I was absolutely appalled to find that pretty much every theatre in London was closed on Xmas day. Who the fuck does that. So I just waited until today to see The Hobbit again, this time in 2D.
I wanted my mom to see The Hobbit on Xmas at home so it was like we were ~seeing it together even though we're 5,000 miles apart but she didn't feel like doing a blockbuster on Xmas day, she went to Les Mis instead and said that Russell Crowe looked like Captain Crunch. I can see it tbh.
1. often times the songs would build toward the singers belting out parts of the song (ie: "who am iiiiiii? i'm jean valjeannnnnnn!") but instead they'd suddenly break off and whisper that final part and it was weird and took me out of the song. 2. hugh jackman and russell crowe were just fucking terrible singers. they're acting was fine. just their singing was AWFUL. 3. all the singers kept fucking up the songs. their voices would break, they'd noticeably skip a word or start to sing something else and catch themselves mid-song. read some interview with the director where he said it was on purpose to make it seem like these people were really singing ~from the heart~ but it just made me aware that i was watching a movie. seemed unprofessional. 4. eddie redmayne's head would shake whenever he sang. it's nitpicky, i know. but i couldn't stop seeing it.
I don't remember the last time I yawned so much watching a movie. So many things went wrong and it's such a shame since the handful of performances that were wonderful were brought down by Hooper's horrific direction.
lmao it felt so long. i think i'm more tolerant of singing when it was on stage, bc watching les mis was the fist time i've ever felt there was too much singing in a musical. and honestly if hooper gets an oscar for his shitty direction i will be so pissed. i've never been distracting by directing choices as much as i did with les mis.
The thing is that I thought The Hobbit was too long, but compared to Les Mis it was a great film. Like, I get that Hooper wanted to please the theater crowd by including as many songs as possible, but at least 3 scenes could/should have been cut out completely.
it was pretty boring for me as well, aside from the revolution bit and the Sasha Baron Cohen/HCB scenes. I can't remember the last time I actually took the time to dig out my cell phone, check the time and try to calculate how much time was left when I didn't have to go to the washroom.
i saw les miz, and i think i hated it. hooper's direction was really awful. i though he pretty much ruined i dreamed a dream with the close up. it turned hathaway's performance into a really boring and static shot. and then he kept using the closeups throughout the film. it got old really fast. he made a lot of bizarre choices that were distracting at best and really unimaginative at most. i'm thinking in particular the one shot where val jean was reading the letter from marius and all of the sudden the camera changed to a high angle shot. it was weird and was really out of place.
also i feel that there wasn't enough space in between the songs to really appreciate the emotional impact. in the theatre there would be applause usually after each song, but in film it just moves straight into the next song w/o a chance to contemplate the previous emotional moment.
the film also really highlighted a lot of problems with the original source material. cosette/marius/eponine were really 2d characters. i didn't really care are eponine's death at all, her entire arc happened so fast. the student revolution stuff seemed oddly unfinished at its conclusion. also the ending worked on the stage but was horribly cheesy on film.
also i didn't think hathaway was that good. i guess her performance was built up too much. also amada was one of the worst singers, it was rreally distracting.
marius has a cool backstory in the book that gives him more characterization. i never understood why the musical didn't at least slip some of those details in to make him less of this flat, bland character.
I hated that "Drink with Me" was cut short. I think it's important to show how young the students were and how they really were just friends who didn't think of war as much more than an adventure.
I should add that my family loved it, but when I brought up my problems with it to my mom (lack of development, pacing, close ups), she agreed that those were all bad
Saw Les Mis yesterday. And then had a little reunion with a group of classmates from high school--basically people I hadn't seen in years and years. So surreal, but really fun.
And whoever was the editor for Les Mis should have his/her house egged. And the cameramen who operated the steady cam and focus should have their cars devil egged.
Egging - just throwing normal, uncooked eggs Devil Egging - making eggs into deviled eggs, and then throwing them. They're much harder to clean up and can dry.
Really loved Django Unchained. Can't decide if I like Django or the doctor more. Les Miserables was really boring and I did not like Marius's character at all.
I say Django and I fucking LOVED IT! Maybe it was because Django was killing all the Slave owners lmao I think me and my friend made the white guy next to use uncomfortable because we enjoyed Django shooting up everyone so much. We were making imgainary guns with our hands and shooting alongside Django lol
After seeing it, (I was iffy after all the drama around it) I enjoyed it and Old western feel and man I had to close my eyes at certain scenes. I made a long ass Tumblr post stating how much I liked it and I think I became Enemy #1 to all my black friends who found it racist lol I had more problems with The Help than this movie. Killing white folk, what's not to like lmao
LMAO that was like my movie theater. When a white person was killed everyone started cheering! The movie audience was majority black so it was awesome. It wasn't even a Tyler Perry film! lol
lool omg someone at my theater was like roaring when you know a certain person dies and he was like "FUCK YEAH..SHOOT THAT MOTHERFUCKER,,AND SHOT THAT BITCH TOO" like soo fucking loud it was hilarious.
I saw Les Mis and I will say again how much I hated it. No character development. Everything was told to me (or sung) instead of shown. I still don't get half of it.
How does Jean Valjean get rich?
Why is Javert the only person who recognizes him after all these years and the only one who cares?
Why does Jean give a shit about Fantine and her kid?
Jean mentions he was arrested for stealing bread for his sister's son, very noble, but they aren't mentioned again. What happened to them?
WTF happened with Fantine. I know her story is supposed to be tragic and stuff, but the poor storytelling made it seem like she was fired from her job and within hours was a dying prostitute.
How did she die? Infection from selling her teeth? VD? consumption? starvation? nothing?
Why does HBC have to have the same birds nest hair in all her movies. I only see HBC, not the character
SBC and HBC's characters seemed so out of place. Sad movie about french revolution, lets throw in some slapstick. idgi
Why am I supposed to care about any of these revolutionaries. We know the bare minimum about them. Marius being rich and giving it up, is that supposed to give him depth?
Why did eponine bind her chest and dress like a man? never explained
If Cosette came from nothing and was raised by Jean Valjean who is supposedly so spiritual or whatever, why is she so vapid?
Was Jean Valjean trying to perv on Cosette? Kinda seemed like it when he was saying she was never his or whatever.
why did that little kid have a cockney accent
I just literally could not give a shit about the characters because they were so one dimensional. The singing was so so throughout. Eponine and the broadway guy shamed everyone else. Amanda and Russel were particularly bad. And the faces Eddie made while singing was terrible.
The one thing I will say in the movie's defense is that in the original production there is no dialogue and only singing, so I understand why the film was told almost entirely through song.
Yeah, I didn't get why ePony dressed as a dude either. Were women not allowed to be on the front lines?
jean valjean got rich by selling the silver the priest gave him at the start of the movie.
he gives a shit about fantine because he owned the factory she was fired from and felt personally responsible because he saw shit was going down when she was fired and didn't step in. he decides to repent/make it up to her by taking care of cosette.
idk man something happened to his sister i guess. in the book she raised him, but i don't remember what else.
fantine became a prostitute over a lengthy period of the time. the movie/musical just makes it seem really fast.
i forget if the book said specifically what she died from, but it's an illness of some type. might have been a combination of the things you mentioned.
lmfao yeah sbc and hbc's characters are pretty much slapstick in the musical. in the book, they have backstory with marius/marius's dad, but it's cut out.
the musical sucks at developing the characters. marius, enjolras, and all the others have elaborate backstories in the book.
she dressed like a man to be close to marius.
cosette is vapid because the musical sucks at character development and she's not given anything to her aside from revolving around the men in her life like a little vagina satellite.
nah valjean just saw her as a daughter and was also obsessed with caring for her because she kind of represented his redemption and repenting for his previous ~sins~
he had a cockney accent because it's movie france that's why
Fantine dies from a "lung disease" in the novel. It's most likely TB. Hugo says that the illness was incubating and then when she gets that snowball down th back of her dress that makes her stop perspiring, so the disease manifests in full force.
Valjean got rich because he discovered a new way to make jewelry clasps.
Also, Valjean loves Cosette in a way that is representative of all love--love for a daughter, love for a wife, love for a sister. He never had anyone to love so she fills all of those roles in his life. Hugo writes it in a way that it isn't creepy.
You know the movie messed up the part about selling the silver. They showed Valjean looking at the candlesticks at home and then packing them up - he held onto them as a reminder.
See, these all make sense and I think the movie did such a shit job at telling any of this. I think its a combination of the fact that they needed time to have big musical numbers that didn't really move along the plot or reveal anything about the characters, and the fact the original material is so dense each book could probably be a film.
I wish Eponine's character was more developed. Not only was she the best singer by far, but there was so much more hinted at her character that wasn't developed and it was frustrating.
Cosette is awesome in the book, not vapid at all (there is a part when she discovers that she's beautiful, but it's sweet because it's honestly shocking to her--she's been told all of her life by the Thenardiers that she's ugly). The musical really screws over her character.
Fantine's descent into poverty and prostitution is much more detailed and slower in the novel. No one hires her because of her reputation but she's in debt for her furniture so she can't go to a new town. She finds sewing work but the man who buys from her ends up buying from convicts who sell it cheaper, so he pays less for it--and it's not enough for her to live on. Meanwhile, the Thenardiers keep raising the price that she needs to send Cosette because they claim that she's extremely ill. Fantine is led to believe that if she does not get the money to her daughter, she will die.
How does Jean Valjean get rich? The silver that he was given was worth quite a lot of money and he was able to establish himself through hard work and what he had earned from those.
Why is Javert the only person who recognizes him after all these years and the only one who cares? Why would anyone else recognize him? He was incredibly young when he went to prison and Javert knew his face since he had spent so many years with him. Never mind that he turned his life around not long at all after his release and wasn't in the same town. Do you know the faces of everyone that has been in jail for 19 years in your city let alone a few cities away? Also Javert is obsessive. That's why he cares.
Why does Jean give a shit about Fantine and her kid? It's in part his fault that she gets fired. The girls are bickering and Jean goes stfu deal with this bullshit to the factory manager and he basically turns his back when Fantine is fired. He feels responsible.
Jean mentions he was arrested for stealing bread for his sister's son, very noble, but they aren't mentioned again. What happened to them? You never find out in the play but in the book it's implied that she died. She had like seven children and a few years in he finds out she's very poor in Paris with only mention of one child.
WTF happened with Fantine. I know her story is supposed to be tragic and stuff, but the poor storytelling made it seem like she was fired from her job and within hours was a dying prostitute. Time is obviously compressed here, do I have to really explain that?
How did she die? Infection from selling her teeth? VD? consumption? starvation? nothing? Does it matter exactly what she died from? It could be any or all of the above. It's not like medical treatment in 19th century France was stellar to begin with let alone for homeless prostitutes.
Why does HBC have to have the same birds nest hair in all her movies. I only see HBC, not the character Because that's how she rolls.
SBC and HBC's characters seemed so out of place. Sad movie about french revolution, lets throw in some slapstick. idgi It's how they're written in the musical. It was done to give the audience a bit of a break because the show is so heavy and depressing.
Why am I supposed to care about any of these revolutionaries. We know the bare minimum about them. Marius being rich and giving it up, is that supposed to give him depth? Marius is a little bitch who doesn't even really care about the revolution. He basically does it "just because" because he's like oh this girl I just met who I "love" is leaving so I might as well die for a cause or something since my life is over without her.
Why did eponine bind her chest and dress like a man? never explained Again, 19th century France, she can do more things disguised as a man than she can as a woman. Less likely to be bothered or attacked and it also was able to get her to the barricades and closer to Marius even though it killed her.
If Cosette came from nothing and was raised by Jean Valjean who is supposedly so spiritual or whatever, why is she so vapid? She's more developed in the book to be perfectly honest. The play is mostly centered around Valjean so she's just kind of seen as this perfect innocent almost shell and not given as much development.
Was Jean Valjean trying to perv on Cosette? Kinda seemed like it when he was saying she was never his or whatever. Didn't see the movie so I can't comment but he doesn't do this in the source material.
why did that little kid have a cockney accent It's one he's always been given in the play. In the book he's actually a Thénardier which isn't referenced at all in the musical. The best explanation I've ever heard for the accent is that the English language version of the musical was first made in the UK and the accent was pretty much default given to him as a street smart urchin and has always carried over since it's a bit of a trope.
I wanted my mom to see The Hobbit on Xmas at home so it was like we were ~seeing it together even though we're 5,000 miles apart but she didn't feel like doing a blockbuster on Xmas day, she went to Les Mis instead and said that Russell Crowe looked like Captain Crunch. I can see it tbh.
I'm home for Xmas and pissed that I forgot my copy of the novel in my apartment. The urge to reread it is strong.
2. hugh jackman and russell crowe were just fucking terrible singers. they're acting was fine. just their singing was AWFUL.
3. all the singers kept fucking up the songs. their voices would break, they'd noticeably skip a word or start to sing something else and catch themselves mid-song. read some interview with the director where he said it was on purpose to make it seem like these people were really singing ~from the heart~ but it just made me aware that i was watching a movie. seemed unprofessional.
4. eddie redmayne's head would shake whenever he sang. it's nitpicky, i know. but i couldn't stop seeing it.
I don't remember the last time I yawned so much watching a movie. So many things went wrong and it's such a shame since the handful of performances that were wonderful were brought down by Hooper's horrific direction.
the 3 hours just zipped by to me.
also i feel that there wasn't enough space in between the songs to really appreciate the emotional impact. in the theatre there would be applause usually after each song, but in film it just moves straight into the next song w/o a chance to contemplate the previous emotional moment.
the film also really highlighted a lot of problems with the original source material. cosette/marius/eponine were really 2d characters. i didn't really care are eponine's death at all, her entire arc happened so fast. the student revolution stuff seemed oddly unfinished at its conclusion. also the ending worked on the stage but was horribly cheesy on film.
also i didn't think hathaway was that good. i guess her performance was built up too much. also amada was one of the worst singers, it was rreally distracting.
tl;dr: it was okay
anne was good, but her role is so minor that it was inconsequential to the film IMO
Devil Egging - making eggs into deviled eggs, and then throwing them. They're much harder to clean up and can dry.
Lol it's from Gilmore Girls.
Les Miserables was really boring and I did not like Marius's character at all.
After seeing it, (I was iffy after all the drama around it) I enjoyed it and Old western feel and man I had to close my eyes at certain scenes. I made a long ass Tumblr post stating how much I liked it and I think I became Enemy #1 to all my black friends who found it racist lol I had more problems with The Help than this movie. Killing white folk, what's not to like lmao
also leo's comment about black love being addictive.
Edited at 2012-12-27 09:16 pm (UTC)
Leo's comment was so true. lmao
Edited at 2012-12-27 09:15 pm (UTC)
How does Jean Valjean get rich?
Why is Javert the only person who recognizes him after all these years and the only one who cares?
Why does Jean give a shit about Fantine and her kid?
Jean mentions he was arrested for stealing bread for his sister's son, very noble, but they aren't mentioned again. What happened to them?
WTF happened with Fantine. I know her story is supposed to be tragic and stuff, but the poor storytelling made it seem like she was fired from her job and within hours was a dying prostitute.
How did she die? Infection from selling her teeth? VD? consumption? starvation? nothing?
Why does HBC have to have the same birds nest hair in all her movies. I only see HBC, not the character
SBC and HBC's characters seemed so out of place. Sad movie about french revolution, lets throw in some slapstick. idgi
Why am I supposed to care about any of these revolutionaries. We know the bare minimum about them. Marius being rich and giving it up, is that supposed to give him depth?
Why did eponine bind her chest and dress like a man? never explained
If Cosette came from nothing and was raised by Jean Valjean who is supposedly so spiritual or whatever, why is she so vapid?
Was Jean Valjean trying to perv on Cosette? Kinda seemed like it when he was saying she was never his or whatever.
why did that little kid have a cockney accent
I just literally could not give a shit about the characters because they were so one dimensional. The singing was so so throughout. Eponine and the broadway guy shamed everyone else. Amanda and Russel were particularly bad. And the faces Eddie made while singing was terrible.
Ugh, waste of time. Should have seen django
Yeah, I didn't get why ePony dressed as a dude either. Were women not allowed to be on the front lines?
he gives a shit about fantine because he owned the factory she was fired from and felt personally responsible because he saw shit was going down when she was fired and didn't step in. he decides to repent/make it up to her by taking care of cosette.
idk man something happened to his sister i guess. in the book she raised him, but i don't remember what else.
fantine became a prostitute over a lengthy period of the time. the movie/musical just makes it seem really fast.
i forget if the book said specifically what she died from, but it's an illness of some type. might have been a combination of the things you mentioned.
lmfao yeah sbc and hbc's characters are pretty much slapstick in the musical. in the book, they have backstory with marius/marius's dad, but it's cut out.
the musical sucks at developing the characters. marius, enjolras, and all the others have elaborate backstories in the book.
she dressed like a man to be close to marius.
cosette is vapid because the musical sucks at character development and she's not given anything to her aside from revolving around the men in her life like a little vagina satellite.
nah valjean just saw her as a daughter and was also obsessed with caring for her because she kind of represented his redemption and repenting for his previous ~sins~
he had a cockney accent because it's movie france that's why
i agree it was a waste of time lol
Valjean got rich because he discovered a new way to make jewelry clasps.
Also, Valjean loves Cosette in a way that is representative of all love--love for a daughter, love for a wife, love for a sister. He never had anyone to love so she fills all of those roles in his life. Hugo writes it in a way that it isn't creepy.
Edited at 2012-12-27 09:28 pm (UTC)
I wish Eponine's character was more developed. Not only was she the best singer by far, but there was so much more hinted at her character that wasn't developed and it was frustrating.
Fantine's descent into poverty and prostitution is much more detailed and slower in the novel. No one hires her because of her reputation but she's in debt for her furniture so she can't go to a new town. She finds sewing work but the man who buys from her ends up buying from convicts who sell it cheaper, so he pays less for it--and it's not enough for her to live on. Meanwhile, the Thenardiers keep raising the price that she needs to send Cosette because they claim that she's extremely ill. Fantine is led to believe that if she does not get the money to her daughter, she will die.
Edited at 2012-12-27 09:34 pm (UTC)
Why is Javert the only person who recognizes him after all these years and the only one who cares? Why would anyone else recognize him? He was incredibly young when he went to prison and Javert knew his face since he had spent so many years with him. Never mind that he turned his life around not long at all after his release and wasn't in the same town. Do you know the faces of everyone that has been in jail for 19 years in your city let alone a few cities away? Also Javert is obsessive. That's why he cares.
Why does Jean give a shit about Fantine and her kid? It's in part his fault that she gets fired. The girls are bickering and Jean goes stfu deal with this bullshit to the factory manager and he basically turns his back when Fantine is fired. He feels responsible.
Jean mentions he was arrested for stealing bread for his sister's son, very noble, but they aren't mentioned again. What happened to them? You never find out in the play but in the book it's implied that she died. She had like seven children and a few years in he finds out she's very poor in Paris with only mention of one child.
WTF happened with Fantine. I know her story is supposed to be tragic and stuff, but the poor storytelling made it seem like she was fired from her job and within hours was a dying prostitute. Time is obviously compressed here, do I have to really explain that?
How did she die? Infection from selling her teeth? VD? consumption? starvation? nothing? Does it matter exactly what she died from? It could be any or all of the above. It's not like medical treatment in 19th century France was stellar to begin with let alone for homeless prostitutes.
Why does HBC have to have the same birds nest hair in all her movies. I only see HBC, not the character Because that's how she rolls.
SBC and HBC's characters seemed so out of place. Sad movie about french revolution, lets throw in some slapstick. idgi It's how they're written in the musical. It was done to give the audience a bit of a break because the show is so heavy and depressing.
Why am I supposed to care about any of these revolutionaries. We know the bare minimum about them. Marius being rich and giving it up, is that supposed to give him depth? Marius is a little bitch who doesn't even really care about the revolution. He basically does it "just because" because he's like oh this girl I just met who I "love" is leaving so I might as well die for a cause or something since my life is over without her.
Why did eponine bind her chest and dress like a man? never explained Again, 19th century France, she can do more things disguised as a man than she can as a woman. Less likely to be bothered or attacked and it also was able to get her to the barricades and closer to Marius even though it killed her.
If Cosette came from nothing and was raised by Jean Valjean who is supposedly so spiritual or whatever, why is she so vapid? She's more developed in the book to be perfectly honest. The play is mostly centered around Valjean so she's just kind of seen as this perfect innocent almost shell and not given as much development.
Was Jean Valjean trying to perv on Cosette? Kinda seemed like it when he was saying she was never his or whatever. Didn't see the movie so I can't comment but he doesn't do this in the source material.
why did that little kid have a cockney accent It's one he's always been given in the play. In the book he's actually a Thénardier which isn't referenced at all in the musical. The best explanation I've ever heard for the accent is that the English language version of the musical was first made in the UK and the accent was pretty much default given to him as a street smart urchin and has always carried over since it's a bit of a trope.