Les Miserables

Les Miserables, 2012
Directed by Tom Hooper
Nominated for 8 Oscars

Les Miserables is one of the most popular, beloved and well-known stage musicals. It tells the story, starting and ending, with Jean Valjean, a prisoner for 19 years in the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread. Finally, he is released on parole, but breaks it so to make a better life for himself. Years later, he has achieved this "better life", and when he learns one of the workers at his factory was let go, and has a child she is trying to look after, Valjean decides to rescue this child after the woman (Fantine) dies. Valjean, while still hunted, rescues the child, Cosette, and both their lives are changed forever.

I must confess something. Being the bookaholic I am, I decided to read Les Miserables before ever having seen the full musical (I've seen 45 minutes of the 10th anniversary a year before reading). Yes, you read that correctly. I read Les Miserables. Unabridged, and I skipped no pages. And once I read the final page of the book, I realized I`d screwed myself over for watching the musical or the movie. No play or film could ever accurately portray how beautifully written this book had been; how complex, how heartbreaking, and how glorious it was told. Yes, there were many parts that were drawn out or unnecessary, but when you got to the meat of the story, it was so incredible. And once I read the entire summary of the musical, I knew I was in for a let down. Because translating a 1200 page novel into a 3 hour musical meant that many things were going to be changed, and many would be simplified.

The problems I had with this movie were not the films fault (unless we're talking costume inaccuracies, or historical inaccuracies, but that's different), but that it was over-simplified from how the book had told it. Cosette and Marius did not take one look at each other and were in love. Eponine was not really a main character at all. The Thenardiers were not funny, but were incredibly evil people (and had more children than just Eponine). But I digress.

The first half of the film was incredibly done. Hugh Jackman is the powerhouse of the film, and carries it all on his shoulders. His performance is constantly great, and his singing is really quite good. The live singing, I thought, was incredibly well done. The group numbers were all my favourites and sounded so so good. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, completely and utterly broke my heart. Her portrayal as Fantine was so emotional, and raw, and broken, that I believed her completely every second. Her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream was heartbreaking, and had me in tears (like everyone else in the theater). For only being in the film a short period of time, her character was properly fleshed out and had the right amount of development (something that the second half of the film lacked).

Everything, right up to where Marius, Eponine, etc come in, this film was really, really good. I had thought I wouldn't like the film whatsoever because of the book, but was surprised I liked the movie so much. Until then. Whether this is how it goes in the stage musical, or if this is just the film, I'm not sure, but everything felt very rushed and under-developed at that point. While Marius was my absolute favourite (Jean Valjean a very close runner up) in the book, his character was extremely diminished. We didn't get to know him on a deeper level like we had Fantine and Valjean. Same goes with Eponine. I felt like I hardly knew her at all before she dies. Which was such a shame. Had there been more time to flesh out these 2 characters, and the other revolutionaries, this would have been much better, but it felt too rushed, and too shallow for me to really care.

Overall, it's very hard to come to a conclusion of what I thought of the film overall. The first half was incredible, well paced and heartbreaking. The second half felt a little more rushed, less character development happening. It makes it very hard to decide what you thought overall.

So overall, I know that the live singing was well executed, and brought a lot more emotional, and a lot more acting in to the film. It made things seem a lot more real. I feel like I Dreamed a Dream would not have been nearly as heart-wrenching had it not been sung live. It would've sounded too perfect and not broken enough. The acting was all superb. Jackman, Hathaway were great. And I adored Eddie Redmayne as Marius. Russell Crowe was not nearly as bad a singer as I'd kept hearing he was (he was decent, ok people?). The visuals were stunning and the makeup for Jean Valjean was excellent. But there were pacing issues, lack of character development, etc.

I'd say Rotten Tomatoes hits it right when it gives it a 70%. It wasn't anything fantastic, but wasn't horrible either. It was a decent movie.

7/10

Best Actor 2012: Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables

Hugh Jackman received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Les Miserables is a film with that pointless slight shaky cam for no good reason, dutch angels that are unnecessary, and close ups. Well really I thought the close ups worked for the most part, after all one of my favorite director Sergio Leone loved the close ups. The new song Suddenly seems like Oscar baiting since it is rather unremarkable, and it possibly displaced two superior songs. One being "Drink With Me" being truncated which is unfortunate considering the way the song so brilliantly shows the kinship between the students attempting a revolution but as well builds their despair as they see that their cause most likely will be lost. The other being "Dog Eats the Dog" which adds a very dark edge to Thernadier making him more than just comic relief, and I would have liked to see Sasha Baron Cohen perform it.

Also the editing of the film certainly is questionable at times for example it definitely should have shown Marius witness the aftermath of the revolution outside before "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables". Some of the singing could be question like Russell Crowe as Javert. I got use to his voice quickly though, as I am not a singing snob, and honestly I really liked his performance of the character's two major solos. With its flaws that certainly are there at most I could only think it is descent right? Wrong. I loved it and I have to say it. There are not many musicals I like but this one just hits me the right way. I loved the musical and I loved the film. The final emotional impact the film had on me the moment I finished overrode any of its issues for me, and none of the power of the musical was lost for me.

Well getting that out of the way, I suppose I should address how the leading man of the film is. An interesting fact is the last actor to win the best leading actor Oscar for a traditional musical, Rex Harrison for my Fair Lady, sang his songs live which is the same for Hugh Jackman in this film. This is a decision by Tom Hooper that was a intelligent one and for a musical as emotional as Les Miserables it allows the actors to properly punctuate the emotions of each song through their performances. Hugh Jackman has a many different songs through the film where Valjean is at vastly different emotional and physical states in the film, and this different style of singing gives Jackman the ability to voice Valjean differently which properly suggest the various states of Valjean.

Hugh Jackman singing voice is not nearly as full as the two other Valjean's in the concert versions of the musicals who are Alfie Boe, and Colm Wilkinson who is also in this film as the Bishop of Digne. Jackman's voice thought still fits his character, and perhaps even more so early on in the film when Valjean is first released from prison as an embittered man filled with disgust over his treatment by the world. Jackman is effective early on by intensely portraying this with Valjean in these moments, and properly shows Valjean as a man very much at the end of his rope. There is a lacking of humanity here no warmth, but instead Jackman properly reflects the pain of his character here, something the other two Valjeans did not do as much.

This performance really is one of fairly broad emotions by Jackman which makes since after all his character early on the film sings out loud about what his character is feeling. When Valjean is saved from prison once more by the Bishop of Digne's kindness and Jackman delivers the "soliloquy". One can't really be Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy when singing a song to the screen well battling a orchestra to be noticed. Jackman manages with this song, as well as most of the other songs in the film, as he gets across the broad gestures that are the emotions of the song a through as they should be, but it does not feel like he is going over the top. Jackman manages still to be as realistic as one could be when singing in such a way, and conveys the conflict both through the power of the song and his face.

After Valjean period of being an embittered man and finds success staying a purely good character throughout the rest of the film only being troubled by his past and a policeman Javert (Russell Crowe) who will not stop hounding him. Jackman is very much on the nose here in terms of his emotions and his way of playing the character. He really plays him straight as there are not a lot of surprises to be seen but nor are there surprises in the character of Valjean after the opening scenes. In many ways he is very much almost a straight man within the story always firmly there to be this positive moral center in the story. Jackman does this well though by being so very enthusiastic in the part. He properly does not have any play within Valjean, Valjean is a good man and he is right in just reinforcing this conviction with his performance.

Hugh Jackman through every scene he is does exactly what he needs to with the part, and every time succeeds in being exactly as Valjean should be. Whether it is his look of fear and surprise for seeing Javert again, to later being deeply saddened to fine the lowly state his former worker Fantine (Anne Hathaway) has fallen into, his resilience to do the right thing despite having some hesitations due to his fate when he sings "Who am I", to even being slightly comic in the scene where Valjean is not fooled a moment by the con man innkeeper Thernadier, Jackman always consistently gives the passion to the part. Every moment of the film he portrays the emotions directly and to the point that goes in line with Valjean perfectly. Through of the varying tones, and styles of the scenes Jackman weaves through all of them well never faulting in the wrong direction instead bringing the proper weight to each and every scene.

I would say the only lull in his performance is when the story jumps ahead again to Valjean taking care of the daughter of Fantine, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried), and fleeing with her to Paris to avoid Javert. Now really is not Jackman's fault as the story shifts mostly to the revolutionaries and the romance between Cosette and Marius (Eddie Redmayne) a young revolutionary. Valjean is mostly pushed into the background but to be fair Jackman is still good in that he portrays the appropriate warmth in his scenes with Seyfried but as well the fear and hesitations within Valjean over his troublesome past. The only time I really has any problem with his performance was in the song "One Day More". Valjean's voice is the back bone of the song and in the song Jackman's voice simply does not support the rest of the voices as Valjean's is suppose to do. This is though is a minor point, and made up by the later scenes of his performance.

What I think really does work in his performance here is his ability to succeed in "Who am I". The number actually is quite problematic in that Valjean basically instantly cares about Marius's and desperately wants him to live. The suddenness of it is a problem surely, but Jackman completely unabashed manner is what makes it work. Yes it is sudden but Jackman sings his heart and is emotionally convincing in the moment despite how instant it all is. Jackman is even more effective though in the final scenes as Valjean falls into grief due his own self imposed exile from his adopted daughter to protect her from his past, and eventually dies. I absolutely love Jackman's last scene as he honestly is convincing in his dying by grief, and he beautifully portrays the happiness that appears back again in his face as he sees his adopted daughter one more time. Valjean's death at the end of the scene is meant to be sad, poignant, and inspiring all in the same breath and Jackman does it once again through his uncompromising devotion to the part.

To be perfectly honest Hugh Jackman is not one of my very favorite actors. I don't dislike him as he has certain charm and screen presence. This performance though absolutely works for me though, and is easily his best. The only time I have any issue with his performance with One Day More, but that honestly is almost a nitpick. Jackman handles the singing well and always with the song conveys the emotions right along with it. Now really if you don't go along with the film you definitely will not being going along with his performance. As someone who did go along right with the film Jackman served as a perfect anchor for the film. Hugh Jackman stands firm delivery a consistent powerful performance that goes straight ahead forward with the film, and if you are ready to go along with him he takes you right with him through every emotional step of the film.

Best Actor 2012

And the Nominees Are:

Denzel Washington in Flight

Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables

Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln

Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook

Joaquin Phoenix in The Master 

Well do to the fact that I have no way of watching the Master at the moment, but I still am itching to review the performances nominated this year so I will continue on to Best Actor.

Les Miserables (2012)

 (Disclaimer so people know where I am coming from with this review: I adore the musical “Les Miserables.” I’ve seen the musical three times on stage.  I love the score and listen to it all time on CD. It’s one of my all-time favorite musicals.

I consider the reading of the original Victor Hugo novel to be one of the most profound reading experiences of my life. I’ve seen most of the movie versions, and especially love the 1935 version with Charles Laughton and Frederic March. A five-hour French version from 1934 recently played by TCM and I was blown away by how gripping it was. I just love this story and its characters.)

 

Based on seeing the movie version of the musical “Les Miserables” (2012), I surmised that director Tom Hooper graduated summa cum laude from the Joshua Logan School of How NOT to Direct a Musical.

You know Joshua Logan. The guy who filmed “South Pacific” (1958) on location and then used colored filters throughout.

The guy who hired non-singers Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave for “Camelot” (1967) and filmed a lot of the numbers in close-up (Tom Hooper must have studied “Camelot” a lot).

Speaking of non-singers, Logan cast those iconic warblers Lee Marvin (!) and Clint Eastwood (!!) in “Paint Your Wagon” (1969).

Musical follies, one and all. Add “Les Miserables” to the list of one of the worst musicals of all time.

“Les Miserables” is the biggest disappointment I’ve had at the movies in years. It’s a soul-crushing disappointment from someone who has waited years for a movie version of this show.

Let’s call “Les Miserables” for what it is – an opera. Not grand opera, of course, but an opera nonetheless. If a story is told entirely in song, then it’s an opera. Sure there are a few scenes of dialogue, but Beethoven’s “Fidelio” is considered an opera, and that has long dialogue passages.  So “Les Miserables” is an opera.

And operas need voices. It helps if they’re good actors, but the first requirement is good voices. No, not good voices, but great voices.

Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and even Russell Crowe have good singing voices.

But not for this material.

Ten minutes in, with the largely laughably large-scaled CGI opening, and star Hugh Jackman, as Jean Valjean, trying vainly to hit the high notes, I had a sinking feeling I was going to be in for the long haul over the next two and a half hours. And I was.

The cast isn’t really to blame. They try their best. But they can’t sing these songs. It’s beyond their abilities.

 

The show’s two best known songs are “I Dreamed a Dream” and “Bring Him Home.” A lot of people have heaped praise on Anne Hathaway’s singing, and acting of the former, but I’m in the minority. Shot in extreme close-up, I was so distracted by the tears and running snot that it took me out of the scene. I know movies are more intimate than what is on stage, but I’ve always been moved by this song, so I don’t need the extreme close-ups to sell it. The less said about Jackman’s rendition of “Bring Him Home” the better. A tough song to sing, to be sure, but it was embarrassingly bad.

A friend of mine commented afterwards that maybe in the old days, Hollywood knew what they were doing when they dubbed the singing voices of their big stars. Sure no one would rush out to see Marni Nixon in “The King and I” (1956) or “My Fair Lady” (1964) but they would go see Deborah Kerr and Audrey Hepburn, respectively. Are those films really lessened by having the leads dubbed? Is Rita Hayworth any less a screen icon because her voice was dubbed singing “Put the Blame on Mame” in “Gilda” (1946) and in her musicals?

So you have a sung-through musical where the leads can’t properly sing the songs, and a director who doesn’t have the foggiest idea of how to stage a musical. Director Hooper use of extreme close-ups throughout gets tiresome after the fourth or fifth time. For me, these are most effective for key emotional moments, not 2.5 hours worth.

And let me get this off my chest. If I hear any more prattle from the cast and crew about the effectiveness of recording the songs live during the filming, I think I may yawn myself to death. Based on the evidence here, I don’t see what the big deal is.

I may be reading too much into these interviews, but there’s an air of condescension and smugness when the cast and director talk about how much more real it is singing live than to a pre-recorded track. It’s as if they’re brushing aside seven decades worth of musicals.

As one who decries the often rapid cuts of today’s movies, I should be applauding Hooper’s use of minimal cutting. But the camera work is static to the point of inertia and when Hooper does move the camera, it’s often the dreaded shaky cam effect, and tilted camera angles, and the whole thing becomes annoying to watch.

One of the show’s most famous songs is the comic number “Master of the House” and it’s a bit of welcome black comedy levity in the often grim proceedings. But it’s very badly staged here, with dumbfounded literalness played out ad nauseum. There’s no sense of movement and looks like it was staged for a community theater production. Like everything else in the film, it’s cramped and claustrophobic.

Adding blame to this disaster was the very poor musical direction, for which I blame orchestrators Anne Dudley and Stephen Metcalfe and music supervisor Becky Bentham. They do the music no favors. Everything is pitched in the most low-key manner possible. The orchestrations are depressingly small-scaled and the musical accompaniment isn’t allowed to soar. It also sounded to like a very poor sound mix, with the orchestra barely heard in the background. It could be one of the tinniest-sounding musicals I’ve ever heard.

(Despite my snarky comments directed at the top of this review to those three Joshua Logan-directed musicals, the musical direction by Alfred Newman and Ken Darby for “South Pacific” and “Camelot”, and by Nelson Riddle and Roger Wagner for “Paint Your Wagon” are superb and can’t be beat. They are by far the best factors of those movies).

 

I’ve done a lot of complaining. Is there anything good in the movie? I liked Samantha Barks as Eponine. She brings a real humanity to the part, and has a good voice. Playing the role on stage obviously helped. I thought all the guys who played the young revolutionaries had strong voices, well suited to the material. But it’s a sad state of affairs that the secondary and third characters in an opera are the best singers.

And while Russell Crowe has gotten the lion’s share of disdainful reviews, I’m going to cut him slack. True, he has the weakest voice of any of the leads. But for me, he was the only one who realized he was playing to the motion picture camera. I never felt like he was striving to reach for the last row in the highest balcony in the largest auditorium in the world.

 

I must admit to tearing up quite a bit at each of the live performances I’ve seen. There’s a little bit of that here in the final scene – how could there be not be – but I was curiously unmoved. I actually told my friends I didn’t want to see it with them, because it would be too embarrassing for them to see me afterwards. No problem here. I could have just watched “Skyfall” for all the emotion it generated for me

I know a lot of people who have seen this movie and just love it. Good for them. I’m glad. It could be their first introduction to this wonderful story and I’m glad they enjoyed it so much.

But it was such a let down for me. It’s been years since I was looking forward to a movie so much. I love this material. But alas, “Les Miserables” is the biggest disappointment I’ve had at the movies since Daniel Craig’s second 007 outing, the execrable “Quantum of Solace” (2008). “Les Miserables” is one of the worst movies of the year. It’s one of the worst musicals ever made. It’s an ugly film to look at and a painful one to listen to. It kills me to write that.

LES MISERABLES

LES MISERABLES
Written by William Nicholson
Directed by Tom Hooper
Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne

Cast: and remember, the truth at once was spoken, to love another person is to see the face of god. 

I would think it would go without saying that a musical that announces itself as an ode to misery in its title, would be a fairly dramatic and depressing affair but apparently this isn't so.  Some of what I'm hearing of Tom Hoopers extravagant restaging of the classic musical, LES MISERABLES, is that it is a relentless, melodramatic onslaught of singing out pain in your face for nearly three hours. Yes, it is most certainly all of this but it was designed to be precisely that. Whether they're forever running from the law or selling their body to feed their child or watching all of their friends die in the French Revolution, these people have every right to be as anguished as they are. And what better way to deal with this pain than sing about it?

LES MISERABLES has a massive following. It has been staged thousands of times and has played to audiences around the world for over thirty years. And yet, this is the first time it has been attempted on film, as a musical anyway. To say that anticipation for the film has been high would also a be a great understatement. Now that it is finally here though, will purists be happy? I suspect not actually. Hooper decided to have his incredibly diverse and talented cast, from Hugh Jackman to Anne Hathaway to newcomer, Samantha Bark, sing this intensely difficult show live on set rather than record first in studio and then lip synch on set. While the effect itself is most often very intimate and emotionally engaging, some of the musical prowess is lost amidst the emoting. While Hathaway's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" is deeply moving, I am sure some will wish there was more clarity to her belt and less cracking in her voice from crying. All the same, the film does feel more spontaneous than most film musicals so while the decision will polarize some, it is still brave and commendable.

Many an eye is on Hooper here as LES MISERABLES is the follow-up to his Oscar-winning work on THE KING'S SPEECH. While that story was a grand one, it was still told on a much smaller scale. LES MISERABLES may have been a tad bit much for him to handle. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, this is the story of one man's struggle to forge out a life in times of strife and suffering. Jean Valjean (Jackman) once stole a loaf of bread and he has been paying for it ever since. While pretending to be someone he is not, he takes in Cosette, a young girl (played as an adult by Amanda Seyfreid) when her mother (Hathaway, who shines like you would not believe) passes away. When Cosette falls in love with a revolutionary (a dapper and delightful, Eddie Redmayne), Valjean does everything in his power to ensure they are together. While Hooper has a strong handle on his characters, his French Revolution feels slight at times, hardly like the source of all their misery. 

What I love about LES MISERABLES is the inherent sense of hope in the music itself. The poor sing of how the end of the day brings nothing but another day to a close at first and later, albeit still suffering greatly, sing of how they long for one day more. And what with all the political unrest and death and disease in the streets, to speak of things like love seems entirely frivolous at first but eventually love is the only thing that makes any sense. For it is true what they say, to truly know happiness, you must experience LES MISERABLES first.

311. Les Miserables

311. (15 Dec) Les Miserables (2012, Tom Hooper)* 28



Midway through act two, Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne quite literally are up to their necks in fecal matter. That Les Miserables willfully offers that metaphor makes it the ballsiest or most clueless film of the year. Considering how dreadful it is, I'm leaning toward the latter.

There's not an iota of scale in Les Miserables, with roughly four wide shots that so much as hint that this is a historical epic in its entire bloated runtime. Just like in The King's Speech, Tom Hooper's amateurish aesthetic undermines every moment. Here he's as reliant on dutch angles as he is on dopey framing, keeping heads in the corner of a shot while negative space dominates the background. It's one of the worst photographed major studio films I've seen. But there's simply not much to work with since the sets and costumes are decidedly unremarkable. When Les Miz is not irritating to look at, it's boring.

Tom Hooper's direction is astoundingly misguided. Without dialogue, he relies on the score to tell the story. Unfortunately, only five musical numbers are at all good. Most of the talk-singing is instantly forgettable (namely the added and useless tune "Suddenly"). The nasally Hugh Jackman and overly emotive Samantha Barks are shameful standouts in the cast. Russell Crowe channels Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfriend, without a hint of romantic chemistry, are wasted vocal talents. The much discussed Anne Hathaway is the only performer to give emotional impact to the film at all, overplaying her part, but at least not embarrassing herself in an intense close-up during "I Dreamed a Dream."

Hooper has suggested he attempted to emulate West Side Story, at least during "One More Day," which shows how ambitious and incompetent he is. His shoddily edited film not only is totally incoherent, unmoving, and uninteresting, it's laughable. Crowe's biggest dramatic moment is the most obvious joke, but it's impossible to enumerate the goofs in a film where next to nothing works. Empty heads and empty filmmaking.

BUTTER

BUTTER
Written by James A. Micallef
Directed by Jim Field Smith
Starring Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Oliva Wilde and Hugh Jackman

Ask anyone who enjoys a good dessert and they will tell you that butter makes everything better (and fatter, but that doesn’t work with my metaphor). Unfortunately, this same logic does not apply to the movies. BUTTER, directed by Jim Field Smith, whose only previous feature credit is SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, takes an incredible ensemble, including Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman and MODERN FAMILY’s Ty Burrell, throws them into a bowl, mixing political satire and family drama into the fold. This should be an easy recipe for success but Smith has no idea how to measure out portions. The politics are blatantly obvious; the performances are cartoonish at best, especially Garner, who is an exaggerated version of her usually endearing control freak self; and the whole thing feels sorely undercooked. BUTTER, while clearly well-intentioned, simply melts away before your eyes into one big pile of gooey (and fatty) mess.

191. Real Steel

191. (06 Sep) Real Steel (2011, Shawn Levy) 23



I'm not clear how Real Steel has neither heart nor humor considering it's trying desperately to have both. Attempting to stack the deck with a down on his luck kid and parental bonding, Shawn Levy has no clue how to make his film in any way relatable. Headache-inducingly loud and garish, the fight scenes are so predictable there's really no way to derive pleasure from them. The script heaps on clichés so steadily that most scenes collapse from their top-heaviness. We're offered only the stupidest of surprises like a robot dance routine.

The acting is among the worst I've ever seen in film with this kind of budget. Dakota Goyo is the most awful child actor to come along since Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace. Evangeline Lilly is so humiliatingly amateurish you'd think she wandered out of a community theater. To his credit, Hugh Jackman is at least a certifiable leading man. His too brief shirtless scene is the only time there's any energy eminating from the screen.

The Oscar-nominated visual effects are okay, but truly nothing special. Motion capture and robot effects are common and Real Steel offers nothing in the way of newness.

Real Steel

I am actually lost for words. Real Steel did this to me. It's a film that has its heart in the right place, but fails on so many levels that it disheartened me tremendously.

Real Steel stars High Jackman as an ex-boxer, now participating in robot boxing, down on his luck and left with a son that he disowned. The film simply put lacks originality. Taking ideas from a few movies of the 80s and 90s it never rises up to anything spectacular. It primarily takes its story from Sylvester Stallone's Over The Top and places it in the not-so-distant future where rather than hand-wrestling we have robots fighting. There is an endless wait throughout the movie for something to happen. Unfortunately, when it does happen, and I’m guessing it is the end fight, which resembles Stallone's Rocky IV, it is nothing but a fizzle.   

Real Steel lacks emotion. The supposed father-son bonding does not have the same angst that we had in Over The Top. The "air boxing" that Hugh Jackman does in the final climatic fight is laughable. The family dynamics are just too Disney-esq and might have worked a couple of decades ago, but not anymore when people look for some reality and edge in relationships, even on screen.

Surprisingly enough, the only interesting aspect of the movie comes from hunk of metal piled together in the form of robots. The robot fights are fun, in-your-face, and intense. They are pictured meticulously and turn out to be the only saving grace during the entire abysmal film.

Real Steel works as a clean family movie, especially if you have a pre-teen son. It tries to be uplifting, with the father and son coming together as underdogs to take on the reigning Robot champion, but unfortunately it is the robots that show more emotion than the humans and that is why probably Real Steel is nothing but a stylized piece of movie dud.

Rating 2/5

   

Winner Breakdown: Best Visual Effects

Best Visual Effects:
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
- Hugo
- Real Steel
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon


Here comes a really unpopular opinion. The apes in Rise of the Planet of the Apes didn't like as good as everyone said. Sure, when you looked at them by themselves, or when they interact with each other, the look good. But they look so blatantly fake when they're next to humans that it was kind of silly. I had thought maybe I was the only one who thought this, but my dad sat down and watched the movie with me last week, and said the same thing. Anyone else? Sure, they looked amazing when you saw this: http://www.themagazine.ca/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/RISE-OF-THE-PLANET-OF-THE-APES-.jpg , but looked silly here: http://bluraymedia.ign.com/bluray/image/article/121/1214134/2-1080p_1323219298_640w.jpg 


However, I don't think my opinion will chance the outcome of the winners. Rise of the Planet of the Apes will likely win, since it did do a good job, and it's from the same people who did Avatar. But I'd really love to see Harry Potter win here. It had some fantastic Visual Effects (as always), this film being the big showcase for that. If anyone upsets Apes win, it'll be Potter. However, don't count out Scorsese favourite Hugo, though I feel it very less likely to win in this category. 

Will Win: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Could Win: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part II
Dark Horse: Hugo
Who I Want to Win: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part II

The Boy From Les Miz

"Who am I? Wolverine or 24601?"

Some hit Broadway musicals are adapted to film right away, some wait a couple years, and if you're a Cameron Mackintosh show, you take over two decades to hit the silver screen.

In the aftermath of this years Oscars, where Tom Hooper was crowned best Director for his helming of The King's Speech, news came that he was the favorite to direct the (finally!) adaptation of one of the world's biggest musical: Les Misérables.

News came yesterday that song and dance man Hugh Jackman (who's never graced film with his talents) was in talks to play one of the musical's famous two leading roles: hero Jean Valjean and antagonistic (not villain, but I'll get to that another day) Inspector Javert.  When word broke that  Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World's Paul Bettany had read and sung for Javert, all eyes turned towards Jackman as the cursed tragic hero Valjean.  Initially, I was more on the side of Jackman as Javert...but it seems Hollywood won't allow their leading man to be a bad guy.  Yet, oddly, they want him in what is a brooding man role but also a very paternal one.  Jackman's done the paternal thing before, over a decade ago with X-Men, but his relationship with rogue was just weird if you ask me.

So there we have it.  Our two leading men.  Jackman as Valjean and Bettany as Javert.  I'm thrilled to see how the rest of the cast materializes.  I've always thought Geoffrey Rush would be brilliant as Thénardier, but with him having already played Javert in a film adaptation of Les Miz (not the musical), I doubt to see him back on the streets of Paris.  Who's in your dream cast?

.

The 2008 Academy Awards

I thought this year’s Oscar show was one of the better ones of late, and not just because I got 20 out of 24 picks right. If I cared about most of the nominees I would have enjoyed the show even more.

Overall, this veteran Academy Awards watcher was pleased, and hope that first-time producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark will be asked back for another time. Next time, however, they can fix the things that were amiss at this year’s show.

The pacing was better than usual and even though it lengthened the evening, I did enjoy the various actors and actresses coming out to pay homage to this year’s nominees. There was some powerful star wattage on stage there.

I liked Hugh Jackman as host too, and hope they will invite him back. I liked the set and how the orchestra was placed onstage. He killed in his opening number though some of that goodwill became squandered after the second number.

Please, please, please, banish Baz Luhrmann to the Australian hinterlands for ever. His choreographed tribune to musicals was a huge mess, giving us a retread of his beyond ghastly “Moulin Rouge” (2001) where only snatches of songs were heard. Why was Hugh Jackman intermittently singing “Maria”? I know it’s a tribute to “West Side Story”, but this is the best they could come up with? It was painful. The kids from the “High School Musical” movies and “Mama Mia” were there, but I’m not sure why as they didn’t do much. Why aren’t these things planned better? I’ve seen numbers in PRC musicals that had more thought. Beyonce Knowles did get to sing a line or two of “At Last”, reminding me of how underrated “Cadillac Records” was.

The Best Song presentation was a mess too, meshing together the three nominated songs. Not a bad idea but not so good when “Down to Earth” from “Wall-E” is sung in counterpoint to “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionarie”, two songs that could not be any more different. And since Slumdog stars Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto were in attendance, why not ask them to recreate their “Jai Ho” dance number from “Slumdog.” The choreography is already done and they had the back-up dancers already on stage. It would have brought down the house.

The other thing that drove me absolutely bonkers was the memoriam segment. Thanks to our ADD-riddled culture, we can’t have a simple, dignified memorial to those that have passed in the past year. No, the camera had to swirl and swing in and out of the images, so much so that often we could not see who was being remembered. Again, don’t they run these things through rehearsal, see it’s not working and with the push of a few buttons just give us a straight-on view of the film clips? Or was it in Queen Latifah’s contract that she had to be shown as part of the sequence? Choosing to include her in the same frame with the screens during the memoriam sequence wound up serving no one.

As a loather of most anything associated with Judd Apatow, I will say I enjoyed the mini “Pineapple Express” movie with James Franco and Seth Rogen riffing on this year’s movies, especially the two stoners laughing hysterically during scenes of “The Reader.” And speaking of “The Reader”, it was a hoot when Hugh Jackman sang in his opening number that he hadn’t seen “The Reader.” I would have loved a Kate Winslet reaction shot to that. Why didn’t we get one? Did she look annoyed? Great, then show it. (Remember Russell Crowe’s reactions to some of the jabs host Steve Martin was throwing his way a few years ago. He was not amused).

And speaking of reaction shots, surely I was not the only one to wish for a cutaway to Brad and Angelina when Jennifer Aniston and Jack Black were presenting the Animation awards. I think there was quick one of Angelina, but wouldn’t you have liked to have them cut to the couple when Aniston first came out? What were their expressions when they were applauding? Unless representatives from the Brangelina camp asked the directors of the Academy show not to cut to them. What would they have done, blackball future Academy Awards? I don’t think so.

I did get a kick out of Ben Stiller’s Joaquin Phoenix take-off and Steve Martin continues to slay me. “Do not fall in love with me!” Classic. I’ll have to remember that line.

But it was a good show, the best one in years. I look forward to next year’s show, especially with the hope that I have a strong emotional connection to at least one of the nominated pictures. (Though I was glad “Slumdog Millionaire” won, as it was by far the best of the five nominated pictures).