If you and the fam headed to the multiplex to watch one of the season’s big new releases this week , chances are you caught Tom Hooper ‘s epic weepie Les Miserables or Quentin Tarantino ‘s Django Unchained . (Or maybe the in-laws dragged you to Parental Guidance , in which case, my condolences.) We’ll get spoilery all over Django later, but for now let’s get to hashing out the answer to the question that’s been on every showtune-lover’s mind for months: Which Les Miz cast member totally nailed the live-sung suffering for the big screen (and whose warblings made us les miserables )? I’ll start: Anne Hathaway ? NAILED IT. I’ll admit I was tres apprehensive at first listen when the trailers featuring her tremulous Fantine cry-singing hit the web. Watching the whole film, however, it’s clear Hathaway and Hugh Jackman are leading a masterclass in sing-acting for the entire Les Miserables cast, and in context the breathy imperfect perfection of Hathaway’s “I Dreamed A Dream” is downright heart-wrenching. It’s been said before, but the Oscar already belongs to that hitch in her voice that hits as she’s choking on tears while wailing about her miserable prostitute life with Hooper’s camera all up in her face — one of the only performances in the film riveting and emotional enough to sustain those damned extended close-ups . Runner-up for best performance in Les Miserables goes to Jackman, who wows in Jean Valjean’s pre-bath scenes with a filthy, feral energy that I honestly didn’t think he had in him. Pacing back and forth in the bishop’s chapel during “What Have I Done?” Jackman is riveting; you can see Valjean’s confused, broken mind reeling as Jackman spits and cries out in song, and Hooper’s camera work actually fits the number. It’s a shame, then, that the nearly three-hour running time of Les Miserables suffers from Jackman fatigue by the time Valjean’s singing his umpteenth song. On second thought, I’ll give Jackman a tie for runner-up with the little kid who plays Gavroche. (His name’s Daniel Huttlestone. He’s 12. He started his career on the West End. What have you done with your life lately?) Talk about making the most out of a handful of screen minutes; I’d trade a dozen of Jackman’s blah Valjean scenes for more of the impish street urchin who fights on the front lines with the students. I’d watch Gavroche picking pockets, or scamming rich folk, or stealing hearts up and down the dirty streets of Paris. In fact, can we just make him the Han of Les Miz and give him his own Fast & Furious -style prequel where he goes on a Moonrise Kingdom -esque adventure that never ends? (Also great: Samantha Barks as Eponine , the patron saint of girls harboring unrequited life-and-death crushes on boys who are too dumb to see what’s in front of them, and Aaron Tveit AKA Tripp from Gossip Girl as Enjolras.) Now for the not-so-great performances. Let’s just say that Amanda Seyfried ‘s birdlike soprano trill is totes fine, but I daresay she was wasted in the role of Cosette, AKA The Most Boring Girl In All Of France. I can take or leave Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers, whose slapsticky numbers took some folks out of the abject misery of Les Mis but didn’t move the needle for me in either direction. Russell Crowe did himself no favors in my book with his mismatched 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts belting , but Hooper made it worse with those CG crane shots of Javert, wailing existential above the sewers in a dead-armed stance. I love me some Russell Crowe, but by the time he finally jumped to his death with a sigh of despair, I was rooting for it. Sweet, sweet relief. So, Movieliners: Did you hear the Les Miserables cast sing? Who made your heartstrings ache the hardest? Who sung the sweetest through the tears? Which cast members would you let warble their most miserable miseries in your castle on a cloud? READ MORE ABOUT LES MISERABLES : ‘Les Misérables’ Hits High Notes, But Also Skitters Great Moments In ‘Les Miserables’ Mania: Katie Holmes Sings ‘On My Own’ On ‘Dawson’s Creek’ Early Reaction: Oscar Race Heats Up As NYC Screening Of ‘Les Miserables’ Prompts Cheers & Tears Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
John Ford may be one of American cinema’s great directors, but Quentin Tarantino has some choice words for the maker of such film classics as The Searchers , Stagecoach , and The Grapes of Wrath : “To say the least, I hate him,” Tarantino told The Root in a recent conversation about Django Unchained . What’s more, he says Ford inspired him to write a scene in Django Unchained in which comically inept proto-Klansmen get their just desserts. Earlier this month, Django producer Stacey Sher alluded to Tarantino’s animosity toward Ford at the film’s PGA screening. “He’s not a John Ford fan,” she said. “Do you know why? John Ford was a Klansman in Birth of a Nation , so Quentin can’t really get past that — and I can’t blame him.” That’s terrifically provocative and explanatory a statement in itself, but in a fantastically in-depth interview at The Root , Tarantino explains the Ford beef further : Oddly enough, where I got the idea for the Klan guys [in Django Unchained ] — they’re not Klan yet, the Regulators arguing about the bags [on their heads] — as you may well know, director John Ford was one of the Klansmen in The Birth of a Nation , so I even speculate in the piece: Well, John Ford put on a Klan uniform for D.W. Griffith. What was that about? What did that take? He can’t say he didn’t know the material. Everybody knew The Clansman [on which Birth of a Nation was based] at that time as a piece of material. …he put on the Klan uniform. He got on the horse. He rode hard to black subjugation. As I’m writing this — and he rode hard, and I’m sure the Klan hood was moving all over his head as he was riding and he was riding blind — I’m thinking, wow. That probably was the case. How come no one’s ever thought of that before? Five years later, I’m writing the scene and all of a sudden it comes out. One of my American Western heroes is not John Ford, obviously. To say the least, I hate him. Forget about faceless Indians he killed like zombies. It really is people like that that kept alive this idea of Anglo-Saxon humanity compared to everybody else’s humanity — and the idea that that’s hogwash is a very new idea in relative terms. And you can see it in the cinema in the ’30s and ’40s — it’s still there. And even in the ’50s. A true cinephile controversy! (Read/listen to the whole interview here .) Pot, consider yourself stirred. Discuss! [ The Root h/t @GlennWhipp ]
Photo via MLive After the passing of the nation’s longest-serving senator, the obituaries have been generally focusing on a similar narrative: That Robert Byrd (D-WV) was a man of transformations. From Ku Klux Klansmen to a supporter of Barack Obama. But most of these obits are omitting another important transformation the late senator underwent; from a longtime supporter of all things coal to a man who recognized the importance of beginning a transition to a clean energy economy. Indeed, one of the
Breaking Sports Video
