cinematic. Right now he's still a guy stuck in TV directing, IMHO. He is a really, really fantastic director of actors. But his eye is frankly not good. He had a BSC cine. He should have relinquished some control there.

Jackman's voice is indeed fairly nasally, and I've noticed that before and was ready for it. The thing is, I've seen a fair number of Valjeans like that. Hell, Alfie Bowe has that style. It only bothered me a few times. It's a damned shame Lincoln came out this year because I thought Jackman gave a tour de force performance and he'd be a shoe in for Best Actor most years.

As to everyone else, I really liked it. I loved all the performances, the live singing worked really well, the emotion and reality of the story was conveyed even better than I've ever seen it on stage. I thought they did a great job of showing how small and hopeless this revolution really was, which isn't exactly captured by the play. I appreciated that Hooper didn't make the fatal mistake most directors do in adapting musicals by just putting the staged scenes on film. He had his own take, he went for it, and I think for the most part it works. It's just that it would have been better had he had a bit of a sense of opera and scale in certain sequences.