Les Miserables Lovers...3rd UPDATE 10/18: Movie Dates!

[JenM]

We now clips, and more clips!

Here's "At the End of the Day". God, Anne Hathway is going to win an Oscar. Heartbreaking!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHwyCp6ah6U

Here's the prologue between Javert and Valjean. There are some new lyrics explaining the 'yellow ticket of leave'. Take what you will of Russell Crowe's singing voice (it's about what I expected, it's growing on me), but he's so positively evil in this scene that I like it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WSysB5vKM


Now "Who Am I?" Check out how much Hugh Jackman is sweating in this scene. In the original novel, Valjean was so terrified to confess his real identity and be sent back to prison that his hair turned completely white when he walked to the courtroom. Hugh looks just as scared as he's contemplating what to do here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx7K42uyrts

Here's some of "On My Own". Samantha Barks is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvzLZIiD5TU

[Deb in IA]

[klacey1]

Just thought I'd note for anyone seeing the movie-- today Banana Republic's Christmas special is a free ticket to see Les Mis, no purchase necessary! Pretty sure it's one per person.

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

I was going through the clips on YouTube and came across this gem. Seriously couldn't wipe the smile off my face and the tears the whole time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ziBJOi7cDY

[threeboysmom]

Originally Posted by klacey1

Just thought I'd note for anyone seeing the movie-- today Banana Republic's Christmas special is a free ticket to see Les Mis, no purchase necessary! Pretty sure it's one per person.

I've never heard of this (and my son works at BR! lol). How do you get the Christmas special?

[klacey1]

Originally Posted by threeboysmom

I've never heard of this (and my son works at BR! lol). How do you get the Christmas special?

The Les Mis tickets were yesterday. I like them on Facebook and it seems like they're doing A 12 Days of Christmas, offering something different each day to go pick up in the store (a few days ago was Benefit make-up!) without a purchase requirement.

I see it's called "Days of Joy." Today it's a sample of gourmet popcorn!

[wickey's friend]

Originally Posted by NikkiLovesWDW!

I was going through the clips on YouTube and came across this gem. Seriously couldn't wipe the smile off my face and the tears the whole time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ziBJOi7cDY

That's awesome!

[JenM]

Reviews are supposed to be embargoed until next week, but a few are coming out anyway:

A rave from the U.K, courtesy of The Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/f...es-review.html

Les Misérables, review
Tom Hooper’s screen adaptation of Les Misérables is a heart-soaring, crowd-delighting hit-in-waiting, writes Robbie Collin.

Rating: 5 stars

Dir: Tom Hooper; Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter. 12A cert, 158 min.

Do you hear the people sing? Stand outside any cinema in just over one month’s time and you will. Tom Hooper’s screen adaptation of Les Misérables is a heart-soaring, crowd-delighting hit-in-waiting: the Mamma Mia it’s all right to like.

This adaptation of the long-running stage musical, itself based on Victor Hugo’s epic tale of romance and revolution in 19th century France, is Hooper’s first film since The King’s Speech (2010). It is as broad and sturdy as the shoulders of its twinkling-eyed star Hugh Jackman, who plays the reformed thief Jean Valjean – yet amid the bombast, it comes as close as a £40 million musical can to intimacy, thanks in part to an extraordinarily deeply-felt performance by Anne Hathaway as Fantine, a seamstress who falls into prostitution.

Everything about the film is enormous, from Claude-Michel Schönberg’s cannon-fire score to its bladder-twitching two-hour, 40-minute running time. Every last frame is rocket-launched at the back row of the cinema.

As in the stage production of Les Misérables, most of the dialogue is sung, not spoken, and Hooper’s masterstroke is to treat it as speech, not singing. The cast’s vocal performances were recorded on set as live rather than lip-synched to studio tapes, and this gives the music a vital, corporeal presence within the film: it’s like watching real,physical stuntwork instead of computer-generated trickery.

This also allows Hooper’s camera to zero in on his performers’ faces during the big, tremulous, heartfelt numbers, which in Les Misérables is all of them. When Russell Crowe’s Javert wrestles with his iron conscience, we can see the struggle behind his eyes. Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried play the lovers Marius and Cosette, and their duets are a miraculous clash of pouts and cheekbones.

Isabelle Allen and Daniel Huttlestone will thaw hearts as the young Cosette and the street urchin Gavroche, while Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen play it grotesquely, even Burtonesquely broad as the villainous Thénardiers.

But the showstopper is Hathaway. When she half-sings, half-sobs I Dreamed A Dream, hair cropped and eyes shining like Maria Falconetti, Hooper captures her performance in a single, unblinking, breath-catching close-up. This will be the clip they show before she wins her Oscar.

Les Misérables is only Hooper’s fourth feature, and his directorial style is still bedding in: some big, comic-book camera angles feel a touch over-egged, as does the extraordinarily shallow focus he uses in close-up. But he marshals the spectacle so spectacularly that it hardly matters. Hooper’s screenwriter William Nicholson (Shadowlands) has judiciously tinkered with the song order, which makes Les Misérables feel not only definitive, but utterly cinematic. You leave with not one song in your heart, but ten.

Another rave from the U.K, courtesy of the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...=feeds-newsxml

FIRST REVIEW: Vive Les Miserables! Hugh Jackman gives the screen performance of his career in this five-star musical extravaganza

Verdict: Vive Les Miserables!
Rating: 5 Stars

Les Miserables is a five-star movie musical extravaganza that hums with the spirit of Victor Hugo's classic novel and the landmark stage show upon which it's based.

But Tom Hooper, who already has an Oscar under his belt for The King's Speech, has crafted a work, both stunning and stirring, that holds its own in cinematic terms.

His casting of Hugh Jackman, giving the screen performance of his career, as the unfairly pursued fugitive Jean Valjean is a masterstroke because Jackman anchors the film with aplomb.

Also, because Hooper insisted that the singing be shot live, as opposed to being pre-recorded and then lip-synched as is usually the norm in film musicals, there's a more naturalistic feel to the singing. It doesn't smack of artifice, instead the numbers flow with a more realistic sensibility.
The movie is sung through and Claude-Michel Schonberg's score and the book and lyrics by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer have never been more potent. Even though the movie is set in 19th century France it resonates powerfully with the 21st century revolutionary struggles in the Middle East, and even here.

All the songs from the stage show are there plus one new number, Suddenly, written for Valjean and young Cosette (Isabelle Allen) as they flee to Paris. Hooper ensures the songs emerge organically to drive the story forward.

Anne Hathaway as Fantine the mother forced to abandon her daughter with the dodgy Thenardier couple (deliciously witty performances by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter) is indescribably wonderful as Fantine and her singing of I Dreamed A Dream is one of the film's most memorable highlights.

It's also the moment that stirs Valjean into heroic action. He takes Fantine's daughter Cosette from the Thenardiers and devotes his life to protecting her all the while being ruthlessly pursued by Russell Crowe's unrelenting Inspector Javert.

Those of us who have seen Cameron Mackintosh's stage production or who have read the novel understand the moral code that propels Javert to bring , as he proclaims, Valjean to justice. But it's not made fully clear in the film what it is that makes him search for Valjean for nigh on two decades. That has nothing to do with Crowe's performance, rather, I suspect, more to do with choices made in the editing room.

However, Crowe does something in the second part of the film, after the bloody revolution and after the barricades have come down that gives some sense of the conflicting emotions swirling around in the man's mind. It's a simple act of magnanimity that, I would argue, is as moving as any of the heartfelt musical numbers. I won't give the moment away here but I have seen the scene make grown men cry, although some of them were sobbing well before then. And, interestingly, the moment was the actor’s own idea.
And after that you'll cry some more when Eddie Redmayne's superb revolutionary student Marius sings Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. He and Amanda Seyfried (as the grown up Cosette) make for a charming couple though, If life were fair, Marius would show some consideration to Eponine the lovestruck daughter of the Thenardiers who loves Marius but knows she can never have him.

Samantha Barks' Eponine has a heart of gold, and a voice made in heaven when she sings On My Own and A Little Fall of Rain. It's hard to believe that Les Miserables is her screen debut. It's as stunning a debut as I've seen in years. The camera loves her and so will cinema audiences.
Twenty seven years ago I watched the first performance of Les Miserables at the Barbican directed for Cameron Mackintosh and the Royal Shakespeare Company by Trevor Nunn and John Caird.
Colm Wilkinson originated the role of Jean Valjean and it seemed wholly appropriate that Wilkinson should play a small but vital part in the picture. Hooper cast him as the Bishop of Digne who shows Valjean uncommon kindess telling him, rather singing to him, "I have bought your soul for God!"
The film is peppered with members of the original stage cast such as Frances Ruffelle, Eponine in the West End and on Broadway, who can now be seen in a blonde wig walking the streets singing Lovely Ladies.

I've seen the film three times and each time the film seemed to grow in stature. I go to bed with the songs from Les Miserables ringing in my ears. I think of One More Day, Red and Black, Do you Hear the People Sing, Bring Him Home and Little People (by the way Daniel Huttlestone's Gavroche is very striking).

The film had its world premiere in London on Wednesday December 6 yet, annoyingly, it doesn't open in the UK till January 11. Even more annoyingly it opens in the United States on Christmas Day.

I find it rather odd but executives at Universal (who produced the film with Working Title and Cameron Mackintosh) insist that distribution patterns are different here than they are in the US. I understand that. It's a tradition that people flock to the movies on Christmas Day in the US, while we are more apt to stay home and watch Downtown Abbey and Call The Midwife on the television. But what about Boxing Day? That's not the stay at home day it used to be.

But go and see Les Miserables at a cinema near you when it's released January 11. It'll be at Imax too. Anyway, it has taken Cameron Mackintosh, with help from producers Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan and Debra Hayward, so long to bring this project to the big screen I guess having to wait a few more days doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’m just irritated that the Americans get it before the British public does.

When you watch it think of the extraordinary levels of British, ok, and French, talent that went into bringing this treasure to the screen. I know some people loathe musicals but I suggest they not be glum and give Les Miserables a go. They might be pleasantly surprised.

Vive Les Miserables!

[wickey's friend]

I'm a Les Mis newbie, and I do this:

I go to bed with the songs from Les Miserables ringing in my ears.

I also wake up with them in my head.

I can hardly wait -- I stop and watch the trailer every time it comes on TV. And, okay, I go and watch it on youtube as well.

[JenM]

Originally Posted by wickey's friend

I'm a Les Mis newbie, and I do this:

I go to bed with the songs from Les Miserables ringing in my ears.

I also wake up with them in my head.

I can hardly wait -- I stop and watch the trailer every time it comes on TV. And, okay, I go and watch it on youtube as well.

I know the feeling! I took this a few weeks ago. It's most - but not all - of my Les Mis stuff!



I also have two other recordings on my iPod that I don't have physical CDs for, a poster signed by one of the Broadway casts that I bought during a BC/EFA fundraiser, the 10th Anniversary DVD (which my sister borrowed), and a t-shirt that I got when I saw the show in London.

I need an intervention...

[wickey's friend]

Originally Posted by JenM

I know the feeling! I took this a few weeks ago. It's most - but not all - of my Les Mis stuff!



I also have two other recordings on my iPod that I don't have physical CDs for, a poster signed by one of the Broadway casts that I bought during a BC/EFA fundraiser, the 10th Anniversary DVD (which my sister borrowed), and a t-shirt that I got when I saw the show in London.

I need an intervention...

OOOOOOOhhhhhh!!!! Les Mis goodies! I'm so jealous! I have the Original London Cast CD set (which I put on my iPhone) and the 10th and 25th DVDs. I do want a T-shirt.

I'm just so sad I that missed out on it all this time.

No intervention needed -- you have could much worse additions!

[JenM]

Originally Posted by wickey's friend

OOOOOOOhhhhhh!!!! Les Mis goodies! I'm so jealous! I have the Original London Cast CD set (which I put on my iPhone) and the 10th and 25th DVDs. I do want a T-shirt.

I'm just so sad I that missed out on it all this time.

No intervention needed -- you have could much worse additions!

True! And no worries - it never too late to become a fan!

That collection started back in 1989, when I first saw the show on Broadway, so it took awhile.

And now there's a new movie soundtrack coming out, and there's a coffee-table book about the making of the movie coming out this spring. And eventually the DVD of the movie. It's never going to end...and for that, I am grateful.

You should definitely check out some of the other recordings. The complete symphonic recording is great because it's the full version of the show (it's 3 CDs long!). Parts have been trimmed down over the years, so I think it's the only complete recording. The 2010 recording is great too, I'm addicted to that one at the moment.

[Imzadi]

Originally Posted by JenM

I need an intervention...

What? No sweatshirt?

That's some stash. You look like me with all my Star Trek/Star Wars memorabilia.

I think you are determined to like the Les Mis movie no matter what. It's a done deal for you.

[wickey's friend]

Originally Posted by JenM

True! And no worries - it never too late to become a fan!

That collection started back in 1989, when I first saw the show on Broadway, so it took awhile.

And now there's a new movie soundtrack coming out, and there's a coffee-table book about the making of the movie coming out this spring. And eventually the DVD of the movie. It's never going to end...and for that, I am grateful.

You should definitely check out some of the other recordings. The complete symphonic recording is great because it's the full version of the show (it's 3 CDs long!). Parts have been trimmed down over the years, so I think it's the only complete recording. The 2010 recording is great too, I'm addicted to that one at the moment.

I will definitely want the movie soundtrack -- didn't know about the book. Add that to my list of "I want." And, of course the DVD.

Who was in the cast you saw on Broadway? I'd give my right arm and anything else required to have seen Colm Wilkinson anywhere.

[JenM]

Originally Posted by Imzadi

What? No sweatshirt?

That's some stash. You look like me with all my Star Trek/Star Wars memorabilia.

I think you are determined to like the Les Mis movie no matter what. It's a done deal for you.

I had the sweatshirt! I wore that one out years ago...

And my Star Wars collection puts the Les Mis one to shame.

I can't wait for the movie! Already have my tickets.