Les Miserables

They really should have been able to find someone other than Russell Crowe.  I was most surprised to find out that Anne Hathaway had an amazing voice - and holy crap can she belt out a tune. 

It was over the top, it was long, and there were far too many close-up shots...  But I still loved it and really wished I had brought more kleenex with me. 

Parental Guidance was your typical fare......my twins are 12 and they loved it.  Crystal and Midler are about what you'd expect.  It's a good movie to see with your family/kids.

I took my kids to a matinee showing of the Hobbit yesterday.  The line to get seated for Les Mis was easily 100 people long, and that was a good 35 minutes before that show started. 

Any guy wondering if they should take their wife to Les Mis needs to watch the South Park episode about Broadway plays.  I'll be taking the wife as soon as the crowds thin out a bit.

Completely agree! We saw it at a premier showing last week (yes, DH got dragged along)

Hathaway was amazing, and Jackman was pretty good, but Crowe? I actually thought the young man who played Marius was the best cast part of the whole movie.

The book is ten times better than the musical.  Maybe even fifty times better.

^^^^That's just great!^^^^

   Quess where I'll be this evening. 

We saw it on the 27th and had similar thoughts.  The wife and I were a bit disappointed with the casting of Russel Crowe.  The kid who played the love interest (who was on Pillars of the Earth mini series, BTW) was shockingly good.  Amanda Sygfried was really good to (but had such a soprano voice, reminded me of a Disney song/singer) .  It's not like they DIDN'T have enough big names in it already to NEED Russel Crowe...  Sacha Baron Cohen just seems to impress me over and over with his interesting versatility.

I knew Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were good already.

I liked it a lot except some of the solo singing scenes seemed to drag on a bit.  Sort of like LONG monologues done to music...

There was a moment I had to stifle a laugh at the end.  Not because it was funny, cuz I was getting all teary eyed myself.  But you could hear everyone in the theater all sobbing and balling...

As a side note, I still have a crazy weird crush on Helena Bonham Carter.

Saw this on FB and laughed...

Finally saw it yesterday with the family and really enjoyed it.

I think you have to know what to expect when going in. There aren't many movies where the entire dialogue is sung. If you don't know that going in you might ne put off.

I liked Crowe as Javert.

I saw the musical on Broadway and was sorely disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing the movie for better visuals and better overall sound.

I was definitely not disappointed.  It was a very straight forward telling of the musical's version of the story.  I agree that Crowe was frankly terrible.  I didn't particularly like Amanda Seyfried's voice, too chirpy.  Eponine, by the way, was also very good.   It's too bad that Fantine's role was so short...    I think I see the point of the close ups, but it caused me to spend too much time thinking about their teeth.  Did they ask the actors to stop brushing, or was that all seriously just makeup?   Wow.  Sacha Baron Cohen was a big highlight (although his character was so frustrating, ugh!). 

The one thing I'd do differently is not sing nearly every word.   The songs are lovely, but signing the dialog is what caused it to drag so much.  Each actor sang basically the sang tune while "speaking."