So, last week I went to go see Les Miserables with some friends. I was absolutely blown away by it, and being my first Opera experience it was even more interesting. I was very impressed, but since listening to the soundtrack a few times I think that the quality of the whole production suffered by doing the singing live. It's great for watching, but just doesn't hold up when listening. As far as performances go, I loved Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, but Russell Crowe did fine also. Maurice and Gavroche did great as supporting characters. Also, I've discovered the 10th Anniversary concert. It was made in 1995 after the show had been running for 10 years. I really like a lot of the singing in that, but the new movie also has some really stellar performances. I'm considering making a playlist combining the best of all of the released versions as of yet. Anyways, I'm wondering if any of you have seen it yet, and what your thoughts are on it. Also, any suggestions for the playlist would be cool.
Really is brilliant. We have a copy of it and we watched it on christmas day. I've never really been a fan of musicals, only exceptions being the woz, which we did for a summer production at school, when we had a proper band so we got to play the actual score, les mis and chicago which I saw at the west end.
That's very cool! I live over in the west coast of the US and we rarely get the chance to see these great plays. I'm planning on seeing Wicked next chance I get. I've never seen it before and I've heard that it's very good.
Two words: Screw. That. I'm joking (sort of). I really liked Anne Hathaway's, Russell Crowe's, Sacha Baron Cohen' and Helena Carter's performances, they really helped liven it up for me. As for the entire thing being a broadway/opra... not the best idea, imo. I felt distracted by the singing rather than enhanced by it. If I were to put it in one sentence: I think it had great production value, the humor was fun and lively, the story is phenomenal (though that's somewhat of a given), and there were several stellar performances, but the opra and the sentiment was too over the top at many points, and, in the end, made me feel exhausted... and not in a good way, to be frank. It seems that people either really liked it or didn't, and I don't mean to be a buzzkill, but I think I'm more towards the latter.. sorry :S
Twas the best it could have been for what it went to accomplish. I woud have preferred if the third part (with the youngins) was not in it, that made the first two sections feel like a huge prologue and when what happened to the kids happened (worded as such to avoid spoilers) I didnt care, beacuse I didnt know who they were. The end song with all the people on boats bothered me too. Other than all that, it was amazing. I do have to say that the singing got annoying to an extent, but it didnt detract from it all much.
I'm actually ER1CO on the singing distracting me. I really wish that they had made some of the songs into dialogue, especially with Russell Crowe's singing. He really is a great actor, just not a great singer. I would honestly not have minded if they split the movie in half. Had half of it be up to the intermission for the musical, and then the second half released six months later. But maybe that's just me.
Sorry guys, but when I saw the trailer I burst into laughter as soon as Russel Crowe started singing. "singin' songs an' fightin' people all around the world..."