Current mood:	busy
Entry tags:	holiday:midwinter, movie

So as part of my Jewmas observance, I went to see Les Mis yesterday! It was fun. Two non-spoilery notes: First, I fucking love musicals. I want way more musicals where it's played totally straight, without a lot of ironic winking at the audience about how it's unrealistic. Second, this was one of the Jewishest crowds I've ever been in. Including High Holidays services. The family next to me were discussing their friends the Cohens. It was so much fun.

• I'm supposed to think Marius is a total juicebox, right? Ughhhh Eponine, girl, he's not worth it. Can I have an AU where instead of Eponine being redeemed from her childhood awfulness (which is itself a symptom, really; I was feeling for her almost as much as I was feeling for young Cosette, because she never got rescued) by her love for Marius and her part in the uprising, she's redeemed by her part in the uprising and then she and Cosette run off together.


• Russell Crowe was...okay, look, yes, he was utterly outclassed, as a singer, but I have an inexplicable fondness for him, and I found that I loved Javert as a character, raise your hand if you're surprised, yeah me neither. Also, my prior exposure to the story was my father attempting to explain the book to me when I was little and he read it, and looking up clips on YouTube when I first saw a trailer for the movie a few weeks ago, so I wasn't going in with a ton of prior knowledge, which I expect really helped for many of the same reasons I've seen it recommended that you not re-read The Hobbit before going to see the movie. So while I am completely able to understand why people didn't like Crowe's performance, I am not one of them. HE JUST PLAYS :| SO DELIGHTFULLY. *hands*
  
  (Was I, while going about the other cleaning/laundry work I was doing yesterday, exclaiming "oh my, it is a CRIME to look this good" to myself at intervals? ENTIRELY POSSIBLE.)


• Completely shallow: I found myself missing having a pixie cut. Maybe when the weather gets warm again.


• Seriously though Anne Hathaway was fantastic; the fact that they were able to play "I Dreamed A Dream" as such a simple number, just a very tight shot of her shoulders and face, no dancing or motion or even much set to speak of, is a testament to her.


• giandujakiss mentioned some pacing issues, and speculated that they sprang from the whole operaish format rather than the more standard musical form of having scenes of spoken dialog and then songs. I'd definitely agree; I think partly it's just that I'm more used to the standard musical form than the opera form, so at this point I'm trained, as a viewer, to think that when there's singing, it's important, and I spent the entire time "on", for want of a better word.


• Oof, it was a claustrophobic movie. I mean, that totally worked, I think, having so few big open spaces, and it added to the theatricality of it, making it feel more set-like.


• giandujakiss also noted that you kind of needed some acknowledgment of the fact that Valjean is being played by a virile, handsome youngish man rather than a more grandfatherly figure, because the scenes with Cosette took on an entirely different subtext than parental. I was just glad that someone else was picking up on it, because I felt completely filthy. It didn't help that I read some interview where they mentioned that Hugh Jackman gave Amanda Seyfried a lap dance for her birthday and it was all I could think of during the scene when they were, you know, going back and forthe between each other's bedrooms and she was in her nightgown and his shirt was practically open to his navel. It was so awkward. So awkward.


• The bit in the sewers probably is less jarring onstage, when characters are merely theatrically dirty rather than literally covered in filth and waste. I was like HOW IS MARIUS EVEN STILL ALIVE, HE HAS AN OPEN WOUND AND HE IS COVERED IN SEWAGE, ENJOY YR TYPHOID FEVER BRO. I don't know why that was what I was unable to suspend my disbelief for.


• In singing while cleaning later, I kept doing an unintentional medley where I'd go from the chain gang song to "Deliver Us" from Prince of Egypt. It worked pretty well, and then I realized that the opening to that movie is probably an inentional homage to Les Mis, so there you go.


• Ughhhhhh Marius is such a juicebox, seriously.

All in all, I enjoyed it! Also it was at the Angelika location out in Falls Church, where morning shows are $6 and no one gave me judgmental looks for having a glass of wine at a 9:30AM movie. BIG UPS. It was like brunch, except with no orange juice, and a hot dog instead of brunch food, and also red wine instead of champagne.

Then I came home and cleaned a bunch and watched some Doctor Who, which I've been doing a lot of lately. Oh, Nine.