![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
So, having said recently that I don't really watch films very often, I've seen three in the last week.
Cabin in the Woods: apparently I really can't handle horror, oh dear. But I'm glad I watched it and I did really enjoy the bits where I wasn't hiding behind my laptop! :D? And the premise was really cool.
The Amazing Spider-Man: I missed this when it was in the cinema because I was too busy muttering "another Spider-Man already and YET NO WOMEN FILMS" (yes, I know it was a rights issue, I'm still cross). I enjoyed it a lot, though not enough that I was bothered about not having seen it in the cinema. The two leads were excellent (and CUTE AS BUTTONS together). Andrew Garfield was wonderfully emotional, hitting the understated "I am sad when he is sad" note rather than the "woe so angsty no-one understands my pain and it is the PAINIEST" one, while Emma Stone was sharp and cool and adorable. Well done, chaps. I did think the tone was a bit wobbly in places, though, and there was one moment I really didn't like: Peter stealing that poor guy's pass. That intern thingy might have been really important for him! I might have let it pass, but then there was that attempted comedy scene of the real Roderigo being thrown out. :(
Back to stuff I did like: The basketball scene I thought did a great job of having Peter behave badly without alienating the viewer: I could sympathise both with his actions and with UncleBartlett Ben's disapproval. I loved the early scene where Peter and Gwen stand up to Flash. It establishes that they are both basically heroic anyway, spider serum or not, which tied in nicely with the themes about doing the best you can with the abilities you have. See also, Gwen's heroics in the lab towards the end. I really liked that these weren't overplayed: it wasn't a big "look at all the things she is doing", it was just... here is an intelligent, resourceful woman, in a place she knows well, dealing with what's in front of her with aplomb. ♥ And I was really pleased that the film didn't after all end with Peter staying away from Gwen ~for her own good~, though I wish that idea had been challenged a little more.
ALSO I SAW LES MISERABLES. (This was yesterday evening; I came home, typed all of this up, and then went to bed without posting it because it was nearly midnight.) Um. Mostly it just made me want to see the stage version again. There was a fair bit of stuff I liked, but I think overall they made a bit of a pig's ear of it. I should probably mention at this point that I was really into Les Mis in my early teens, and therefore have a lot of love and not much critical distance from it. ONWARD. I think it needed to commit more to being a musical? I felt it was a bit uneasy with the fact that that's what it was and tried to go a bit more for realism, which made everyone bursting into song all the time only seem odder. One of the strengths of the musical, I think, is the way it goes "YES THIS IS AN EPIC SWEEPING TRAGEDY WITH SONGS, DEAL WITH IT".
Performances: I'm not really qualified to pass comment on actual singing skills, to be honest, and do tend to judge people by whether they sounded like what they did on my tape (I am even slightly judgy at bits of the 10th Anniversary version for this reason). That being said. I thought Anne Hathaway was amazing, her performance really worked for me. I have an inexplicable soft spot for Russell Crowe (I blame Master and Commander. However much I try and tell myself he's not actual Jack Aubrey, I can't entirely believe it), so didn't mind him as much as I probably should've. I thought all the younger generation were fine; Samantha Barks was great, and Amanda Seyfried was good though used a bit too much vibrato for my taste. HOWEVER. HUGH JACKMAN. WHAT WAS THAT. I went in thinking, "oh, at least Hugh Jackman knows what he's doing, he'll be fine". HE WAS NOT FINE. What was all that weird nasally business? It ruined "Bring Him Home" for me, and I love "Bring Him Home". BAH. The worst of it is, he didn't do it all the time (he was fine in "One Day More"), so I don't understand why he did it at all. I AM DISAPPOINT.
Cuts and changes: so many small pointless cuts and rewritten lines! For example: Why cut Marius's line from "Every Day" where he's wondering who saved him? All that did was make a nonsense of Cosette's reply. Why change "would you weep, Cosette, should Marius fall?", to "would you weep, Cosette, if I were to fall?"? It serves no purpose but to annoy pedants and, as a pedant, I was duly annoyed. And speaking of "Drink With Me"... where were the first two verses? They're my favourites! (I missed the rest of "Turning" as well, tbh.) I love Gavroche (haters to the left) so was sad to lose "Little People", though I SUPPOSE some things had to go and it wasn't that big a deal really. I would rather have had it than "Suddenly", though, which I did not like at all. Moving "Do You Hear The People Sing?" wasn't so bad, though it did give me a few minutes of terror that it was going to be cut. The big one, of course, is moving "On My Own". NO DON'T DO THAT. I sat through "A Little Fall of Rain" dry eyed, because I was too annoyed at how Eponine's storyline had been messed up. GAH.
The Thenardiers: "Master of the House" was fine, though I would've liked it... broader? More grotesque? More something, anyway. But cutting the section in the sewers and turning "Beggars At The Feast" into straightforward farce also took out the dark, sinister undercurrent that they bring, and was a mistake. (Same with playing "The Bargain"/"Waltz of Treachery" for laughs, now I think about it.)
Odd directorial choices: what was with all the close-ups on people's faces? It was really off-putting, particularly in Valjean's soliloquy (though Hugh Jackman's performance did not help here. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME HUGH). And "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" really loses something when instead of the empty café all you can see is GIANT MARIUSFACE. The staging of "Stars" was somewhat strange too, though I suppose it was supposed to foreshadow Javert's suicide? "One Day More" popped up on iTunes as I was writing this and reminded me that all the quick cutting at the end of that didn't quite work, though I'm not sure how else it could've been handled.
Basically, if even I'm going, "well, that needed more darkness and fewer GIANT FACES", you know there's a problem.
To end on a positive: I really liked the ending, I thought it worked very well, possibly because the film could stop bothering with trying to be realistic? But yes, that was great.
Cabin in the Woods: apparently I really can't handle horror, oh dear. But I'm glad I watched it and I did really enjoy the bits where I wasn't hiding behind my laptop! :D? And the premise was really cool.
The Amazing Spider-Man: I missed this when it was in the cinema because I was too busy muttering "another Spider-Man already and YET NO WOMEN FILMS" (yes, I know it was a rights issue, I'm still cross). I enjoyed it a lot, though not enough that I was bothered about not having seen it in the cinema. The two leads were excellent (and CUTE AS BUTTONS together). Andrew Garfield was wonderfully emotional, hitting the understated "I am sad when he is sad" note rather than the "woe so angsty no-one understands my pain and it is the PAINIEST" one, while Emma Stone was sharp and cool and adorable. Well done, chaps. I did think the tone was a bit wobbly in places, though, and there was one moment I really didn't like: Peter stealing that poor guy's pass. That intern thingy might have been really important for him! I might have let it pass, but then there was that attempted comedy scene of the real Roderigo being thrown out. :(
Back to stuff I did like: The basketball scene I thought did a great job of having Peter behave badly without alienating the viewer: I could sympathise both with his actions and with Uncle
ALSO I SAW LES MISERABLES. (This was yesterday evening; I came home, typed all of this up, and then went to bed without posting it because it was nearly midnight.) Um. Mostly it just made me want to see the stage version again. There was a fair bit of stuff I liked, but I think overall they made a bit of a pig's ear of it. I should probably mention at this point that I was really into Les Mis in my early teens, and therefore have a lot of love and not much critical distance from it. ONWARD. I think it needed to commit more to being a musical? I felt it was a bit uneasy with the fact that that's what it was and tried to go a bit more for realism, which made everyone bursting into song all the time only seem odder. One of the strengths of the musical, I think, is the way it goes "YES THIS IS AN EPIC SWEEPING TRAGEDY WITH SONGS, DEAL WITH IT".
Performances: I'm not really qualified to pass comment on actual singing skills, to be honest, and do tend to judge people by whether they sounded like what they did on my tape (I am even slightly judgy at bits of the 10th Anniversary version for this reason). That being said. I thought Anne Hathaway was amazing, her performance really worked for me. I have an inexplicable soft spot for Russell Crowe (I blame Master and Commander. However much I try and tell myself he's not actual Jack Aubrey, I can't entirely believe it), so didn't mind him as much as I probably should've. I thought all the younger generation were fine; Samantha Barks was great, and Amanda Seyfried was good though used a bit too much vibrato for my taste. HOWEVER. HUGH JACKMAN. WHAT WAS THAT. I went in thinking, "oh, at least Hugh Jackman knows what he's doing, he'll be fine". HE WAS NOT FINE. What was all that weird nasally business? It ruined "Bring Him Home" for me, and I love "Bring Him Home". BAH. The worst of it is, he didn't do it all the time (he was fine in "One Day More"), so I don't understand why he did it at all. I AM DISAPPOINT.
Cuts and changes: so many small pointless cuts and rewritten lines! For example: Why cut Marius's line from "Every Day" where he's wondering who saved him? All that did was make a nonsense of Cosette's reply. Why change "would you weep, Cosette, should Marius fall?", to "would you weep, Cosette, if I were to fall?"? It serves no purpose but to annoy pedants and, as a pedant, I was duly annoyed. And speaking of "Drink With Me"... where were the first two verses? They're my favourites! (I missed the rest of "Turning" as well, tbh.) I love Gavroche (haters to the left) so was sad to lose "Little People", though I SUPPOSE some things had to go and it wasn't that big a deal really. I would rather have had it than "Suddenly", though, which I did not like at all. Moving "Do You Hear The People Sing?" wasn't so bad, though it did give me a few minutes of terror that it was going to be cut. The big one, of course, is moving "On My Own". NO DON'T DO THAT. I sat through "A Little Fall of Rain" dry eyed, because I was too annoyed at how Eponine's storyline had been messed up. GAH.
The Thenardiers: "Master of the House" was fine, though I would've liked it... broader? More grotesque? More something, anyway. But cutting the section in the sewers and turning "Beggars At The Feast" into straightforward farce also took out the dark, sinister undercurrent that they bring, and was a mistake. (Same with playing "The Bargain"/"Waltz of Treachery" for laughs, now I think about it.)
Odd directorial choices: what was with all the close-ups on people's faces? It was really off-putting, particularly in Valjean's soliloquy (though Hugh Jackman's performance did not help here. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME HUGH). And "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" really loses something when instead of the empty café all you can see is GIANT MARIUSFACE. The staging of "Stars" was somewhat strange too, though I suppose it was supposed to foreshadow Javert's suicide? "One Day More" popped up on iTunes as I was writing this and reminded me that all the quick cutting at the end of that didn't quite work, though I'm not sure how else it could've been handled.
Basically, if even I'm going, "well, that needed more darkness and fewer GIANT FACES", you know there's a problem.
To end on a positive: I really liked the ending, I thought it worked very well, possibly because the film could stop bothering with trying to be realistic? But yes, that was great.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 15 Jan 2013 11:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Jan 2013 18:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2013 14:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Jan 2013 11:25 (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Jan 2013 17:00 (UTC)And yes, definitely agree. That, and about what sort of behaviour is actually godly/good. Javert's strict adherence to the letter of the law VS Valjean (and the bishop) helping people in spite of their sins and giving second chances.
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2013 22:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2013 23:20 (UTC)See, we should have been in charge of this film.
no subject
Date: 20 Jan 2013 20:42 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Nov 2017 12:15 (UTC)(Jenni and I were talking about this post on the bus earlier this week and turns out I DID NOT comment at the time, but the more time passes the more underwhelmed by this version I am. Sigh.)
(Also it's like 5 years old now, WHAT)
no subject
Date: 15 Jan 2013 19:47 (UTC)Amazing Spider-Man! It was ADORABLE. Someone wrote a fic for yuletide where Gwen basically became Peter's Oracle (well, without the getting shot part) and that was adorable, too. Hold on, let me find it for you in my bookmarks. AHA. Here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/594215) it is.
Also, I have a comics question for you. Have you read Batman: The Gates of Gotham? I read it yesterday and CASS. I LOVE CASS.
no subject
Date: 15 Jan 2013 21:16 (UTC)YAY CASS! I'm so glad you love her! ♥ I have read Gates of Gotham; I liked it a lot and wish there were more things like it (and that it hadn't been set when Steph was in England). I liked Bilal story at the end too.
no subject
Date: 15 Jan 2013 21:57 (UTC)BUT THEN SHE WAS THE BEST. Because she didn't react at Damian even though he was being terrible to her the whole time, but she also wouldn't let him tell her what to do. Even if she had to pick him up and jump out a window so they didn't die. AND DICK LET HER DRIVE THE BATMOBILE. And then when Dick was being angsty about Gotham, Cass was like, NOPE, WE ARE ALL SAD AND LIFE GOES ON. While still driving the Batmobile. Because she is perfect.
no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2013 17:36 (UTC)But yes, she was so awesome in Gates of Gotham! And she got to interact with her family, and be entirely unbothered by Damian. ♥ I really need to reread it.
no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2013 18:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2013 18:48 (UTC)