Christmas day movie: Les Miserables.
Christmas day movie sadness: Russell Crowe as Javert. Whom ever made that casting decision should be banned from all future castings. He did NOT fill that role and his voice was a tiny ant compared to what Javert should sound like. It was a travesty. Javert is a huge part of the movie, so you may know where I tend to lean on the like it or hate it scale.
Christmas day movie happiness: Anne Hathaway as Fantine in her gut-wrenching, one take performance of I Dreamed a Dreamed.
Christmas day movie question: Why were the harmonies off? I'm no musical expert, but the voices didn't mesh. And Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, uh, tone down that vibrato, it's distracting, annoying, and doesn't fit.
I watched the movie with two people who didn't know the musical. They both enjoyed the movie. In fact, one said they were 'enthralled.' So this is easily a case of 'the book is better', so to speak.
Cause when I listened to the Broadway Cast sing One Day More it brings tears to my eyes, but the movie version failed to move me, and I'm prone to crying. Hell, I cried during the excellently edited 6 minute promotional behind the scenes trailer.
I did drop a few tears during one moment: Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. And, well, I just always cry at that song, although that was Eddie Redmayne's (Marius) best performance.
Hugh Jackman does his thing and does it pretty well. But not well enough to make the movie outstanding.
Anne Hathaway deserves the Golden Globe nomination as well as the Oscar nod.
That aside, the movie was beautifully lit and the costumes right on. And I loved the homages to the Broadway version.
My anticipation had been building for 6 to 7 months. Perhaps that's too long to look forward to something. When we build anything up to high, it has no where to go but fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment