I’m willing to admit that last year, I talked 2011 a bit more than necessary. Not that my feelings on the year were dishonest; contrary to many, I thought well of 2011, a year that didn’t contain a plethora of lasting classics but still offered a lot of excellent cinema for our viewing pleasure. But to call it a “great” year may have been a stretch, and I’m willing to admit that now in light of the fact that 2012 has, in fact, been a great year. How can you trust me on this one? Simple: I’ve written my top ten list, re-written it, scrapped that, started over from the…
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G-S-T Review…Les Misérables
There’s little use in trying to disguise my frustration with Tom Hooper’s sluggish interpretation of Les Misérables, though in the interest of full disclosure I should acknowledge immediately that I have never seen the musical on which it is based. (And it’s been years since I read Victor Hugo’s original novel.) Put another way, I have no personal ideal of what Les Mis should be, so as far as it concerned me, Hooper– who successfully directed a strong cast of performers to Oscar gold two years ago with The King’s Speech— had the floor here. A shame, then, that he squanders the opportunity by muting his strengths as a filmmaker…
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Ohhh, Look…Extended First Look At Les Misérables
I know many of us were prepared to accept that Lincoln would dominate come awards time, but we made an oversight: we didn’t let Tom Hooper speak his piece. And now he has. Today, Universal Pictures has released a four minute clip of behind the scenes footage from Hooper’s upcoming adaptation of legendary musical Les Misérables (via Regal Cinemas’ Youtube channel). Put simply, the production looks and sounds spectacular, but watch the clip below yourself and see what you think: The foremost element of the clip is the heavy focus on the live singing, which makes sense. Eschewing prerecorded tracks in favor of letting the cast belt out their own…