I wouldn’t see it if you paid me. Why ruin perfection(saw the play twice,,once in London) by having to pretend that you aren’t watching familiar Hollywood faces usurp the roles of the original London cast?
Colm Wilkinson is Jean Valjean, not Hugh Jackman. Sierra Boggess is Fantine, not the liberal loudmouth, Anne Hathaway.
No thanks. I won’t give my money to these anti American leftists.
Besides, I heard that the movie sucked with a heaviness that never lets up throughout.
The music of Les Miz is fantastic so get the CD of the original production and play it nonstop for a year or two like I did.
Whether you understand it or not The Hobbit is Christian allegory (as is true of all of Tolkien’s work much like Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia). I much prefer the book to the ridiculous musical that Broadway cobbled together for Les Miserables. The musical still spends too much time glorifying the French Revolution which in its very nature was communist and driven by class warfare.
Django Unchained....bleeech why bother
Les Misérables, said Chambers, taught him Christianity, although he "scarcely knew it," and gave him his "first full-length picture of the modern world--a vast, complex, scarcely human structure, built over a social abyss of which the sewers of Paris was the symbol, and resting with crushing weight upon the wretched of the earth."
I think anyone that’s read it, realises that.
Christian parable? Hogwash. I read the book years ago, and the one of the things that stuck in my mind was Victor Hugo’s repeated insistance that the problems of the poor would be wiped out once universal education was established. He mentioned several times that all of the ills that befell Jean Valjean were a direct result of his lack of the ability to read. Victor Hugo, as the narrator, used his story to push a “social justice” agenda.
As a “Les Mis” aficionado I approached the movie with great trepedation. Check out the reigning Jean Valjean- Alfie Boe on you tube singing “Bring Him Home” at the 25th Anniversary concert or at this year’s Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert-and you will hear near perfection-so how Hugh Jackman would compare was problematic.
So I was presently surprised that I enjoyed the movie-the theatre was 2/3 full, and for two and one half hours the movie ran there was barely a movement from the audience. The oft criticized close ups during the musical solos actually amplified the emotions of the songs-the advantage of having actors singing rather than having singers acting. You could hear the weeping on many numbers. Overall a pleasant surprise.
As a “Les Mis” aficionado I approached the movie with great trepedation. Check out the reigning Jean Valjean- Alfie Boe on you tube singing “Bring Him Home” at the 25th Anniversary concert or at this year’s Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert-and you will hear near perfection-so how Hugh Jackman would compare was problematic.
So I was presently surprised that I enjoyed the movie-the theatre was 2/3 full, and for two and one half hours the movie ran there was barely a movement from the audience. The oft criticized close ups during the musical solos actually amplified the emotions of the songs-the advantage of having actors singing rather than having singers acting. You could hear the weeping on many numbers. Overall a pleasant surprise.
It actually was a wonderful movie! I always wondered when they would make the musical into a movie. I had seen three different movies made on the story, One in the old days, an old black/white one w/Valjean played by Frederick March, one where he’s played by Phillip Jourdan (?), and the one in 1998, w/Liam Neeson.
All were good, and so was the 10 anniversary concert, w/Colin Wilkinson (who, incidentally, played the kindly Bishop in the movie!)My two daughters took me to see it last night, and both younger women were crying during it, I had tears too! The younger one, particularly, was a fan of the play for a long time. She had a cd disk of the play, and a VHS of the 10th anniversary concert. I’d heard of the newer 25th anniversary of the concert, but hadn’t seen it.
We both enjoyed those when she was still in high school about 12 years ago. She couldn’t wait to see the movie! The older one had seen the 1980 t.v. movie and liked it, but hadn’t heard the play, or seen the concert based on it. She’s usually not a real big fan of musicals or operettas like that. But she did enjoy the movie a lot more than she thought she would!
I would no spend a dime watching this and enriching leftists in Hollyweird
4 times miserable ;-) —> book, movie, musical play; musical movie.
The movie had Edmund Gwinn as the bishop and Burt Lancaster as Valjean. I saw it a month ago on TCM, definitely worth watching. And Robert Newton as the police inspector/persecutor. and Hugh Jackman has performed on stage in musicals before he became knows as X-man “Wolverine.”
I'm not sure that the French revolutionaries of 1832 were actually socialists (they weren't Marxists, since Karl Marx was all of 14 in that year). Victor Hugo did refer to himself as a socialist, but it's hard to say just what he meant by that. It was a very vague idea for him and for many others at the time. Hugo was appalled by the idea of class warfare, but was the kind of 19th century gentleman who thought that "something must be done" for the poor.
Boublil and Schonberg who wrote the musical thought about playing up socialist themes more, but decided to bring Christianity to the fore, feeling that was more consistent with Hugo's original vision.Les Miserables was the favorite novel of Ayn Rand, who hated both socialism and Christianity, so I guess there's something in there for everybody.