Movies Of The Week: The Miserables and other random movie thoughts

I'm working on my list of top ten movies of 2012, which is especially tough because there were an unusually high number of movies that I loved this year. In fact, I may have to cheat and do a top 12 or something. While I figure out which ones to sacrifice from my list, and while I'm still on a sugar high from seeing DJANGO UNCHAINED this morning, I decided to jot down thoughts on a couple of the many, many movies I've seen during the past few weeks in an effort to see as many 2012 movies before the end of the year.

First, let's talk about LES MISERABLES, which, if you'd asked me at the beginning of 2012, was one of my three most-anticipated movies of the year, probably behind only THE AVENGERS and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. And now that I've seen it, it's not even anywhere close to being in my list of top fifty movies of 2012. And this is despite the fact that I think that almost every element in the movie works. I liked the acting, particularly Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Samantha Barks, and Eddie Redmayne (whom I hated in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN). I liked the singing; I was even fine with Russell Crowe's much-maligned singing even though he's clearly out of his league (to anyone who thinks his singing is an atrocity, I'll just reply, "Pierce Brosnan, 'S.O.S.,' MAMMA MIA!"). The movie looks great, with nice production design, costumes, and visual effects. I even thought the screenplay by William Nicholson was very good. All of these elements could have come together to make a masterpiece... if it weren't for Tom Hooper's truly lousy and disastrous direction.

Now I understand that Tom Hooper won the Best Director Oscar for THE KING'S SPEECH, which I loved even though I thought that THE SOCIAL NETWORK and David Fincher were much more deserving. And I also greatly admired Hooper's direction in the JOHN ADAMS and ELIZABETH I mini-series. The problem is that he directs a lot of LES MISERABLES as if it were a television movie. All of the musical numbers are shot the same way: with the singer's face in tight close-up and the background out of focus. This approach works for exactly one song: Anne Hathaway's stunning single-take performance of "I Dreamed A Dream." But then Hooper proceeds to use that same camera set-up for every number after that. By the time Samantha Barks sings "On My Own" (quite wonderfully, I must admit), I found myself unable to focus on anything except why the camera is so close to her face as she walks through the rain. Even in big musical numbers with many actors singing, the scene often just cuts from close-up to close-up to close-up of each actors' face. There's no sense of geography or choreography. Most of the time, we can't even see the character's environment because it's out of focus in the background.

It feels like half of the shots in the movie are this:

I wonder if Hooper's thinking was that with the stage version, it's a shame that the audience is so far away from the actors and can't see their faces, so perhaps for the movie he should really show the audience the actors' faces. If that's the case, then he over-compensated big-time, and it's ruinous to the movie.

But the movie isn't just all big musical numbers, and when it isn't, the directorial choices are even more baffling, since Hooper chooses to shoot a lot of those scenes with bizarre Dutch angles and shaky hand-held camera... which I suppose is meant the make it seem more gritty and real? This is LES MISERABLES the musical. It's not cinema verite. It's a big, bold, passionate epic. Give me sweeping crane shots and graceful dolly shots. Even throw in a gliding Steadicam shot. Don't give me BLACK HAWK DOWN.

So who should have directed LES MISERABLES? I joked on Twitter after seeing the movie yesterday that I would've preferred a version of the movie directed by FOOTLOOSE director Craig Brewer. And even though that movie's musical numbers are all dancing and no singing, and LES MISERABLES features almost no dancing, the more I think about it, perhaps what the movie needed was a more dynamic director like Brewer.

Of course, now that I've said all this, watch Tom Hooper get another Best Director Oscar nomination.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how another director's baffling choice nearly ruined a movie experience I should have cherished... Peter Jackson's decision to shoot THE HOBBIT in 48 frames per second HFR, which just ended up looking all weird and video-gamey. You can go back and read what I wrote about it here:

Movies Of The Week: Thoughts on THE HOBBIT and 48 fps HFR

As promised, I went back and watched THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY in regular old 2D 24 frames per second. And you know what? The movie looks great in 24 fps, like THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies did, maybe even better because it's a little brighter and clearer. Since I wasn't distracted by the weirdly over-digital look of HFR, I was able to sit back and just enjoy the movie, and I did really enjoy it this time. It still doesn't reach those heights of THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies, but it comes close in a few scenes, and I'm so damn excited about seeing Smaug the dragon, I feel like the second HOBBIT movie could end up being as good as THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies.

I only wonder that when the movie comes out on Blu-ray, it'll look all weird again, like it did in that hi-def video clip on THE COLBERT REPORT a few weeks ago.

My list of top movies of 2012 will be coming in a few days!


#MoviesOfTheWeek #LesMiserables #TheHobbit #HFR