Les MIz Counter-Backlash
With the ecstatic gushing for Les Miserables following Friday’s Avery Fisher Hall screening, it’s a given that the backlash will kick in…when? After the first round of LA screenings this weekend? Or a bit later? I knew a backlash was in the cards when Lyn Stairmaster wrote at the end of his rave, “Questions, bitches?” That meant “put up your dukes….the fans of this film will face you on the barricades.” But if Les Miz is as good as some insist, the counter-backlash will kick in sometime in mid-December and it’ll be clear sailing.
If Gabe the Playlist is reading this, I’d appreciate a thought or two.
God, this is a bloodless sport. But in the spirit of the discourse, what are the stats on musicals in the Best Pic winner’s circle? At some point it’s all a Nate Silver exercise.
This is where I write…
“Lenny Bruce is gone, but his ghost lives on and on. Never did get any Golden Globe award, never made it to Synanon.” – Bob Dylan
….and go back to what I was doing.
Ramin Setoodeh is clearly a major intellect.
People who argue that there is no possible justification for high school bullying are forced to reexamine their position after reading about a hundred words worth of Ramin Setoodeh.
I’m suspicious of the Best Picture prospects of any modern day musical that doesn’t have some sort of in-movie explanation for the singing. People just up and singing without explanation, to express their emotions or inner thoughts is anathema to online snarkers and literalists. Chicago won, imo, in part because it was explained as being Roxy’s imagination. And people still begrudge that win.
And in terms of box office success, I guess it depends what’s considered ‘good’ for Les Mis, because I can see the lack of explanation for the singing being an issue with the general public as well. If you look at the recent high grossing musicals they’re comedies or aimed at kids or teenage girls.
So is $60mil considered good for this film? Because I can see it reaching that, but I have a tough time seeing it breaking too far over $100million unless it really is just that good.
fwiw — i attended the full-house noon screening at the chinese…tom holland was there to intro the film and cast members eddie redmayne and amanda seyfried as well as audience members helen mirren and taylor hackford… beautifully realized adaptation, consistently terrific performances (really, really welcome comic relief from sacha baron-cohen and helena bonham-carter) and received a couple of ovations from the audience… that said, it seemed endless with way too many songs reprised…i’m guessing it’ll get a bundle of nominations but only make fair money during theatrical release…
also — keep in mind this is being handled by the brain-trust that is universal marketing and they can fuck up just about anything so box-office is kind of a crap shoot….
Hey Scooter, I was there at the Chinese too! I got so mad when Tom Holland wouldn’t stop talking about Fright Night and The Temp, when it should’ve been obvious everyone wanted him to talk about Les Miz instead!
chase — was that at the q&a?…there was no way i was sticking around after almost three (hundred?) hours of ‘les miz’….
I’m with Gaydos and PastePotPete. It’s doubtful LES MIZ will chalk up anything but the requisite Oscar noms.
Scooter, uh, that was a joke. The director is Tom HOOPER, not Tom Holland.
guess i should have caught that, huh?
this will make $60 million in its first weekend. haters gonna hate
One of the dumbest prejudices of some contemporary filmgoers is the bias against
musicals in which people “just get up and sing.” Well, hello . . . this is a genre. These people don’t like or understand musicals and probably have seen none or almost none from the Golden Age when that kind of film was more common and highly popular. To more sophisticated filmgoers, great musicals from the past and the rare ones from the present are still popular.
Bob Hightower, it probably doesn’t need to be said but I agree completely. It boggles my mind that some people just can’t get past people breaking into song at regular intervals (usually, in my experience, because it’s not “realistic”), but they completely understand people breaking into gun battles, slapstick setpieces, or any other actually completely unrealistic thing that happens on the regular in various genres. I’m actually biased against musicals where they bend over backwards to make up a reason for the songs.
Les Miserables on the stage – there is NO dialog. Everything is in the songs and lyrics.
my understanding from the screenings is that the film version is basically the same as the stage re lack of dialogue
Ramin’s comment on The Master suggests his IQ is in double figures at best.
I’m actually a fan of the musical, but am struggling to work up much excitement for seeing Les Miserables transferred to the big screen. I initially thought Crowe, channeling a little bit of Maximus, would have made a perfect Jean Valjean rather than Javert, but I guess his apparent inability to hold a tune would have rendered that unworkable.
Not sure what it is about Tom Hooper that I find so uncompelling, but still haven’t even got around to watching The King’s Speech yet.
like the stage version, the film is a sung-through musical..if there are fifty words of dialog, i’d be surprised…now we can rehash the argument about the difference between an ‘opera’ and a ‘musical’ (as happened when ‘sweeney todd’ was released)….
Can’t speak to Les Miserables, since I haven’t seen it yet.
However, I just came home from seeing Lincoln (went to the 12:45 showing) and it’s playing in the two biggest auditoriums at the Century Regency in San Rafael, CA. I went across to the other big auditorium after my showing–which was only a few rows away from being sold out–and was astonished to see a completely *packed* house, with people literally sitting in the back watching the film on the floor, for there were not enough seats in the place to hold everyone.
The film *killed* at my screening, with a large segment of the audience remaining in the auditorium throughout the entire end credits, with a loud, robust wave of applause upon the film’s conclusion. It seemed to be playing like gangbusters in the other auditorium as I stuck around long enough to soak in what seemed like the audience’s general reaction to what they were seeing.
The next showing in “Auditorium 1″ was at 4:15, and right there, at 3:35, there was a line assembled waiting for the staff to clean the auditorium out, and the line went all the way out of the building. One member of the cinema’s staff said the next showing was “95% sold out.”
Dozens of people were still hanging around from my showing discussing the film and its many layers.
Great experience.
Lincoln can’t win for a very simple reason. The knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing Republicans are the ones who are turning out en masse for this film. When all my conservative friends, who go to movies maybe three times a year have already seen this, you know it’s hitting the Fox News crowd. Maybe they view it as penance for having lost another election. Maybe it’s fulfillment for how they wish they still were. Either way, the Academy will rally behind Les Miz and the story’s underclass in a huge way.
i’m as liberal as they come and i loved Lincoln. as did the full house at AFI Fest here in “Western Greece.” good films are good films.
“Lincoln can’t win for a very simple reason. The knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing Republicans are the ones who are turning out en masse for this film.”
Chase, I hope you’re trying to be funny or sarcastic, but I highly doubt that the heart of Marin County, California has enough Republicans to keep filling up a couple of very large auditoriums for Lincoln over and over and over since the film came to this location on November 16th.
It’s funny and amusing that the Lincoln/Les Miz battle can be seen by some as another expression of political turmoil, nevertheless, however.
http://www.jumpcutjunkies.com/2012/11/lesser-miserables-wonderful-world-of.html
Too tired to write further.
But if you must…
-Russell Crowe’s voice is more suited for a rock opera.
-Eddie Redmayne, though… lovely voice.
-This movie isn’t about anything but itself. It’s a giant bauble of a Hollywood stage musical. You know if you’ll like it or not already.
-Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter’s “comic relief” is embarrassing camp schtick. Terrible tone-deaf stuff.
-This film has zero subtle moments. Fans will counter, “It’s Les Mis!” Well, yeah.
-Not a single set feels real, and all the accompanying CGI looks like a heightened Baz Luhrmann thing, except not intentionally stylized.
-If you never saw the musical, the character relationships will not work for you because you need an imaginative filmmaker to get beyond the artifice of the singing (it’s all singing). That’s why no one really makes musicals anymore — it’s hard, and most directors are shit. Hooper keeps randomly cutting, his transitions are awful, his shot composition could make a cinematographer cry, and he fails to establish the most basic emotional grounding for, say, Valjean and Cossette, who seem like strangers. Hugh Jackman, poor guy, is repeatedly upstaged by the film’s spatial and character incompetence.
-It’s loud and tacky. If you have to spend money on this, and you’re not looking forward to it, DON’T GO.
“Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter’s “comic relief” is embarrassing camp schtick”
bullshit…it’s called ‘relief’ for a reason and i can’t think of another instance where relief is needed…it may not be your kind of ‘schtick’ but without it the film would have been all the more oppressive…
should read: “…where relief is needed as much”
Holy Shit, are you telling me that a film critic that bitched about a film – who bitched about a film BEFORE he saw it – suddenly doesn’t like it? Sheesh, I can’t believe it.
Premature backlash is the web equivalent of “That asshole looked at me funny!”
That dude Ramin is right about one thing, The Master WAS dreadful. Only hipsters could get with such an empty piece of fluff.
VICTOR HUGO SAYS
“Haters be hatin’.”
Duluoz Gray, after reading comment #27: “‘Asshole?’ Did someone say ‘ASSHOLE’?”
I saw Lincoln for the 2nd time and it holds up incredibly well. I recommend seeing it twice to fully savor Day-Lewis’ extraordinary performance – you can really notice and appreciate all of his little subtle physical mannerisms and vocal intonations. A fully-inhabited and realized performance.
I saw the film in a packed theater and the audience was fully absorbed in the film. The clearest indication of this was people practically sprinting to and from the bathroom because they didn’t want to miss any parts of the film. There was very loud applause as the credits rolled.
Duluoz,
The Master was great. You just feel it makes you appear smart to hate on everything.
It doesn’t.
Lincoln, by the way, made 25 million over the holiday weekend and is already up to 62 domestically. It’s playing on 1500 fewer screens than Skyfall and 2000 fewer than Twilight and it has a higher per-screen average than either film.
“Man of the people” Wells is right. Mass audiences aren’t liking and responding to Lincoln well at all!
Completely agree with you, cinefan. I’ve now seen Lincoln twice and I can’t recommend doing so enough. For the sake of the performances, for the tight, *tight* construction of the multiple narratives, perhaps even for a more thorough understanding of the entire film’s timeline. It’s astonishing to me that Spielberg, Kushner, et. al. made a film that, for almost 90% of its runtime, covers approximately 20-25 days and it feels like one of the most expansive American epics in many a year. You can better appreciate the mastery of the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis and the sensational cast, which is marvelous from the tiniest role to the titular turn.
Another thing I would mention, too, Alexander is how brave the storytelling is. Kushner and Spielberg tell the story at their own pace and rhythm and don’t compromise at all, expecting the audience to not get bored and stay with the film’s plot all the way through because of its inherent importance and interest. It’s a talky procedural pulsating with life and vitality and, above all, intelligence. It’s not solemn as some people claim. If you want to see a solemn, plodding, lifeless Civil War film, rent the Conspirator. The differences between that film and Lincoln could not be more evident.
Looking forward, I want to see Spielberg and Kushner work together as much as possible – a dynamic team that brings out the best in each other.
I don’t know about the Oscars but why would anybody think this thing will do jack at the box office outside of New York and L.A.? Can’t possibly imagine people in Oklahoma, Kentucky or Texas giving half a fuck about seeing this. They’ll hear “Lay Miz” and think it’s about lesbians who ain’t as miserable as they used to be. So they’re less miserable. They’ll think it’s a female queer movie and wonder if that Eastwood baseball movie is still playin’ at the discount theater.
Truly spectacular commentary on the film there, cinefan. Thank you for expanding on your earlier thoughts and drawing out more from myself.
Indeed, as I drove back home last night and stopped at a red light after picking up my Christmas tree… I considered the ostensibly voluminous gulf between the Kushner-Spielberg “Lincoln” and that dry, tedious effort by Robert Redford from a mere year and a half ago entitled “The Conspirator.” It somehow feels so much longer ago than that, when I saw that film, as it has receded from my mind ever since at a great pace of alacrity.
You’re indeed quite right that Lincoln is not remotely “solemn” as a general rule. That isn’t to say there aren’t moments of great solemnity or melancholy, because there are–but the film pulsates, much like you state, with a liveliness and realistic, almost painstakingly fully human complexity and nuance and a fair amount of humor.
The back-and-forth between Lincoln and his cabinet; the extraordinarily underrated David Strathairn’s performance as Secretary of State Seward and his way of communicating with Lincoln directly and on behalf of him with everyone else… And I could go on.
The “compass” scene between Lincoln and Stevens in the White House kitchen made me recall some of the scenes between Schindler and Goeth in Schindler’s List–which is astonishing because of what Stevens represents versus what Goeth represents in Schindler’s List, but the scene captures that incisive portrait of a reasonable man endeavoring to moderate the perspective of someone one could certainly label an “extremist” of one sort or another.
There’s just so much ot feast on.
I am loving the Lincoln talk on this thread. To me it is the winner, without any doubt. If it doesn’t win, the Oscars are not worth the ink that prints their newsletters every year. Oh wait…
Cinefan: Kushner is writing another movie for Spielberg. He hasn’t said what it is though.
Can’t wait for the counter-backlash backlash.
It’s Les Miz for the win, if only because this is overall another shitty year for Hollywood/studio cinema, with some of the best movies of the year required to fight it out in the Foreign Language race.
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i foresee Lincoln being the L.A. Confidential to Les Mis’s Titanic
I know it’s tiresome to actually come out with a well thought through criticism complete with actual reasoning Duluoz, but would you care to enlighten those of us who found The Master to be a subtle, nuanced, well written and powerfully acted film (of far greater substance than most releases) as to what renders it ‘an empty piece of fluff’?
THUNDER REDUX SAYS…
Because it does, Gussie. Duh.
[moves MIAMI VICE Blu-ray down a space on the rack, replaces it with MAN ON A LEDGE]
In what universe is “Les Miz” NOT a Hollywood studio picture?