Les Mis

[joel]

watched this yesterday. never seen les mis live or in the movies before so i had no idea what to expect.

i thought it was pretty good. one weird comment i have. there were a lot of facial closeups seemed to last forever that just made me feel a bit akward tho'. it's probably just me tho'... i guess i just feel weird looking at hugh jackman's face like 20ft tall staring back at me for like 5 minutes straight.

[Duncan]

i think the prolonged close ups are due to the fact that they want to show that the actors were singing the songs through and through as opposed to cuts and edits. I actually appreciated the long close ups since it's a "musical", having the cut scenes within a song cheapens the art of a musical if that makes sense.

[jeSteR]

Any thoughts Shaun? Did Joyce like it?

[se7entse7en]

I liked it. I just watched the movie for the first time over Christmas with my mom and liked it, so I knew what the plot was about. It was my first musical, though, and I thought it was a bit weird at first (despite knowing ahead of time that it was a musical). I didn't realize there would be THAT much singing.

I didn't care for Crowe's singing and I kinda dreaded the scenes he was in. He sounded boring and uninspiring. Surely they could have found someone better to play the part. One thing that I noticed is that they often looked directly into the camera. That's something that doesn't happen in most movies. Maybe that's part of the reason Joel felt awkward at times. I started to like it more after Cossette grew up. Maybe 'cause there was less Crowe.

[nature boy]

knowing nothing about this movie, isn't that what these musical/movies are about now? they aren't movies per se, as much as they're just filmings of the musicals? that might be why they keep looking at the camera, because there's a lot of eye contact in live theatre (or as much as there can be since they can't see the audience).

[nature boy]

musical coming to vancouver june 12-23. we're probably going to go the last weekend sometime. who's in?

[joel]

[nature boy]

everyone that i heard rave about this movie didn't like crowe lol. how the heck did he get on the cast?

[joel]

i don't think crowe's a bad actor... but his performance in this movie as well as his vocal performance comes up literally flat and monotone throughout.

Joyce told me that the character javert is supposed to have a lot more angst and inner conflict himself on how he reacts to Jean's saving him and his code of following the law to the letter.

i had never watched it before or didn't know much about the story, so i really hadn't noticed to be honest. i just thought his character was supposed to be all robot like..

[nature boy]

i don't think he's a bad actor either, but apparently he didn't fit the role very well. so i wonder how he got the role that he didn't fit very well, and even a singing role, for that matter.

[joel]

[nature boy]

lots of actors have their niche. singing apparently is not his. which again makes me wonder how on earth he got the part.

[Duncan]

a lot of these actors are classically trained in the triple threat or arts (singing, dancing, acting). Anne hathaway is one of those actors and it shows in her performances from different movie roles, to her number in the oscars, to les mis. I think a lot of these other one dimensional actors want to "make a name" for themselves by stepping into another genre that they're not known for. Kinda like how Gweneth Paltrow did that country music movie and didn't suck and everyone was like OHHh she's so cool again. and lol @ her making a country album that nobody bought after that too. I think crowe had enough star power to get the part and the director/producers were probably hoping his star power would draw more people in. But i guess it backfired.

[nature boy]

i guess he got pwned.

[tiger]

Saw the movie yesterday. Good, but musical was better.

Here's the 10th anniversary concert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1s9ubYbFvc

And here's the complete symphonic recording:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ejqXjr3Dek

IMO, best show/movie ever. Few top it for me.