Sometimes GC and I go months without going to the movies, but this week we went three days in a row.
First we went to the James Bond movie, Skyfall. It wasn’t a must-see for either of us, but it was the one with the most convenient show time when we first thought of catching a movie. We agreed it was a 6 out of 10 and I can’t think of anything else to say about it.
The next day we went to see Les Miserables. GC gave it a 7 and I gave it a 3, which reflects the fact that he likes musicals and I do not. I don’t like them because all that singing keeps reminding me that it’s not real life, so I can’t get into the story. But I figured I could put up with a little singing and dancing if it was a good movie otherwise.
The thing is, this movie is ALL singing. They sing every conversation, and often badly, with a camera zoomed halfway up their nostrils while they weep and caterwaul. (Just about everybody got a scene in which they got to weep and sing simultaneously in giant close-up view, and the only one who pulled it off was Anne Hathaway singing “I dreamed a dream,” which made me cry.)
But overall, this movie is long, drawn out, and overwrought, with few redeeming features, and I found it irritating. If you don’t like musicals, don’t expect Les Miserables to change that. But if you do like musicals, they say this is a pretty good one.
The third day we saw the Quentin Terantino flick, Django Unchained. I thought this one was the best of the three. It was a blood-and-guts, comic-western revenge-fest. Christoph Waltz as the dentist-bounty-hunter was lots of fun. This film was consistently entertaining and sometimes funny, and nobody sang a damned thing, which was fine by me.
I gave Django Unchained a 7; it would have been an 8 without all the over-the-top gratuitous gore. I had to close my eyes altogether for one scene, and there were several other scenes I wished I’d closed my eyes for. Also, the N-word was said so many times in this movie that it was stripped of its power. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
GC gave Django Unchained a 7.6.
I’ve been getting caught up on movies this week too – free online ones – I like this because if it’s bad I can turn it off without any guilt – I totally wasted my time with Jack and Diane because I assumed there was actually going to be some kind of story redemption! Worst film I’ve ever seen. I watched the Orphan because of your review – the black light art was worth the time spent, but the best films were the teen films – The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Art of Getting By were lovely movies
So waiting for you to go to and review The Hobbit!
I don’t like musicals either, for the exact same reason as you! I thought I was the only who couldn’t watch them. I don’t mind watching musicals in live theatre, but not as movies. I find them irritating and I feel embarassed for the characters. Don’t the people around them notice that they’ve suddenly and inappropriately broken out into over-emotional singing? I keep feeling that someone in the musical scene is going to say “why are you singing?” and then the people singing will notice how silly they are being and feel embarassed and then thankfully they will stop singing and get on with the story. But that never happens. I don’t think I could watch the Les Miserables movie from the way you describe it, I would be cringing all the way through.
I saw Les Miserables and enjoyed it but it certainly was no where near as good as seeing the live show. There’s something about the whole cast singing at the end on stage that makes me want to cry, sing, shout and smile. Didn’t feel that in the movie. I did love Helana Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie though. In my opinion they were the best part of the whole 2 hours & 37 minutes. I love musicals either live or on film. If I didn’t it would have been difficult to sit through this one.
But how about Les Parapluies de Cherbourg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Umbrellas_of_Cherbourg
where everything is sung, but you don’t really notice after a while because the whole thing is such a feast for the eyes? And isn’t Catherine Deneuve darn near as beautiful as Sigourney Weaver?