Les Miserables

[Big Magilla]

I'm not accusing anyone of being disingenuous. All I'm saying is that the critical lambasting is from people, professional critics as well as amateurs, who are predisposed not to like the material.

[Sonic Youth]

So if you're not allowed to criticize the material without losing your credibility, and you're not allowed to criticize the direction without losing your credibility, what are you allowed to criticize?

And why can't this special status of protection apply to all movies?

[Big Magilla]

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Most, if not all the bad reviews can be attributed to three things: a dislike of musicals in general; a dislike of this particular musical and/or a lack of understanding of the genre. I'll further refine the statement by saying that the dislike of musicals can be limited to a dislike of sung-through musicals. I've seen some reviews in which the writer professed a love for all things Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly and/or musicals which were dialogue driven with an occasional interruption for a song. So if you're one of those people you may find yourself agreeing with the negativity.

There's another thing going on here, though, I think, and that's a dislike of the director either because he and his film won Oscars two years ago over David Fincher and The Social Network or they just don't like his TV style approach to filming which relies heavily on close-ups. In any event, the film appears to be critic-proof. The last I checked it still had 99% want-to-see rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[Mister Tee]

As one with something of a vested interest in Nine, I'd correct rolo's impression or maybe just his terminology. Nine was never a blockbuster musical, but it was the art-sical of its season, running only half as long as Dreamgirls despite beating it for the Tony, but beloved in more specialized circles (I know people totally disconnected from my wife's circle who saw it multiple times). It's a niche it shares with shows like Sweeney Todd -- which won the Tony while having a far shorter run that co-nominees They're Playing Our Song or Best Little Whorehouse in Texas -- and, strange to say now, West Side Story, which even lost the Tony in its year to the far more successful The Music Man, before going on to cinema glory.

Nine the movie was bungled in many ways -- the casting of all sorts of Weinstein regulars regardless of their suitability for roles (Day-Lewis & Dench the most glaring "huh?"'s); the we-don't-really-want-to-be-a-musical decision to put half of each number on a sound stage (something that worked in Chicago but had no place here). But I felt the project was largely doomed from the start because, while onstage it had been completely reconceived (with Tommy Tune, one of the few remaining Broasdway auteurs, in charge), on-screen in Italian location settings it would inevitably draw comparison to one of the most revered films of the 20th century. I didn't see how a neophyte like Rob Marshall could hope to compete in that realm.

Despite this, as BJ cites, it did get the initial awards season bump from BFCA/SAG/Globes; people had so anticipated it being a hit that they plugged it into those slots without, seemingly, looking at the movie. The reviews finally caught up with it, though, and audiences dried up fast; the film basically slipped away in embarrassment -- though surviving enough for Penelope Cruz to steal a nomination from someone more deserving.

I'm presuming Les Miz will do better with movie-goers simply because the show has been such a long-run phenomenon. Of course, then I remember Phantom topped out at a $50 million US gross, and it -- though some around here seem in denial about this -- was an even greater success than Les Miz: in fact, the greatest in Broadway history.

I can see the film still getting a best picture nomination under the new rules, like last year's unloved War Horse and Extremely Loud. It might even have made it in a year of five, the way Green Mile did -- because the campaign was in place and no one seemed to be able to stop it, despite better films being available. And maybe because some of the film's supporters seem stubbornly resistant to the reality of how poor the reviews have been. (And here I don't mean just our own Magilla, but the usually sensible Nate Rogers, who's all but accusing critics of lying for saying they don't like the film, and formerly-of-EW Dave Karger, who still has it as number one on his best picture chart)

What I cannot imagine is it being a viable candidate to win best picture in a year when many candidates meet the good-reviews-and-good-grosses standard. I think Hooper has to be viewed as a long shot to make the best director list at this point, given the competion (and the directors' long reputation for discerning taste), and we all know that would put the film's chances lower than low.

Because, honestly...this film is getting REALLY poor reviews. If it didn't come in with a mountain of publicity and expectation attached to it, no one would give it a second's thought as a best picture possibility. The examples of not-great best picture winners being bandied about as precedent don't remotely compare. Rocky looks pale today next to Network and company, but (with the sole exception of Vincent Canby at the NY Times), the important critics were wildly positive about the film. Gandhi was more divisive, but it, you know, WON the NY Critics prize. This is a film that's getting far worse reviews than Dreamgirls or Hairspray, and we see how well they did getting even best picture nominations.

[The Original BJ]

Well, Nine did win the Tony Award for Best Musical, and was pretty well-received in its day. Obviously it was not the global phenomenon Les Mis was, but it wasn't some obscurity (and, of course, it was based on a very famous movie). And I don't know that the movie version of Nine was really such a hard sell to audiences -- it's just that its audience is the type to pay attention to reviews, and by the time those scathing notices (and bad word of mouth) set in, that audience decided to pass.

Now, I certainly expect the Les Mis movie to do better financially. (And I still do expect it to be much BETTER.) But I'm starting to wonder if its awards trajectory might not be entirely dissimilar. Nine was widely embraced by the Globes -- it got, in fact, all of the same nominations Les Mis did, plus one -- as well as SAG, all before its release. But something funny happened once Nine finally got out into the world -- suddenly the enthusiastic word from early screenings, and the keeping-mum-but-leaning-positive comments from embargoed critics, turned into really nasty reviews across the board. And what seemed like a major Oscar player couldn't even crack a field of ten nominees, even with a pretty decent precursor run.

Will Les Mis suffer the same fate? Probably not. But it might be at least worth considering that it MIGHT not be a nominee. (Or maybe I'm just doing so because I've been hearing the movie has the prize in the bag for so long.) This is only the second year of up-to-10 in Best Picture, and I could see a situation in which, say, six movies place, but not Les Mis. One thing that hasn't been mentioned much is that the Les Mis movie really has some epic expectations to live up to -- not only is it based on hugely popular material, but it's basically been advertised as THE prestige movie of the year -- which means some folks are really going to be out to get it if it disappoints. (I don't know that there's any reason it should be compared to Crash, but, if we're doing so, that was an entirely different animal -- a movie that people felt like they discovered that many voted for when they TURNED on the big frontrunner they thought was overhyped. Come to think of it, that description fits The King's Speech pretty well too.)

Of course, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close showed that being thought of all year as an Oscar movie can overcome not only poor reviews but also lousy box office, so even if the print critics dump some cold water on Les Mis, it still has to be considered in the race. But, if the reviews keep souring, am I crazy for thinking that Supporting Actress, Original Song, and some techs might be as well as it does on Oscar morning?

[criddic3]

rolotomasi99
I would also point out that CRASH has a Rottentomatoes score of 76%, so let us not overestimate the importance of that number in determining what can or cannot win Best Picture.

True, but let's remember that 2005 was not a good year for movies in the running for Best Picture

Very true, however, unworthy Best Picture winners triumph even in great years for movies in the running for Best Picture:

1982
E.T., TOOTSIE, MISSING, and THE VERDICT are all great movies, but GANDHI won.

1976
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, NETWORK, and TAXI DRIVER are three of the greatest movies ever made, but ROCKY won.

The problem is that even "Gandhi" and "Rocky" still have their advocates. Neither are bad films, but in hindsight they were not as 'worthy' as their competition. Being a good movie and popular at the same time is a powerful argument for winning Best Picture. In the case of "Crash," its nearest competition was a controversial movie about gay men struggling through a secret relationship. Not exactly a 'crowd-friendly' movie in spite of its surprising box-office performance. A lot of people liked 'Lincoln,' because Spielberg made history seem accessible, but it is possible that "Les Miserables" could be a more emotionally engaging experience. However, I am not as confident that Anne Hathaway will win supporting actress for one song. She's splitting the precursors with other candidates. The only way it wins Best Picture is if it truly delivers the big box-office people are expecting.

[rolotomasi99]

rolotomasi99
I would also point out that CRASH has a Rottentomatoes score of 76%, so let us not overestimate the importance of that number in determining what can or cannot win Best Picture.

True, but let's remember that 2005 was not a good year for movies in the running for Best Picture

Very true, however, unworthy Best Picture winners triumph even in great years for movies in the running for Best Picture:

1982
E.T., TOOTSIE, MISSING, and THE VERDICT are all great movies, but GANDHI won.

1976
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, NETWORK, and TAXI DRIVER are three of the greatest movies ever made, but ROCKY won.

I do not think LES MISERABLES has this thing in the bag, but what it has over LINCOLN is the emotional hook. Many people agree that (like Jennifer Hudson before her) Anne Hathaway is going to win her Oscar thanks to one scene. What if that one scene is what wins LES MISERABLES Best Picture? In my mind, one scene in particular secured Best Picture for CRASH -- when the young girl jumps in front of her father to protect him from being shot. It was so emotionally devastating for folks and stayed with them even after they saw many superior films. Similarly, I think it the final radio broadcast in THE KING'S SPEECH secured Best Picture for that film. Obviously people have to like the rest of the film for it to win, but when you are considering which of the various films you have seen to select Best Picture it certainly helps to have a singular moment that they can recall to bring the whole experience back to them. I just wonder what that will be for LINCOLN. Maybe the final vote for the 13th Amendment, or perhaps something between Lincoln and his family.

After the last two years, I guess I have just become too cynical to think something as Oscar bait as LES MISERABLES is not going to win. If Harvey Weinstein were behind it, I would say this race is over.

I would love for ZERO DARK THIRTY to take the whole thing just like THE HURT LOCKER, but even the Coen brothers could not win again so soon with their strongest box-office hit ever. Maybe Bigelow wins Director, but Best Picture is going to something like LES MISERABLES, LINCOLN, or ARGO. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK could still be the winner folks were predicting a few months ago. LIFE OF PI seems assured a nomination, but probably cannot win against such strong competition. For now though, I am keeping LES MISERABLES as my prediction for the top prize. I would love to be wrong, though.

[Sabin]

rolotomasi99
I would also point out that CRASH has a Rottentomatoes score of 76%, so let us not overestimate the importance of that number in determining what can or cannot win Best Picture.

True, but let's remember that 2005 was not a good year for movies in the running for Best Picture and was a beneficiary winner. This year, we have Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty, all of which could beat Crash in 2005 (especially considering that if Life of Pi is competing in 2005, then that means that Gus Van Sant would have stayed on as director of Brokeback Mountain and the film would have essentially ben a film of twenty tracking shots implying the longing romance between two gay cowboys, and ultimately quite gayer).

Les Miserables is going to make a lot of money in the next few weeks. It might end up the most popular of the nominees. But the race now appears to be between Zero Dark and Lincoln, and considering that Zero Dark Thirty is going to take a minuet to pick up steam I predict that we're going to be hedging our bets until Oscar night. Which is fucking awesome!!!

Mister Tee mentioned this a little while ago. It's been a while since all the big fall Oscar movies delivered. With a couple of small exceptions, all of the prestige films were pretty good and maintain their standing a viable Oscar contenders. And not many of the categories seem to have done and done locks. Very much looking forward to this ceremony. Even if it means watching Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis again, there are worse things.

[rolotomasi99]

So, by this point the question should probably be less "Can it win Best Picture?" and more "Is it another Nine?"

You mean with critics, audiences, or the Academy?

While Rottentomatoes currently has less than 50 reviews up, the score for LES MISERBALES is currently 75%. It will probably fall lower than that, but not to the 37% that NINE has.

From what I know, the original source material for NINE was never really popular. The film was not only a hard sell to general audiences, but even folks who usually love musical theatre were not that interested. The film had only one song people really loved (Be Italian) and the film was dreary without being cathartic. It was not funny like CHICAGO or emotionally engaging like WEST SIDE STORY or joyous like THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

Finally, despite NINE (or SWEENEY TODD and DREAMGIRLS) failing to be nominated for Best Picture, it still received four nominations including supporting actress. SWEENEY TODD received 3 nominations including lead actor. DREAMGIRLS received an impressive 8 nominations including one win for supporting actress. I am not certain LES MISERABLES will win Best Picture, but 8 nominations seem very likely including a win for supporting actress. With more than five Best Picture nominees, being snubbed from at least a nomination in that category seems unlikely.

I would also point out that CRASH has a Rottentomatoes score of 76%, so let us not overestimate the importance of that number in determining what can or cannot win Best Picture.

[The Original BJ]

So, by this point the question should probably be less "Can it win Best Picture?" and more "Is it another Nine?"

[rolotomasi99]

Another hilarious bad review.


'Les Misérables' Review: I Dreamed a Nightmare
By Alonso Duralde

In the early 1990s, I accepted an invitation from a friend to go see the national touring company of “Les Misérables,” even though it was being mounted at Dallas’ Music Hall at Fair Park (before its eventual renovation, the venue was acoustically iffy at best) and despite my trepidation over the then-popular “Miserable Cats of the Opera” mega-musicals.

And while the show is not without its gimmickry and manipulation, I found it genuinely moving and exhilarating, with the showstopping 11o'clock number “Bring Him Home” (which had been played to death in the constant TV ads for the production) giving me chills.

I mention this only to fend off complaints that I have no soul or no affinity for the material at hand, because it is my duty to inform you that “Les Misérables,” the movie, is a catastrophe of epic proportions.

Director Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) piles one terrible decision upon another, with the result being a movie so overbearingly maudlin and distorted that it’s one of 2012’s most excruciating film experiences.

Mistake number one comes in the way he shoots what’s happening -- it’s one thing to give us singing prisoners and gendarmes and prostitutes and soldiers and revolutionaries with the accommodating distance of the stage, but to have these same entities with the camera going right up their nose just accentuates the bizarre counter-intuitiveness of having these characters singing virtually every word of dialogue.

(There are, in fact, three basic camera positions in the film: Too Close, Rapid-Fire Figure 8 Around the Action, and Helicopter View of 19th Century Paris.)

By now, you know the tale: Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, is paroled from his sentence of hard labor, even though brutal prison guard Javert (Russell Crowe) is convinced that Valjean will inevitably return to crime. The desperate Valjean steals from a kindly priest, and when the priest tells the authorities the silver had been a gift, the newly redeemed Valjean attempts to rebuild his life.

Under a new identity, he becomes a mayor and the owner of a rosary factory, but a visit by an unsuspecting Javert distracts Valjean while poor Fantine (Anne Hathaway) is fired under false pretenses. Too late to save the woman, who turns to prostitution and hair-selling to support her daughter, Valjean vows to raise the child, Cosette (Isabelle Allen, then Amanda Seyfried) as his own.

And then there’s the second French revolution, and Cosette falls in love with rich student/slumming revolutionary Marius (Eddie Redmayne), and Javert still hovers in the background, obsessed with bringing Valjean to what the officer believes is justice. One of the nefarious powers of “Les Misérables” the movie is its ability to reduce Victor Hugo’s novel, considered one of the great achievements in world literature, to a hacky melodrama that even a young D.W. Griffith might have found overly precious.

Oh, the performances: Jackman and Hathaway are both playing to the back balcony, rather than to the camera lens that’s just inches away.

Jackman over-articulates, over-gesticulates and pretty much over-everythings. Worse still are those moments where, rather than singing all his dialogue, he has to transition from speech to song within the same line. (“We’re leaving now, PACK YOUR THIIIIIIINGS!”) Even his “Bring Him Home” paled next to the version performed by that actor who came to Dallas 20 years ago, raising nary a hair on the back of my neck.

Hathaway, meanwhile, takes every opportunity to suck all the oxygen out of “I Dreamed a Dream,” the number that is this show’s “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” Earlier in the film, Fantine sells some of her back teeth to a shady dentist who promises to leave her “enough to bite.” Clearly, he also left her enough to gnash. It’s a ghastly, eyelid-fluttering, self-serving, sympathy-begging performance; Oscar voters are guaranteed to eat it up.

And then there’s poor Russell Crowe, who’s had success as a vocalist with his bands 30 Odd Foot of Grunts and the Ordinary Fear of God, but singing in a bar band and belting quasi-operatic Broadway songs are two very different things. He’s giving it his all but falling short throughout; you can tell from the strain that he’s singing on his tippytoes.

The one performer who stands out is Sasha Baron Cohen, who cuts through the rest of the film’s noble masochism with the grungily cynical “Master of the House.” (Helena Bonham Carter is lazily cast as the innkeeper’s shrewish wife.) But even Baron Cohen wears a bit thin by the fourth reprise or so.

Admittedly, I sat in the screening room surrounded by people who were sniffling if not outright bawling, so this movie’s clearly working for someone. And to some extent, I empathize: I’m always left a soppy wreck by Claude Lelouch’s 1995 version, in which Jean-Paul Belmondo plays both Valjean and a truck driver transporting Jews out of France during World War II.

For me, though, this was the kind of movie where I started rooting for the French soldiers only because every time they shot someone, that meant one less singer on screen.

[rolotomasi99]

Well, at the very least this movie is certainly inspiring some amazingly written negative reviews. I think critics are now trying to top each other for the most hilariously scathing take-down of the film. If the thing does take Best Picture, it will be the most hated winner since, if not CRASH, then certainly AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS.

[Sabin]

Lisa Schwarzbaum is not a fan.

GRADE: C

Since everything about Les Misérables is fortissimo — including but not limited to its unabashed pursuit of awards that are shiny or globular or both — you have perhaps already heard a little about the movie now storming the Bastille of your wallet. You may already know that to make his movie adaptation of the internationally popular theatrical musical conjured from the 19th-century political novel by Victor Hugo, director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) bade his actors sing live during filming. You probably already know that Anne Hathaway, as the wretched single mother-turned-prostitute Fantine, is reputedly a formidable Oscar favorite for her sobbing and warbling and haircutting-in-real-time. You've learned, from posters and trailers, that Hugh Jackman, as former convict Jean Valjean, looks impressively stricken and that Russell Crowe, as implacable police inspector Javert, looks disconcertingly dyspeptic.

What's left to learn is this: Les Misérables provides compelling reasons for Crowe to be peeved, beginning with the humiliation of having to sing Broadway-style, when it clearly is so not his thing, and ending with the Cap'n Crunch wardrobe into which the gentleman is packed. (O, for Crowe's costumed glory days in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World!) Jackman has a right to be cranky too, although he's too much of a trouper to show it as he overemotes on demand and sings of finding God after he steals a pair of candlesticks from a nice priest. (Long story.) Hathaway looks happy enough channeling Liza Minnelli for her tremulous rendition of the Susan Boyle-appropriated anthem ''I Dreamed a Dream,'' but that's no doubt because she knows that soon after the song, she's pretty much done for the night.

Shall I go on about all the ways in which this fake-opulent Les Miz made me long for guillotines while millions of viewers who have softer, more generous hearts than I may swoon with money's-worth contentment? (At least it doesn't skimp on length: The movie is approximately as long as the 1832 Paris uprising it depicts.) Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter mug and prance as the comic-relief grifters Thénardier and his missus, outfitted in what has become de rigueur for both BCs — Pétrouchka makeup and prosthetically grungy teeth. Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne play the young lovers Cosette (Fantine's muppet daughter, raised by Valjean) and the boy-band-styled student revolutionary Marius like lab rats, their pale faces and lashless eyelids often observed in the merciless close-up that is one of Hooper's mix-it-up signature shots. (He is similarly devoted to tilted perspective and the room-at-a-45-degree-angle shot.)

It's a daunting challenge, to be sure, to turn a big musical into a viable movie. For every great Cabaret, My Fair Lady, and The King and I, there's a dud Rent, Evita, and Mamma Mia! But this steam-driven military weapon of an enterprise is a sobering reminder of just how tinny a musical Les Misérables was in the first place — the listless music and lyrics by Alain Boubil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer, the derivative characters fashioned from Oliver! scraps. And even if you do come to Mr. Hooper's neighborhood loving the show, having seen seven stage productions and named your cat Gavroche after the urchin who hitches his fate to those of grown-up revolutionaries, well, you're in for a gobsmacking: This ''prestige'' production is at heart a minor road-show carnival, leaving behind little but tinsel as it rumbles through the streets of Awardstown.

[OscarGuy]

I have been a Tomatometer critic for years. The problem is it requires me to individually post all reviews, thus why I don't get it done nearly as often as I probably should. This time I did it because it's one of the few I've been able to review prior to release.

[Greg]

Wes, it's good to see that your review made it on to Rotten Tomatoes.