(not about to be seeing django unchained, because i steer well clear of tarantino.)
as for les miserables, there was one thing about the movie adaptation that disappointed me, and one that bothered me.
the disappointment was that i felt that two of my favourite scenes - the ending sequence of 'at the end of the day', where everyone turns on fantine and she gets thrown out into the streets, and the confrontation between the bishop and valjean, culminating in his being given the silver and sent on his way, both felt a little flat in the movie. well, maybe 'flat' is the wrong word, but ... the thing is, they're *really* critical scenes. if you already know the story (and really, les mis one of those shows which is better if you do), you see at that moment how fantine's and valjean's respective fates are determined right there at the beginning, and when i've seen the show on stage, that came across really powerfully (i teared up both times). in the movie, i just didn't find myself responding the same way, and i have to wonder if the director underplayed them a bit because he was still in the 'building up' phase of the movie. for fantine, it's nothing i could really put my finger on, but one of the things i noticed in the bishop's scene was how inexplicably they cut the whole "tell his reverence your story" lead-in and had his accusers rattle off a few spoken lines instead. it completely undercut the dramatic impact of the bishop breaking in to support valjean, and showed that the director didn't think that whole scene was worth everything he could give it.
the bit that bothered me was the changes they made to the songs. i was pretty sure there would be cuts, so i'm not complaining about that, but then they turned around and added a song that, i felt, was weak, and didn't really fit in musically (though i have to admit, it *did* improve the plot coherence, so from a movie standpoint it was a net win). what was *not* a net win (and is the one thing about the movie i'm actually a bit mad about) was the verse they added to gavroche's part in "look down", the bit about how they killed a king in the glorious revolution, and what good did it do because here was another king. again, it did provide a nice and needed bit of context that (if i'm honest) the stage musical *should* have incorporated somewhere, but it was done in a very ham-handed fashion here. firstly, gavroche was the wrong person in whose mouth to put it. it would have made a fine speech in the mouth of one of marius's companions, for instance. secondly, did they really have to add a verse to a song? thirdly, if they did, they really, really, really needed to do a better job of it. the lyrics were just plain unpolished - heck, they even used a single rhyme in a triple rhyme slot at one point (!) - and felt rather hastily thrown together. i know it's only ten lines or so in an entire movie, but it was a very startling blemish.
oh, and i agree with the people who said russell crowe didn't make the world's best javert :) but he wasn't so bad as to be offputting.
no subject
(not about to be seeing django unchained, because i steer well clear of tarantino.)
as for les miserables, there was one thing about the movie adaptation that disappointed me, and one that bothered me.
the disappointment was that i felt that two of my favourite scenes - the ending sequence of 'at the end of the day', where everyone turns on fantine and she gets thrown out into the streets, and the confrontation between the bishop and valjean, culminating in his being given the silver and sent on his way, both felt a little flat in the movie. well, maybe 'flat' is the wrong word, but ... the thing is, they're *really* critical scenes. if you already know the story (and really, les mis one of those shows which is better if you do), you see at that moment how fantine's and valjean's respective fates are determined right there at the beginning, and when i've seen the show on stage, that came across really powerfully (i teared up both times). in the movie, i just didn't find myself responding the same way, and i have to wonder if the director underplayed them a bit because he was still in the 'building up' phase of the movie. for fantine, it's nothing i could really put my finger on, but one of the things i noticed in the bishop's scene was how inexplicably they cut the whole "tell his reverence your story" lead-in and had his accusers rattle off a few spoken lines instead. it completely undercut the dramatic impact of the bishop breaking in to support valjean, and showed that the director didn't think that whole scene was worth everything he could give it.
the bit that bothered me was the changes they made to the songs. i was pretty sure there would be cuts, so i'm not complaining about that, but then they turned around and added a song that, i felt, was weak, and didn't really fit in musically (though i have to admit, it *did* improve the plot coherence, so from a movie standpoint it was a net win). what was *not* a net win (and is the one thing about the movie i'm actually a bit mad about) was the verse they added to gavroche's part in "look down", the bit about how they killed a king in the glorious revolution, and what good did it do because here was another king. again, it did provide a nice and needed bit of context that (if i'm honest) the stage musical *should* have incorporated somewhere, but it was done in a very ham-handed fashion here. firstly, gavroche was the wrong person in whose mouth to put it. it would have made a fine speech in the mouth of one of marius's companions, for instance. secondly, did they really have to add a verse to a song? thirdly, if they did, they really, really, really needed to do a better job of it. the lyrics were just plain unpolished - heck, they even used a single rhyme in a triple rhyme slot at one point (!) - and felt rather hastily thrown together. i know it's only ten lines or so in an entire movie, but it was a very startling blemish.
oh, and i agree with the people who said russell crowe didn't make the world's best javert :) but he wasn't so bad as to be offputting.