Legion
Fry's dog Seymour
Amy Pond's #1 fan
Hail Hydra!
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Post by Legion on Dec 29, 2012 11:28:54 GMT -5
Personally, I wasnt a fan of Hathaway's singing voice.... Really? Her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream is my personal favorite. So good. Not to me. Dont get me wrong, she's a perfectly fine singer, I just really didn't like her singing voice at all.
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W?Y
Hank Scorpio
Old FAN, no tricks.
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Post by W?Y on Dec 29, 2012 11:41:20 GMT -5
Russell Crowe's version of "Stars" is my jam. I just love the sound of it.
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mattperiolat
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Post by mattperiolat on Dec 29, 2012 13:08:23 GMT -5
Crowe... sufficed. He was clearly not going to be able to hit the notes the way a Phillip Quast could have, but we all knew that. That he did as well as he did was impressive. That's been the only fly in the ointment for me, as someone who's yet to see it; the reviews of Russell Crowe as the weak link. Javert is such a big part of the philosophical argument in this story... it's a real disappointment to hear that Crowe didn't really do the part justice. That's no reason not to see it, and I will at some point, but it does kind of take the shine off of it a little for me. Like you said, not everyone's gonna be Quast, and I'm sure his acting is great. It's just a shame to hear that Javert of all roles is the least well-realized one. Well, Crowe gets the character and does the acting part well. It's just he's not in the same league or caliber as some of the others. Honestly, I went in with fears that he would sink the movie and the good news is he didn't.
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Post by Piccolo on Dec 29, 2012 23:22:54 GMT -5
OK, saw it! Yeah, I don't think Crowe sinks the movie. I did think pretty much everyone did a better job of acting-while-singing... particularly painful was {Spoiler}when Valjean releases him from the students' captivity. "Once a thief forever a thief, what you want you always steal. You would trade your life for mine? Yes, Valjean, you want a deal. Shoot me now for all I care! If you let me go, beware. You'll still answer to Javert!" He sung that completely straight, no feeling, no emphasis, nothing. How does an actor not see the potential in that? This is a man who's desperately trying to cling to a worldview that no longer fits the facts. He's fighting against the idea that Valjean is doing this out of pure mercy, he's clinging to himself as the moral arbiter, and there should be SOMETHING there! Just, what? And Stars! What was that?!
Plus, he softened Javert quite a bit. Most of the time, I was thinking, "This guy is pretty reasonable and nice. Yeah, he's about the letter of the law, but I could root for him." I shouldn't really be able to root for Javert. His inflexibility, his rigidity, his obsessiveness, all those things turn his virtues into tools to harm rather than help, and Javert doesn't really care - law is law, law is right, anything that contradicts law is by definition evil. I didn't get that hard-edged strictness from Crowe, so Javert's suicide wasn't earned. His death is about the irreconcilable contradiction between his convictions and what he's seen to be true in Valjean's mercy and kindness. He'd rather die than live in a world where you can be an ex-con and a good man at the same time. Russell Crowe's version of Javert, I feel, would've had little difficulty making that compassionate jump and positioning himself on the side of the angels. Oh well. I apparently have too many Javert-related issues. But the rest was brilliant. Absolutely terrific. Hathaway and Jackman were obviously fantastic, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the kid who played Marius (I'd heard some criticism of his Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, but I thought he killed it), Wilkinson's cameo was delightful, and everyone else (Eponine, the students and Gavroche, the Thenardiers, Seyfried's surprisingly likable Cosette) were all really, really fun. I was totally impressed with that.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2012 1:40:52 GMT -5
I saw this today and was quite impressed. I didn't expect the whole movie to be sung. Once I accepted that fact, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the film.
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