Les Miserables - The Musical Movie

[scottie]

Siefried and Crowe are the weak links, as expected, but they made a few changes to Javert's numbers which render them mostly passable. Jackman was mostly good, though a few of the higher pitches seemed strained. Hathaway was remarkable. A number of others were quite good.

Fantine's I Dreamed a Dream, wow.

[All-American]

Fantine's I Dreamed a Dream, wow.

I feel like the makers of this movie are between a rock and a hard place in a lot of ways, having to make something that will satisfy the broadway show's fans but still offer something new to get them in the theater. There seem to be very few individuals who sit at the intersection of star power and vocal talent. Even Hathway wouldn't win many talent contests on Broadway. To the filmmakers' credit, they understood that and did what they could to play to their strengths, doing what could only be done in a movie. They met with more success in some places than others, but Hathaway's scenes pulled the feat off really well, and she'll get some hardware for her trouble.

[RC Vikings]

Fantine's I Dreamed a Dream, wow.

Hathaway was very, very good. I enjoyed the movie. I have never seen the play but I can see where seeing it on stage would be a much more moving experience. The first hour was good, the second hour dragged but the final thirty minutes was enough to get a thumbs up from me.

[thesaint258]

I've been scarred. I have 4 older sisters (no brothers) and was subjected to many a musical movie night (all types: Phantom, sound of music, south pacific, les mis, etc.). I never got to pick. It's stuck with me. I hate musicals.

I get where you're coming from. I'm the same way with the Christmas songs in the hymn book.

[jay santos]

Fabulous.

[LiveCoug]

That was terrible. My wife, who loves this type of crap was very unimpressed. Only one of the five in my group even partially enjoyed it. Awful.

[Blueintheface]

Spectacular.

[Moliere]

I'm legitimately saddened by the fact that Les Mis isn't currently playing on Broadway, as I was hoping to take Mrs. D when we visit NYC this fall. I'm also saddened by the fact that the professional production currently touring the U.S. doesn't incorporate the revolving stage. I'm also currently 130 pages into the book, which is <cough> 1400+ pages long!

And with that, I conclude this random summary of my Les Mis related thoughts at the moment.

Hey DH, what page are you on now?

[Donuthole]

Hey DH, what page are you on now?

673. At this pace, ill be done before next football season!

[LiveCoug]

It's really funny reading all the comments about how amazing Hathaway was and that Jackman was quite good as well. You would have been angry if you guys had tagged along on our car ride home. My wife and her sister were bagging on those two the whole way. They HATED Hathaway. They wanted to punch her in the face. They also wanted to kick Jackman in the shins for ruining the Bring Him Home song. They were angry that Cozette sounded like a goat. They liked Eponine and Marius and that's it.

Good times.

[Uncle Ted]

I thought the movie was good but not worth fighting the crowds to see. I would have waited a couple of weeks to see if but my wife wanted to go. I couldn't say no to my wife on christmas.

[smokymountainrain]

LC is cracking me up the last couple pages.

[jay santos]

It's really funny reading all the comments about how amazing Hathaway was and that Jackman was quite good as well. You would have been angry if you guys had tagged along on our car ride home. My wife and her sister were bagging on those two the whole way. They HATED Hathaway. They wanted to punch her in the face. They also wanted to kick Jackman in the shins for ruining the Bring Him Home song. They were angry that Cozette sounded like a goat. They liked Eponine and Marius and that's it.

Good times.

re: the singing and all the critics.

Wife told me about a bunch of facebook posts that were ripping on the singing ability of Crowe and others. Me, I don't have that good of an ear to be bothered by it. Director was obviously trying to optimize on star power, acting ability, and singing ability, and it probably was an impossible task. I'm not a musical guy, have never seen Les Mis the play, but I loved the film and thought it was all very well done.

One thing I've heard is that they recorded all the music live. This seems like it must have made it unnecessarily difficult to get good recordings of the songs. That part seems dumb. Why do that? Did they achieve what they wanted (the realness and live-production-like quality of it?) and was it worth the cost (less than perfect recordings)?

[All-American]

re: the singing and all the critics.

Wife told me about a bunch of facebook posts that were ripping on the singing ability of Crowe and others. Me, I don't have that good of an ear to be bothered by it. Director was obviously trying to optimize on star power, acting ability, and singing ability, and it probably was an impossible task. I'm not a musical guy, have never seen Les Mis the play, but I loved the film and thought it was all very well done.

One thing I've heard is that they recorded all the music live. This seems like it must have made it unnecessarily difficult to get good recordings of the songs. That part seems dumb. Why do that? Did they achieve what they wanted (the realness and live-production-like quality of it?) and was it worth the cost (less than perfect recordings)?

Hathaway is probably the one instance where you can unequivocally say that the live recording was beneficial (and very much so, in my opinion). Jackman could have benefitted a bit from a better recording in "Bring Him Home", I think. Others were either good enough (Marius, Eponine) or bad enough (Cosette, Javert) that better recordings wouldn't have made much difference. Net gain, as far as I'm concerned.

[Blueintheface]

Reading this and many other CUF critique threads reminds me of this.

[YOUTUBE]6YDTfEhChgw[/YOUTUBE]