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Tequila
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26 Jan 2013, 1:33 pm

Les Misérables (2012) / IMDb / Cinema / Image / Working Title Films / 157 minutes

Cinema poster:

Image

Plot:

Quote:
Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables travels with prisoner-on-parole, 24601, Jean Valjean, as he runs from the ruthless Inspector Javert on a journey beyond the barricades, at the center of the June Rebellion. Meanwhile, the life of a working class girl with a child is at turning point as she turns to prostitution to pay money to the evil innkeeper and his wife who look after her child, Cosette. Valjean promises to take care of the child, eventually leads to a love triangle between Cosette, Marius who is a student of the rebellion, and Eponine, a girl of the streets. The people sing of their anger and Enjolras leads the students to fight upon the barricades.


Comments:

I saw this film at a tiny one-screen cinema that is very local to me. A cinema that I was seemingly never out of in my teens, but stopped going after realising that I didn't actually like most of the films that they showed (a lot of the films they show are either geared to children, or are rather bland comedies or major Hollywood productions that I have no interest in). They sell cups of tea in real mugs and play 'God Save the Queen' before the trailers start. As for the film... hm. I hate musicals. In fact, the only musical I ever got on with at all was South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. So I wasn't going into this with high expectations.

The story itself is pretty moving, but I think the sheer fact that the entire film was sung (as is the stage play) really does it a disservice. It distracts quite badly from the entire film. I was very tired whilst watching it and nothing that really happened on-screen piqued my interest. I thought it was far too long, and after about an hour I'd had enough but unfortunately, as the cinema was completely packed in, there was no way I could move. I took an enormous dislike to the rich pretty boy kid who played Marius, the revolutionary (Eddie Redmayne). I don't know, perhaps I disliked the character or perhaps I disliked him personally. I disliked him and his cohorts so much I was rooting for the royalists to massacre them all so that the film would finish!

As for the performances - they're all pretty good but apart from one or two songs (notably "Look Down" right at the beginning of the film), I disliked most of the others - particularly the godawful revolutionary song that popped up over and over again. Hearing that same faux-uplifting song over and over again did my bloody nut in.

Perhaps the main bright spot in the film - apart from Hugh Jackman's Jean Valjean, were Sacha Baron-Cohen and Helena Bonham-Carter, who played the Thénardiers. I think it was mainly because they at least provided some form of comic relief as compared to the deadly boring and depressing leadenness of the rest of the picture. It probably didn't help either that the two old biddies that were sat right next to me passed loud comments to each other throughout the film's quieter, non-dialogue and non-action sequences.

I know I will probably be savaged for this but, God help me, I really didn't like this film and I never want to see it again. I knew I shouldn't have bothered with it, but I thought I'd go along and see if my predictions that I wouldn't like it would be proved wrong. I wasn't wrong at all. I was bang on.

Gah! C'est la vie.



jagatai
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26 Jan 2013, 2:10 pm

"49 Up". I've always enjoyed the Up series of documentaries, perhaps partially because I am close to the ages of the participants. It is interesting to see how people develop over time. This episode was not as compelling as previous ones... Maybe the fact that the participant's lives have sort of leveled off with no drama makes their stories a bit less interesting. Or maybe I just don't have as much interest in peering into other people's lives.


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Tequila
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26 Jan 2013, 2:13 pm

jagatai wrote:
"49 Up". I've always enjoyed the Up series of documentaries, perhaps partially because I am close to the ages of the participants. It is interesting to see how people develop over time. This episode was not as compelling as previous ones... Maybe the fact that the participant's lives have sort of leveled off with no drama makes their stories a bit less interesting. Or maybe I just don't have as much interest in peering into other people's lives.


It's not a film though, is it?

If you wanted, you could always stick it in here I suppose.



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26 Jan 2013, 2:25 pm

Singin in the Rain

Famous musical taking place during Hollywood when it changed to sound films.


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26 Jan 2013, 2:50 pm

Yesterday, I saw Zero Dark Thirty, which is nominated for Best Picture.

Even though everybody knows the outcome,
Zero Dark Thirty was worth seeing.


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26 Jan 2013, 7:09 pm

enjoyed both. When this film came out the first time I thought I was going to turn out like this guy.
Image
he has his moments :D
Image



jagatai
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27 Jan 2013, 11:27 am

Tequila wrote:
jagatai wrote:
"49 Up". I've always enjoyed the Up series of documentaries, perhaps partially because I am close to the ages of the participants. It is interesting to see how people develop over time. This episode was not as compelling as previous ones... Maybe the fact that the participant's lives have sort of leveled off with no drama makes their stories a bit less interesting. Or maybe I just don't have as much interest in peering into other people's lives.


It's not a film though, is it?

If you wanted, you could always stick it in here I suppose.


In what ways do you feel that "49 Up" is not a film?


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Tequila
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27 Jan 2013, 1:29 pm

I'd have said that they were TV documentaries and not films.



jagatai
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27 Jan 2013, 3:03 pm

Tequila wrote:
I'd have said that they were TV documentaries and not films.

Fair enough. Usually the films have gotten a theatrical release here in the US so I tend to think of them more as theatrical documentaries. But I suppose the line between TV and theatrical is getting more and more blurry.


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28 Jan 2013, 7:07 am

"Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" - kind of disturbing

"The Deep Blue Sea" - the play was originally written in the 1950s and seems to be written from the perspective of a gay man's desire for an unattainable love. Had the main character been a gay man instead of a woman, this film might have made sense.


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28 Jan 2013, 3:48 pm

Valkyrie

World War II film about the plot in 1944 by anti-Nazi Germans to kill Hitler.


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28 Jan 2013, 4:25 pm

Happy, Texas (1999) - 2 convicts posing as a gay couple, opens up a whole can of worms in a small town.



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28 Jan 2013, 6:16 pm

Yesterday, I saw Quartet, the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman.

At first, I thought Quartet was going to be another generic "old-people" movie, but even though the audiorium I was in was packed with old people, I laughed a lot while watching the movie.

Quartet is based off of a play by Ronald Harwood, in fact, Ronald Harwood wrote the screenplay for Quartet.

All four leads in Quartet are excellent.


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Tequila
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28 Jan 2013, 9:51 pm

jagatai wrote:
Fair enough. Usually the films have gotten a theatrical release here in the US so I tend to think of them more as theatrical documentaries.


Wow, did they? I never knew that. These documentaries never got a cinema release in the UK as far as I know, because they were screened on ITV (and formerly produced by Granada Television) and, for one of the films, on the BBC - in effect, on terrestrial television. So I suppose you could say that they were both.

jagatai wrote:
But I suppose the line between TV and theatrical is getting more and more blurry.


I suppose it's similar to made-for-TV movies that were screened theatrically abroad.



Tequila
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28 Jan 2013, 10:01 pm

AnonymousAnonymous wrote:
Yesterday, I saw Quartet, the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman.

At first, I thought Quartet was going to be another generic "old-people" movie, but even though the audiorium I was in was packed with old people, I laughed a lot while watching the movie.

Quartet is based off of a play by Ronald Harwood, in fact, Ronald Harwood wrote the screenplay for Quartet.

All four leads in Quartet are excellent.


Seen it. The leads were pretty good, but the story lets it down. I thought the ending was a major letdown, and could be seen from about the half-hour mark, which massively spoilt it for me.

The actors are the best thing about this film - the rest of it goes downhill from there. It's all rather clichéd and scenery-chewing, I found - Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War deals with the subject of old age and retirement homes a lot better (and Pauline Collins stars in that too, along with hubby John Alderton). Something that just occurred to me: do you not think the characters have that little bit too much energy to be in a retirement home?

I really want to watch the Australian film Innocence, which is about old-age romance too. Only problem is, the Australian DVD is still only non-anamorphic as far as I know.



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29 Jan 2013, 2:25 am

non-anamorphic as in the image is stretched vertically?