Since the premiere is in NY tomorrow night, the cast is doing tons of talk shows this week. Tonight, Hugh was profiled on 60 Minutes. The part that aired is
here, and the extra segment - which features a ton of clips showing how the songs were sung live, including Bring Him Home, In My Life, Confrontation - are
here.
Hugh, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, and Samantha Barks will be on the Today Show tomorrow. Hugh is also going to be on Kelly & Michael's show tomorrow morning, and Anne will be on Letterman tomorrow night.
And that's just Monday. Odds are, if you're watching a talk show this week, you're gonna see someone from Les Mis.
Today is the day the SAG Award nomination ballots have to be in. They can submit online until 3pm ET. So they are "coincidentally" doing a last minute push to get votes.
My friend on the Sag Awards nominating committee got a screener of the movie in the mail last week. She said we won't look at it again till later in the week. She's all "movied out" for a while. There were so many films sent to her to be considered, she had to watch 2-3 movies a night!
She said it was like doing English Lit homework, when she was assigned to see certain movies for class, whether she was really interested in seeing it or not.
Of the ones I got to watch with her, (or see at private SAG screenings,) these are my favorite in order:
Zero Dark Thirty - this will be the one to beat at the Oscars. I really, really wanted to see this one. It isn't out in the theatres yet. It's sweeping all the awards. It got New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, Boston Film Critics and New York Online Critics as the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association awards for Best Film, with Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director.
It's the 10 year long hunt for Osama Bin Laden, but it's not in normal, dry documentary format. It follows the one woman on the CIA whose tenacity was responsible for finding Bin Laden & bringing him down. To me, because of the subject matter, it is one of the most important, current movies out and every American should see it. There is some extreme violence during the first 30 minutes showing what it took to get information, (think Abu Ghraib,) but as an American & a NYer, I am proud of the movie. I also thought the film handled the Seal Team 6's take down of Bin Laden well, without being needlessly gratuitous, doing something to inflame our enemies who will be incensed & inflamed
anyway. How accurate & close to the truth, remains to be seen as most of the info is supposed to be classified.
Lincoln - maybe I'm just in a patriotic mood, but I really liked this film. Daniel Day Lewis was excellent, and should get all the awards for Best Actor (IMO). Sally Field should be nominated for Best supporting actress. The film made me misty-eyed at the end and proud (again) of being an American.
Les Miserable - comes in third. But, that's because of Russell Crowe's weak singing, and I already admitted/realized that I'm a Les Mis (Colm Wilkinson) purist and I prefer his interpretation to how Hugh Jackman did it. Anne Hathaway will squeeze out Sally Field and win the Best Supporting Actress Award. (A little FYI: It didn't even make the top three picks for the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Maybe they are all snobby NY Broadway show purists too?
) I do think it should win for Best Ensemble.
Silver Linings Playbook - rounds out my top picks. I hated the description of the film and almost didn't see it. But, it turned out to be such a "feel good" movie.
I actually liked it a lot.
Best acting by Robert DeNiro in decades. To me, Jennifer Lawrence edges out Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty,) for the win for Best Actress.