Most people in Hollywood are twits. How would you be if people waited on you hand and foot, and could lose their jobs simply for annoying you?

I read this and heard it in John Malkovich's Russian accent from Rounders.

IDK, I've heard really, really nasty rumors about her behavior. I think some of it is probably based on how she dated a few years ago. But I've heard several people volunteer 'Anne Hathaway is a bitch', as if it's not even a secret in Hollywood...

Though, a quick search on Google gave me the following article, where she herself regrets 'witch'-like behavior on the Les Mis set: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-new ... g-20122612

I'd still love a shot with her, obviously

As someone whose good friends with someone whose brother has worked with several times, i can attest that that is bullshit.

She isnt verly normal - she is a unique & more strong minded girl than one might initially suspect, but she is as real & well intentioned is anyone in hollywood. For being an actress, she is not fake whatsoever.

reality is, anybody at their 'worst' is a bitch or an asshole. One needs to judge events spanning years, not just a few isolated incidents. Christian Bale & Russel Crowe are as good hearted as they come, but you woldnt know it from a few minutes of recordings.

LOL

I can totally see her being a bitch.

The failure of Les Misérables' second act is also yet another example of how hard it is to present a revolution on screen, one driven by youthful people in particular. There is nothing more boring than a group of interchangeable dudes hanging out in a pub and bellowing patriotic platitudes at one another. There is no real sense of a driving hunger for change. It is just intellectual and artificial.

There are major exceptions, of course, including, recently, Milk.

I highly doubt it. This reminds me of a really good friend meeting Michelle Williams and he said she was just a miserable person. Honestly, I would imagine she would be moody while filming this movie, it wasn't an easy shoot for her.

I don't really have much to say about the movie since it seems redundant since I've been hyping it up for so long. It was wonderful and incredibly emotional. Anne Hathaway is excellent, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe are good. Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried are decent and they do what they have to do and Sam Barks is well, Sam Barks. I didn't have an issue with the direction either. My only minor complains are these; I didn't like the rearranging of "On My Own." It made Eponine seem like a MAJOR side character and more unimportant than she already is. Plus, having four songs with her whining is a bit overkill. I still stand by the fact that this musical would be just fine without the character, though I don't mind her really. The second quibble were the Thénardier's, which is funny because they were my boyfriends favorite part of the movie. They were definitely more down played than they are on stage, and not too terribly funny. I have never really liked the number "Master of the House" but it was definitely the worst bit of the movie, though still enjoyable. Other than that, it was definitely the rare "perfect" stage adaptation. Despite a long running time, it never seriously drags. Sure, there is definitely some stuff they could have edited it (some of "A Heart Full of Love" anyone?) but there is definitely some stuff they should/could have kept in (cutting verses of "Red and Black," "On My Own," "A Little Fall of Rain" and "Little People" was a tad off putting) but it doesn't hurt the movie by any means. It's my favorite movie of the year and I think this one will be a classic in the time to come and it will definitely change the making of process of a musical, and hopefully the way people view musicals.

10/10

CAN WE PLEASE HAVE A MOVIE ADAPTATION OF NEXT TO NORMAL WITH KATE WINSLET NOW?! K, THANX.

I'm sure we're going to get a lot more "live singing" musicals now thanks to Les Mis. Next to Normal with live singing would make so much sense though. I'd prefer to see Alice Ripley reprise her role, but it needs stars if it wants to get made.

Next to Normal would definitely need a star in the lead. As much as I love Ripley (I saw her four times and her final performance on Broadway), her performance wouldn't translate to film. At all. My dream cast is something like...

Diana - Kate Winslet
Dan - Robert Downey Jr.
Natalie - Anna Kendrick
Henry - Dan Byrd
Gabe - Aaron Tveit

From the moment Anne Hathaway was on the screen as Fantine until we're introduced to the adult Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) I enjoyed it a lot. I found Hathaway to be absolute perfection. Not only was the "I Dreamed A Dream" number the best part of the movie, I'd say it's one of my favorite scenes of the year because of Hathaway's wrenching performance of it. For this scene alone she's worthy of winning "Best Supporting Actress."

I also really liked the stuff involving the young Cosette and the Thénardier's (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter). But once the adult Cosette and Marius (Eddie Redmayne) entered the picture I started to lose interest. Not immediately, but this is where it went downhill for me. I didn't buy into their love in the slightest. I can't even say I was crazy about the character of Éponine (Samantha Barks). But I will say the performance of "On My Own" was my second favorite musical number in the film. I thought it was beautiful.

My complaints for this movie are going to sound silly, especially since going into it I knew this was one of those musicals where pretty much every line was sung, but I still found myself wishing there was more spoken dialogue in between the big numbers. This bothered me most during the last hour, when the film really started to try my patience with its long running time. I definitely found myself getting antsy and, while I hate to say it, the singing started to become kind of grating.

For the most part I thought Hugh Jackman was great in this. But a couple of times during the end I thought I thought he was off. One song between Jackman's Jean Valjean, Cosette, and Marius near the end almost made me want to start laughing.

Overall I did like this film, but it's definitely flawed. I know it's a silly thing to chastise the movie for being that it's a musical and they wanted to stay faithful to the source, but I greatly would have preferred them taking a few liberties and having some of the lines actually spoken. It just gets to be too much and some lines sound incredibly ludicrous being sung.

I did think it ended nicely though, so that's a plus. And Tom Hooper's direction wasn't terribly distracting. It's definitely noticeable but wasn't as much of a bother as I thought it would be.

7/10 (B-)

I love this cast. Can Downey sing? If he can, it's a great role for him. Diana is such an Oscar-friendly role that I wouldn't be surprised to see Winslet run to it.

Les Mis will definitely launch a new area of Hollywood musicals. Jersey Boys and Into the Woods are on their way... I really want a Spring Awakening adaptation, and I would love to see someone do RENT the right way and wash the 2005 film from my mouth, but that probably won't happen.

I'm not sure if he can, though when the show closed on Broadway there were rumors of a movie and I guess he was being considered for Dan, so I'm sure he can enough to sing the score. Honestly, it's not that difficult of a role to sing. A lot of it can be talk sung through, so if he has a decent voice it wouldn't be bad.

I definitely don't want a Spring Awakening movie, but it's been rumored for years. McG was attached to direct it, but I don't know what ever happened to it. I've never been much of a fan of it to be honest. I saw both the original cast and the replacement cast (only because I really wanted to see Hunter Parish because I loved Weeds at the time) and I was unmoved. It was very choppy. They made big issues (like the girl being abused by her father) and then after it was sung about, it was never mentioned again. It was quite annoying, IMO. I do love most of the music though, but the book was so bad. It's also something I doubt would translate to screen well at all, and I'm sure they would want it to be PG-13 since it would be targeted towards teens, and that in itself wouldn't work.

Well she beat up a cripple in TDKr, so she's not so nice.

The near-constant singing is, indeed, its downfall. The film never takes a break, never stops to catch its breath, and as a result there's almost no sense of momentum or narrative propulsion. It's just a single, two-and-a-half-hour musical number. None of the characters are particularly engaging, none of the songs are real showstoppers (even I Dreamed a Dream is hampered by Hooper's awful camerawork), and even the visual spectacle is mostly lost here, again due to the director's bizarre framing techniques. The cast is fine, I guess, but even Hathaway didn't overly impress me (all things being equal, I thought she was better in TDKR). Can someone win an Oscar for a single song? I guess Jennifer Hudson did, so...

I didn't hate it. The overall production is impressive. I'll always like Hugh Jackman. Crowe's rock vocals were a nice change of pace from all the sopranos and tenors and whatnot. Bonham Carter and Baron Cohen inject some much-needed comedy into such a grim tale (and, indeed, their number was my favourite part). It's just too long and too dark and too much. Bleh.

An opera called The Miserables has too much singing and is too dark? I am shocked, shocked.

I for one was not prepared for how tedious the nonstop singing would become. I went in, "Oh, it's 'sung through,' eh? Interesting..." But going from song to song to song, each long and coated with syrup, becomes borderline torture. I was close to writhing in my seat during the interminable scenes introducing the band of merry revolutionaries.

And it creates this feeling each actor is existing in their own world; the intended tension between Jean Valjean and Javert is never truly felt because Crowe and Jackman just sing at each other or sing of each other.

It's opera, David. Not saying you have to like it, but that is most certainly what Les Mis is.

Poor Victor Hugo. A rape should be reported.

The Statute of Limitations has long since passed.

Necrophilia is illegal, isn't it?

LES MISERABLES

Not exactly the way I like "musical" films with barely any actual dialogue spoken normally rather it's almost all singing. I can deal. I have never seen the musical live or in other film versions so it was fresh for me. I enjoyed this story of redemption and conviction that JVJ had throughout his life. I liked the performance of Hathaway as Fantine. It was a much shorter role than I expected. I didn't know she died or even what she died from and that the most famous song I know happens so early in the film. It was superb. She has a wonderful voice and I'll grade those further down. I thought Crowe was a weird choice in the beginning and it's due his singing but it kind of grew on me as the film rolled along. The cut of young Cozette's life with her caretakers was good and one of the few times my audience was able to react to the film. Then we get older Cozette and I'm sorry but I thought Seyfried could sing, but she just didn't do it well in the film. She had so much vibrato in every little note and I think she was singing to high too. I enjoyed most of the song performances throughout. Later in the film, I didn't get why Cozette's non sister was so infatuated with that guy. He's not offering anything in return yet she's obsessed with him. Her singing was excellent though. The rebel "leader's" singing was also very good. Finally, a couple other points that were a bit eh to me is why all these british actors in the film set in France when their accents just overload the screen. Such as the little boy for example, who performed well acting and singing but all these brit accents just kind of annoyed me. Another thing is if JVJ is trying to start a new life why does he keep staying in the city, town, region that Javere is in for almost 2 decades? What's wrong with him?! And how they kept running into each other is bordering ridiculous. That said I still liked the film for it's story and the singing performances.

Anne - A
Jackman - A
Crowe - B/C
Seyfried - D/F
Eddie - B
Cohen - B
Carter - C
Tveit - A
Barks - A

Film - A

Oh, who wouldn't love to see Hathaway as Joan of Arc? Didn't she look the part in her short hair at the end? Just me?

I agree. I never once shed a tear from this movie and I honestly believe the lack of spoken dialogue is a big factor. It made it hard to take seriously at times and become truly invested in the story. And going into it, like David, I knew it was nonstop singing. But by the last hour I was really tired of it. A better film could have been made if they'd used more spoken dialogue. It would have made the actual musical numbers seem more special. But for the most part it all runs together with only a few songs standing out and being discernible from the rest.

There is also an intimacy deficiency. For example: the musical number before the final fight where Valjean expresses his concern for the safety of the man his adopted daughter loves ("Bring Him Home," I believe). This scene should be tender, touching, and quiet, but instead the camera is staring up Hugh Jackman's nose as he loudly and proudly sings to the cheap seats. It just doesn't feel right. The camera is insisting on the intimate, but the performance is so calculated and so broad and obviously not intended for such close observation.