Tag Archives: Amanda Seyfried

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Les Miserables – Review

4/5 – Russell Crowe cost Les Miserables one star more

After The Dark Knight Rises, Les Miserables was the movie I was most excited for in 2012. The countdown  began months out, once the first trailer was released. It was that trailer that really made me excited for the movie. Watching Anne Hathaway, as Fantine, singing I Dreamed a Dream over shots of the movie, my expectations were raised. If the rest of the movie looked and sounded as good as this trailer, this was easily going to be my movie of the year.

As it turns out, I Dreamed a Dream is the best song in the movie. The producers were smart to put that in the trailer. I’m guessing it put many more people in the seats than Russell Crowe’s rendition of Stars.

I liked this film version of Les Miserables a lot. I’ve now seen it twice. The first was on Christmas Day (which made that Santa scene feel a bit awkward). I think Anne Hathaway is a shoe-in for Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Oscars. She was easily the best part of this movie not named Colm Wilkinson. I’ve never heard I Dreamed a Dream the way she sings it. In every previous rendition of it, it’s been a showcase for the singer’s voice, but no one ever sang it with the overwhelming despair that Hathaway infuses in it. When she finally gets to “I always dreamed my life would be so different from this hell I’m living,” you are seeing a woman at the end of her rope. This is Fantine at rock bottom.

Rock. Bottom.

Eddie Redmayne really impressed me as Marius. Going into the movie, he just looked like a guy with a goofy smile and silly hair. But he made Marius work very well. I loved his and Amanda Seyfried’s version of A Heart Full of Love. He’s adorable. When Eddie says “I’m doing everything all wrong”  might be the cutest part of the movie.

I want your hair.

After seeing her in the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert, I was excited to find out that Samantha Barks would be reprising the role of Eponine in the movie. She sounded great in the movie and acted well too. She sings On My Own much more subtlety here than she does on stage. It works. Somehow the filmmakers managed to make her not look drop-dead gorgeous, which can’t be an easy feat.

Before.
After.
Okay, she still looks great.

I thought both actresses who played Cosette were excellent. Isabelle Allen was wonderful as Young Cosette. Her version of Castle on a Cloud was really good, especially when she went from singing to whispering. I’ve heard people complain about Amanda Seyfried’s singing, but I thought she sounded good and was paired well with Eddie Redmayne.

I’m of two minds on Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as Thenardier and Madame Thenardier. They were funny, and at the second screening I attended, the audience laughed very loudly during their scenes. On the other hand, at some points, I found their slapstick to be a little too over the top.

The biggest disappointment in the cast is definitely Russell Crowe as Javert. Every time he sings, my reaction is “No.” This was just bad casting. His voice is not strong enough to carry Javert’s part. He definitely cost this movie a star in my rating. How did his versions of Stars and Javert’s Suicide make the soundtrack, but Samantha Barks and Eddie Redmayne singing Little Fall of Rain was left off?

“And I’m…”
“Shut yo’ mouth! No, really, shut your mouth.”

Without a doubt the best casting decision was to bring in Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean, as the Bishop. It was a pleasure hearing him sing in the movie. The only downside is that when he is singing alongside Hugh Jackman, it really is apparent how much stronger a singer he is over Jackman.

Also in the movie is Frances Ruffelle, who originated the role of Eponine in London and on Broadway. She plays Whore #1 in the movie. I didn’t catch her appearance either time I watched the movie. Well, now I have an excuse to see it a third time.

Overall, I really liked this version of Les Miserables. My top 5 performers would be:

5. Amanda Seyfried – Cosette
4. Samantha Barks – Eponine
3. Eddie Redmayne – Marius
2. Anne Hathaway – Fantine
1. Colm Wilkinson – The Bishop

Hugh Jackman almost cracked the list at the number five spot. I enjoyed his performance a lot in the movie and thought he was a great Jean Valjean, but his singing voice just seemed to whither during some parts. He wasn’t able to adequately anchor my favorite song in the musical, One Day More, but maybe I’m just used to hearing a booming Colm Wilkinson or Alfie Boe performing that song.

According to IMDB, Hugh Jackman went without water for 36 hours to achieve his gaunt look as a prisoner.

I liked that later on in the movie Jean Valjean still had the silver candlesticks that the Bishop gave him. You see them with lit candles in them at Valjean and Cosette’s home, and he packs them in a bag when they’re fleeing. Since the Bishop giving him the candlesticks and not turning him into the authorities were what enabled Valjean his freedom, I thought it was very cool that he still had them, as a reminder of that pivotal night.

Aaron Tveit looks a lot like TJ Miller as Enroljas. I  kept expecting him to yell out, “Paris, yeah!”

“PARIS, YEAH!!”

Near the end of the movie, there were three small, but significant changes from the stage version that I caught.

When Valjean is nearing the end of his life, he no longer is greeted by both the ghosts of Fantine and Eponine. Here, he is just greeted by Fantine. This makes complete sense, as Valjean never met Eponine when she was alive.

When Jean Valjean gives his note of last confession to Cosette, he says “it is the story of one who turned from hating a man who only learned to love when you were in his keeping.” But in the stage version, the confession is “the story of those who always loved you. Your mother gave her life for you then gave you to my keeping.” I’m not sure which line I like better. The new line makes sense, especially with the addition of the new song, Suddenly, earlier in the movie. But it did throw me off as I was mouthing along to the lyrics.

It wasn’t until the second time I saw the movie that I noticed that in the final scene, with all the dead singing the Epilogue, a song advocating moving towards the future in peace and trading swords for plowshares, that all the French soldiers who died in the battle at the barricade were left as dead bodies at the foot of the barricade. They were just doing their jobs.Why couldn’t these guys get a spot of the barricade of ghosts? I don’t think Javert was singing on the barricade either at the end. I remember him being there in the stage version, but I could be wrong. Russell Crowe would probably have sounded best here, with a horde of singers drowning him out.

Overall, I really enjoyed Les Miserables and recommend seeing it. But, if you’re going to buy the movie soundtrack afterwards, do your ears a favor and skip the movie soundtrack for the Original London Cast Recording. I own both. The movie soundtrack is pretty good, but nothing beats the Original London Cast.

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On The Couch #31: When in Rome

I was very surprised by When in Rome. Surprised I saw it. I wasn’t expecting to watch it this year. When in Rome’s poster is just dumb looking. Why’s Kristen Bell biting her finger with that silly look on her face? Why is Rome colored taxi cab yellow?  The preview didn’t help. It made When in Rome come across like a not-so-great romantic comedy that I’d end up catching on TBS one lazy Sunday afternoon.

It was my brother’s fiancé’s pick at the Red Box on this particular rainy Cape Cod evening, which caused When in Rome to move up dramatically in my lifetime movie watching queue. Sorry TBS. Sorry lazy Sunday afternoon.

You want to watch a movie named When in Rome, but you’re not a fan of Kristen Bell? The Olsen twins have the solution!

Out of the two romantic comedies that take place in Italy that I’ve seen this year, When in Rome wins over Letters to Juliet. When in Rome’s main strength over Letters to Juliet is that Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel have infinitely more chemistry than Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan (Any chemistry is infinitely more than no chemistry, right? I know at least one math teacher reads this blog. Can you check my work?).

Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel are clearly excited that I liked When in Rome better than Letters to Juliet.

When in Rome is also funnier than Letters to Juliet. Even considering Letters to Juliet’s unintentionally hilarious Grandma-likes-to-watch scene, When in Rome still wins. This is mainly because of Will Arnett and John Heder, who are very funny as two of Kristen Bell’s mystically-motivated suitors.

Dax Shepard’s funniest scene (shown here) is in the deleted scenes.

Now that I’ve seen When in Rome, I kind of want to watch Leap Year. I don’t know why these two movies are linked together in my mind. Maybe it’s because both When in Rome and Leap Year came out around the same time this year, have very blah-yet-eerily-similar posters and feature pretty American girls heading to Europe for love. Hopefully Leap Year is more When in Rome and less Letters to Juliet.

Going solely by posters, you might think Leap Year is the same movie as When in Rome, only greener.

When in Rome gets a thumbs up from me, but I still can’t figure out why Kristen Bell is biting her finger like that on the poster.

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At The Movies #22: Letters to Juliet

Pop quiz, hotshot. You plan to see Get Him to the Greek with your girlfriend and a friend and get to the theater to discover not only is that movie sold out, but every other movie playing near that same time is sold out too, even movies you have no interest in seeing (like say The Karate Kid). So what do you? What do you do?

Shoot the hostage? No!

You head 10 blocks south and watch Letters to Juliet at Quad Cinemas!

I’m still not sure how we arrived at that decision.

Letters to Juliet isn’t that bad. If I caught this randomly on TBS, I’d probably remark to a friend, “Hey you know that movie Letters to Juliet? Yeah, it was on TBS and wasn’t that bad. What? No? I didn’t want to watch it; it was just on. Yes, I could have changed the channel, but what else are you going to watch on a Saturday afternoon? Yes, I could have gone outside; it is a beautiful summer day. You know what, I’m sorry I even brought it up.”

Letters to Juliet suffers from two problems. First, if you’ve seen the preview, you’ve seen the movie. How much input does a filmmaker have in what goes into the trailer for a Hollywood picture? Does the blame fall on director Gary Winick or a random guy in marketing? If it’s a random guy in marketing, it must be frustrating as a director to see the studio release a trailer that walks the audience through every beat of your movie.

The second problem is that there is no chemistry between the protagonist Sophie and her rival-turned-love-interest Charlie. I think they did such a good job at making Charlie smug and arrogant to establish him as an obstacle in Sophie’s path that when it came time for them to fall in love it just fell flat. They basically fall in love over the course of an extended montage scene. At the start of the montage, Sophie and Charlie can barely stand each other and by the end of it, they’re stealing glances at each other in the rearview mirror of Charlie’s car as he drives Sophie and his grandmother around Italy.

Charlie’s grandmother is a piece of work. She tries hard to make Sophie and Charlie get into each other, but still Grandma that’s no reason to watch from your bedroom window when your grandson finally hooks up with the girl.

“Don’t mind me. Grandma likes to watch.”

In order to make Charlie seem like somewhat of a catch, Letters to Juliet starts out with Sophie engaged to the second coming of Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers. I kept expecting him to namedrop Cousin Larry in a sentence or show up with a goat under his arm. Guys, if your girlfriend has seen this movie, you can never use the term “win-win” again. Balki uses it every time he makes a jerk move in the movie. You don’t want to associate with that.

During the whole every guy in Italy tells Vanessa Redgrave that he’s Lorenzo Bartolini bit, I was really hoping for an Italian plumber to pop up and say…

“It’sa me! Lorenzo Bartolini!”

I should apologize to the other patrons of the Quad Cinema on W. 13 St. because Julie, Bryan and I may have been a little rude with our MST3K imitation while watching this movie. Actually, maybe Bryan and I should apologize to Julie as she had to sit between us as we were both lobbing jokes about the movie.

“I’m sorry.”

The popcorn at Quad tasted stale and overly salted. It didn’t have that crunch that fresh popcorn has and there were way too many popcorn bits in my bag for this to be fresh stuff. The staff was friendly though, and even hooked us up with a free refill on a soda, which they don’t normally do.

I thought the Quad only showed indie films or small studio releases likely to win a lot of awards. Maybe Letters to Juliet fooled them because it takes place mostly in Italy?