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Last movie you saw?

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jwinslow said:
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Les Miserables

I was shocked at how true they stayed to the musical, a rare and terrific decision. It brings such a visceral and personal aspect to the scenes many like me know so well. The opening scene with Valjean & Fontine's undoing were chilling.

Anne Hathaway is absolutely stunning and steals the show from a fairly strong cast of performers (Valjean, Bishop, Madame Thenardier, Eponine, Marius, Enjolras, Gavroche).

Russell Crowe would be a perfect casting for a non-musical rendition of this tale. He is somewhere between poor and terrible for the most emphatic role in the greatest musical ever. His voice would be pleasant for regular films. Painfully limited for the devastating anthems of Javert. Contrast that with the master of the house, who has a slightly worse voice than Javert/Crowe, but has a comical role and makes up for it with his antics and timing.

Hugh Jackman takes some serious liberties speaking, whispering, grimacing through the emotional lines, but succeeds with enough volume to bring it home.

The new song understandably falls far short of the iconic music, particularly with how each song builds on the rest.

For non-musical fans, this may be a 69% according to Rotten Tomatoes, but for Les Miserables fans this is a strong addition to the franchise.
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I just watched Les Miserables yesterday and was honestly disappointed. Noted I had no prior knowledge of the story or music, but it didn't leave the music bouncing around my head afterward like some other movies based on musicals. It felt like someone had watched Sweeney Todd and thought "We should make Les Miserables". I've seen the Phantom 4 times live and that is the extent of my live musical experience, but I have enjoyed many other movies based on musicals.

As a whole the acting and singing was probably far superior to anything I could compare it to (Phantom, Sweeney Todd, Chicago, etc), but it must not be my thing. As fan of Anne Hathaway I was shocked by how much press she got for only being in 20-30 minutes of a 2:30 minute movie. She did great for that short time, but I would much rather see her in a role like Christine Daaé where I could enjoy her for the whole movie.

With a movie as big as this I would hope the music would be good enough to outshine anything else and in this case it was not. Any film based on a Broadway show should make me want to see the show live and in this case I could care less about every seeing Les Miserables live.
 
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The recorded version of Les Miz that is worth watching is the 10-year* Anniversary Show from Albert Hall for which they assembled their "dream cast" drawn from the many people who had performed the show on stage, aided by a 200-member choir. They are in costume, but it's done as a concert, so spoken parts are trimmed. It's still the best show I ever watched on PBS. Flawless performances all around. After the bows, they do an encore by having Valjean's from all over the world march in and take turns doing part of Do You Hear The People Sing.

*Not to be confused with the recent 25th anniversary performance--couldn't stand it. Some awful casting choices there.
 
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With a movie as big as this I would hope the music would be good enough to outshine anything else and in this case it was not. Any film based on a Broadway show should make me want to see the show live and in this case I could care less about every seeing Les Miserables live.
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Then you'll be missing out on the best musical in my lifetime. Keep in mind that Javert is the most powerful voice in the musical and played by a TERRIBLE singer (Crowe). I'd also submit that Valjean was a unique twist on the part and a talented but very different kind of singer from the musical.

I loved the movie because it was still a musical (and not a movie based upon it), but make no mistake, it is more of a close-up 1v1 experience than a grand triumph of musical glory.
 
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Oh, please! Can't you tell I've tried to compel myself into traumatic amnesia and forget the details?

Freaking, yes. Jonas. And don't get me started on Javert... :sick1:

The awful-ness was only compounded by how excited many of us who loved the 10th were at having a new version. Foolishly, we imagined the 25th would hold its own beside it. There's a bathroom we left wiser, after unceremoniously flushing our decoder ring.
 
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