les miserables (the movie film; not the concert film or book. Dutch angles! Americans! Australians!)

oh miss saigon suuuuuuuucks

probably the only thing that ever strained my friendship with Kyl3 was his insistence on playing that soundtrack over and over during senior year whenever I was at his house and how he would frequently accost me with "THE HEAT IS ON IN SAIGON/THE GIRLS ARE HOTTER THAN HELL"

I just thank God we were in different cities by the time Rent came around

I finally saw this!

I've never seen Les Miz before, but these are my thoughts, such as they are:

- I don't think I liked the talking-style singing? It bothered me that the music was way down in the mix, I wanted the words + music to be more harmonious together like a regular musical, just having them sing-talk kinda took away the majesty of some of those songs. once I got into the movie I realized I wanted them to be just straight-up songs. I understand what they were going for, and it worked to an extent but it just felt like the songs, with a few exceptions, were always sort of half-sung.

- I dreamed a dream, Eponine's solo song, and the ending made me BAWL so I think despite my reservations about the way the story was delivered, it still had enough power to knock me over anyway.

- Jackman was a little disappointing but I'm wondering if it's because he's done both - broadway and film acting - that making him blend both together diluted his, idk, superpowers somehow. Because I know if he could just stand and belt it, he would have. He was still pretty good, but it felt like he was at about 50% power from magnetic-stage-presence-mode.

- Rusty's a good actor, he at least had me buy the character. His singing is not great but I knew that going in. I thought he did well with it, for what he brought to the table.

Now I'm going to go dig up a cast recording or something from an old staged version so I can get some serious SONG action.

also just in general, storywise, lyrics etc...impressive bit of work, that. I'm a fan.

This is now a thread about the 280 minute 1934 Raymond Bernard film version starring Harry Baur

It’s good!

As much as I dug Hathaway, idg the supporting actress nod at all, it's kind of "hi I'm here, hi I am downtrodden, lemme sing like a badass, whoops I'm dead". Give her a Grammy or some shit, Oscar gtfo. And i like her, but wtf.
― AMERICA IS ABOUT RIESLING (jjjusten), Thursday, May 16, 2013 12:35 AM (nine years ago)

It was def an off year for that category, but certainly Ann Dowd and Jennifer Ehle had more than just 3 deserving minutes.
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Thursday, May 16, 2013 8:22 AM (nine years ago)

* Checks notes *

My god did they screw that category up that year. Sally Field, OK, but what the hell re: the other four -- Amy Adams in The Master, Anne Hathaway in this, Helen Hunt in The Sessions, Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook?!

* Checks list of candidates that might have had a legitimate shot from the pool here: http://skandies.org/results/categories/6?year=2012 *

Ah, OK, that does make sense

Flooded with memories of how close Nicole Kidman came to getting a nod for The Paperboy