I am a huge Les Mis fan, seen it four times on stage and off to see the film tomorrow night!
Been on the ipod all week, currently watching the 10th anniversary dvd just to get me in the mood....
Lump is forming in my throat already!
Do you hear the people sing????
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Er, no. Musical theatre's never been my thing - although, apparently, I do have a good eye for soft furnishings, so you never can tell.
};---)
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Do you dress as a Nazi or a Nun when you go to the Sound of Music Specials? Lederhosen maybe?
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Have to admit I had no idea it was anything other than a book I haven't yet read. Oh dear.
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Is it the French version of The Glums?
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I saw the stage show in London on 31st March 1990. Great show but marred slightly by events going on in the city that day.
Virtual pint to anyone who can tell me what else occurred that day.
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Poll tax riots?
Fulham v QPR?
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>> Poll tax riots?
I suspect Alanovich wins the pint.
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I think I'd have preferred to have been in the middle of the riot dressed in a "You'll never take me alive, Copper" T-shirt than at a performance of Les Miserables.
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Musical theatre. Jazz. Wrong 'uns.
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Reading the rest of this thread I fear my remark has been misunderstood!
Alanovic rocks referred to this >>preferred to have been in the middle of the riot dressed in a "You'll never take me alive, Copper" T-shirt <<
Not his musical taste:)
Pat
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>> I think I'd have preferred to have been in the middle of the riot dressed
>> in a "You'll never take me alive, Copper" T-shirt than at a performance of Les
>> Miserables.
>>
The thing is, we had been amongst the rioters without knowing it. We were having lunch in an Aberdeen Steakhouse prior to the show and I told my parents I'd just seen a bloke throw a paving slab through the car dealers down the street. Next thing a car gets stopped outside the huge plate glass window we were sitting next to. A rag was placed in the fuel filler and set alight. It was then I suggested we settle our bill and get out. The restaurant manager locked us in and we had to argue with him to let us out. We felt safer outside. We then asked a mounted copper the fastest and safest way to the theatre and off we went. Long live the revolution!
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Poll tax Riots ..
Fullers ESB or London Pride please
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Gosh we really do get a diverse bunch here don't we?
I mean, what odds would you have given against a heterosexual Scotsman who likes musicals?
( and dodgy shoes )
:-)
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We're going to go and see Miserable Les next Wednesday (the wife's on Orange!).
I'm rather partial to musical theatre, having trod the boards in an amateur capacity when I was younger. I've seen Evita, Chess, The Rocky Horror Show, Miss Saigon and Blood Brothers in the theatre and one of the things on my bucket list is to spend a week or so in a posh London hotel, going to see a show every night.
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My daughter is going tonight. Not sure if she is taking her significant other, who is also a straight Jock. I'll find out.
Les Mis' doesn't appeal to me - it would be a hard choice between that and Django Unchained ;-)
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The Lad's straight and English and is keen to see it. Going with mates from his A level music group.
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>>Not sure if she is taking her significant other...
Bet he can't wait...
:-)
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>> it would be a hard choice between that
>> and Django Unchained ;-)
:-0
Good grief. I think you've just upset my electrolytes irrevocably.
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>> >> it would be a hard choice between that
>> >> and Django Unchained ;-)
>>
>> :-0
>>
>> Good grief. I think you've just upset my electrolytes irrevocably.
No its that jiggly old Galaxy with the rough as nails engine thats done that.
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Yup, Poll tax riots.
Alanovic gets it. Lager or a proper beer sir?
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Oo, proper beer please. Loddon Hoppit is my favoured choice at the moment.
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One of my last junkets were tickets to Les Mis. Wonder if they were trying to tell me something..
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Like the bad wolf, we're going to see it on Wednesday...1530 at the Lowry then a bite afterwards.
Not my scene, been forced to go, rather wear holly underpants for a week.
Went to see Quartet last week.....that was OK and a bit of fun.
Ted
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I got dragged along to see it about 10 years ago. Started snoring half way through. That went down rather well :0
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Alanovic is wrong about jazz and hopelessly bigoted in his anticipation of the Django movie. But he's quite right about boring raucous mawkish pain-in-the-bum film and stage musicals. They are pants.
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People only like jazz because they think they should like jazz, because they're told it's clever. If you actually listen to the stuff, it just sounds like 12 different tunes all being played at once on unpleasant instruments in a metal dustbin.
As for QT, slowly but surely opinion turns against him with every passing film. I spotted him for what he was at Reservoir Dogs. It's another example of people liking stuff because they've been told it's clever. And a bit like when I told everyone not to vote for Blair in 1997. Slowly, but surely, reality dawned.
All IMHO of course.
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>> Reservoir Dogs. It's another example of people liking stuff because they've been told it's clever.
I didn't like it. Its much-hyped 'irony' was in fact schoolboy cruelty.
On jazz however you have a lot to learn Alanovic. No one ever told me it was supposed to be clever. Indeed a lot of it is anything but... and none the worse for that. The point really is that 'jazz' is a far broader church than you seem to realise having existed for a century. I'm afraid your friends may have been torturing you by making you listen to Ornette Coleman and Roland Kirk before you were ready for them... a lot of jazz is quite accessible and 'danceable'. Perhaps you don't recognise that sort of jazz as jazz...
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>> >> Reservoir Dogs. It's another example of people liking stuff because they've been told it's
>> clever.
>>
>> I didn't like it. Its much-hyped 'irony' was in fact schoolboy cruelty.
See also every other QT film.
>> I'm afraid your friends
>> may have been torturing you by making you listen to Ornette Coleman and Roland Kirk
>> before you were ready for them... a lot of jazz is quite accessible and 'danceable'.
>> Perhaps you don't recognise that sort of jazz as jazz...
I had a jazz fan as a friend once. Long time ago. Don't have any now. Well, apart from one odd cove who composes the stuff as well as listens to it (I think he said that Improv or Progressive Norwegian jazz or summat is his big thing now?). He does not even attempt to play me any. I am a lost cause. It don't rock, see?
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>> It don't rock, see?
Do you mean jazz doesn't rock, or is it a typo for 'I don't rock'? If the latter, you may be right. If the former, you couldn't be more wrong. Jazz and blues evolved together in the US African diaspora, with important European folk inputs. Rock'n'roll is jazz-influenced pop music. If you like some rock and blues, then you like jazz and that's all there is to it. If you really don't like anything of that sort at all, then I have to sympathise with you for your lack of a rhythmic sense. It must be very tiresome.
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>> If you really don't like anything of
>> that sort at all, then I have to sympathise with you for your lack of
>> a rhythmic sense. It must be very tiresome.
I may well have a lack of rhythmic sense compared to others. We are not all cut from the same cloth. But it is not in the least tiresome. Can't miss what you never had. I thoroughly enjoy the music I like. I've tried jazz, spent a fair bit of time in Ronnie Scott's in the past trying to get it. But I don't. And that's that.
Classical music's another, and I've had a fair bit or edumacation in that over the years. Load of old pompous crashing and banging with occasional bits you can't even hear. Good Gawds, make it go away.
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>> I thoroughly enjoy the music I like.
Which is, broadly speaking? I'll be surprised if there isn't a bit of jazz in it somewhere. Unless you're seriously into Peruvian ocarina orchestras or Tibetan gongs...
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>> >> If you really don't like anything of
>> >> that sort at all, then I have to sympathise with you for your lack
>> of
>> >> a rhythmic sense. It must be very tiresome.
>>
>> I may well have a lack of rhythmic sense compared to others. We are not
>> all cut from the same cloth. But it is not in the least tiresome. Can't
>> miss what you never had. I thoroughly enjoy the music I like.
and what, prey is that. Give us three youtube links that illustrate the eclectic width of your ear.
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>> and what, prey is that. Give us three youtube links that illustrate the eclectic width
>> of your ear.
>>
Don't have the time or energy to naff around with youtube, but the sort of bands and artists I like are tend to be guitar driven rock. No doubt AC will tell me that wouldn't exist if it weren't for jazz, but I can't hear any jazz in it, with the exception of some of the sax stuff Clarence used to do for Bruce Springsteen (who is one of my favourites, although I tend only really to like his pre-1985 stuff). I have always been in to much heavier rock too, for example Metallica, Motorhead, Joe Satriani, that sort of thing. Big soft spots for Suzanne Vega, John Denver on the lighter side. Billy Joel, Dire Straits, Eagles - another few favourites. Also 1990s Indie bands like Shed Seven, Teenage Fanclub, 3 Colours Red, Ash, Gene, Green Day, Manic Street Preachers, The Verve, Radiohead for example. Big fan of Billy Bragg.
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>> he time or energy to naff around with youtube, but the sort of bands and artists I like are tend to be guitar driven rock.
Heh heh... I knew you liked jazz really. Everyone does when they find the right stuff.
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I have found that Jazz needs to come with an environment and an atmosphere.
I am no great lover of jazz overall, since I find that its a bit "Emperor's clothes".
However, I used to go to a pub in Portsmouth, a bit spit and sawdust, but that's my kind of place anyway. And on a Sunday lunch and afternoon they used to have jazz players turn up and play for their lunch and booze. Jazz being somewhat out of the norm for a spit and sawdust, local drinking hole, but it worked somehow.
A friendly pub, friendly people, and good jazz with nobody trying to be clever-clever or superior.
I used to love it. I've been a lot of places over a lot of time trying to find somewhere where the jazz is just as much fun as it was there.
Blooming great traditional sunday dinners on the few occasions I could afford one, as well.
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>>, I used to go to a pub in Portsmouth, a bit spit and sawdust, but that's my kind of place anyway
I got into trad-ish jazz in the late 60s in a similar pub where the landlord was a jazzman and hosted sessions "upstairs". That eventually ended and I defected to the folk club. for a while. I still buy both jazz and folk music now.
>> Blooming great traditional sunday dinners on the few occasions I could afford one, as well.
Karen Sharp & Ted Beament in a pub - both played in the Lyttelton band. Cod and chips looks good for £7.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPdBkNQuMrE
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>> It don't rock, see?
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQpZT3GhDg
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There is of course a wonderfully pretentious element to some modern jazz sent up so well by Jazz Club in the Fast Show some years back
Nice
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsQYzpOHpik
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>> pretentious element to some modern jazz sent up so well by Jazz Club in the Fast Show some years back
Nothing new under the sun CGN.
'So, Zootie, how does your music fit into, you know, like, art?'
'Huh? Wha... (pause)... yeah.... like, Art blows the most, man...'
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>> I had a jazz fan as a friend once. Long time ago. Don't have any
>> now.
friends? hmm why does that not surprise me.
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>> If you actually listen to the stuff, it just sounds like 12 different tunes all being played at once on unpleasant instruments in a metal dustbin.
Lord knows what you've been listening to.
Try Miles's Kind of Blue, or Horace Silver's Song for my Father, Art Blakey, Duke Ellington...but only if you want to. Chacun a son gout.
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Oscar Peterson's Night Train or, to continue the railway jazz theme, Big Train by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. More swinging than rocking, perhaps, but both full of delicious rhythms. Proper music.
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Jings, as Humph says, who would have thought that this wee fat Jock was more cultyirred than all you ponsy , train spotting and pseudo Georgian housed sassenachs .
Just to decide whether it merits putting clean jeans and trainers on and buying some Cinema popcorn or whether the old gutties and the Asda pick n Mix and Irn Bru will suffice...... :)
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>> Jings, as Humph says, who would have thought that this wee fat Jock was more
>> cultyirred than all you ponsy , train spotting and pseudo Georgian housed sassenachs .
Daughter's Scottish other half is going tonight, and the poor devil is going to see Wicked tomorrow. He sounds apprehensive.
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>> Jings, as Humph says, who would have thought that this wee fat Jock was more
>> cultyirred than all you ponsy , train spotting and pseudo Georgian housed sassenachs .
Get te...
the only culture you know comes from the local Indian with chips on the side and a flat sausage nan.
Pass the Buckfast.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 11 Jan 13 at 18:42
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I have seen the show in London enjoyed it .I like live theatre cinema not the same me thinks.
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A question for you who have seen the latest film.
Many years ago, probably the 70's i saw a film version of Les Mis and thoroughly enjoyed it, ISTR Anthony Perkins as the dogged copper, the morals and injustice of the story had a profound effect on me at the time.
Tried to watch other versions since then but nothing comes near that one for me.
So for anyone who saw the version i refer to, how does the new one compare please.
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>> Many years ago, probably the 70's i saw a film version of Les Mis
TV movie apparently: www.imdb.com/title/tt0077936/
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Thats the one FL, have put it on my rental list.
Wonder if it will be so rivetting this time around, did you see it perchance?
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Haven't yet, but like the music (played an arrangement with various concert bands over the years) and would like to go. Might end up waiting for it to appear on TV though.
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GB, I saw one film previously which had Liam Neeson in it and thought it was awful.
However, Les Mis to me is the stage show, the fantastic music and singing, the whole theatre experience.
However, the new film totally blew me away and the other 5 folks that were with us.
It started off poorly in my eyes, the singing wasn't "pure" but very quickly you realise this allows the full emotion of the storyline to be put over. Apparently all the singing, apart from one scene, was done "live" as opposed to be dubbed over later in a studio and that certainly helped enormously.
I also felt the Les Mis story was better conveyed in the film, as you might expect, it was easier to have scene changes etc than on a stage.
One of my friends who hates musicals and is more of a sci-fi type film boffin went along and admitted to me that it was one of the best films he had ever seen and that he had shed the odd tear during the film.
If you are a theatre boffin and want full, unadulterated choir music, you might not like it. But if you want to see the music be sang in a way that carries the story and emotion, then you will enjoy.
We are going back to see it for definite.
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Thankyou FL and Bobby.
We'll probably rewatch the 1978 TV film version when it arrives and then see the latest epic when its released on DVD probably later in the year.
Should be an interesting comparison, we both become emotially envolved with good film or stage production, indeed at the closing stages of Phantom we were both in tears much to dismay of my then 14 year old daughter who was thoroughly embarassed by us.
Ha, the innocence of youth when they haven't been kickled in the cobblers enough by life to know the truth of it, and long should that happy time last..;)
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I expect to go tomorrow morning. I will say here if, as I fuilly expect, I find it over the top and confusing, aurally and visually, as is the modern version of Moulin Rouge. I would refuse to go but don't want to put dinner at risk. I liked Quartet, by the way.
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GB, for something where music is the centre of it, I would suggest visiting your local multi plex with super dooper surround sounds etc to get the full impact of the film!!
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Thanks Bobby but as it happens we can just about match the cinema for sound here, fortunately far enough away from neigbours not to affect them even when ornaments are walking around the display cabinet and the air from the sub creates drafts, so when the soundtrack deserves we can wind it up to the max..:-)
Thinking about an upgrade on the receiver amp when the new telly gets chosen, bit more boost.
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This is a much-filmed novel with at least 7 movies, from the version with Charles Laughton and Frederick March in 1935. One was in 1952, which may have been the inspiration for the Tamil version I saw in about 1953. I don’t recall much about that, apart from the huge black moustache of “Javier” (probably renamed Subramanian) and the comment of a French colleague who was watching with me, “In Indian films, the law has always a moustache” (check it out). (1952 also marked the appearance of Limelight, which I also saw later in a Tamil version.)
Today’s showing was a bit more comprehensible. The opening scene was excellent until it was let down by the unconvincing (cardboard?) boat being hauled. I was pleased that the massive SFX I feared did not appear, although production values suffered in a few of the other scenes. The colour was not as overwrought as I had expected and the music was woven into the action very neatly. It was a brave decision to allow the actors to sing their own parts but although Crowe and Hathaway wavered a bit when approaching their limits, this was probably justified by the added realism it gave (although I’m not quite sure about this – what do you think?).
Overall, a reasonable film-and-pizza outing today but how do modern cinemas get away with so many decibels? It wasn’t only an aural assault, either: I could feel my internal organs shaking at some points.
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>> It was a brave decision to allow the
>> actors to sing their own parts but although Crowe and Hathaway wavered a bit when
>> approaching their limits, this was probably justified by the added realism it gave (although I’m
>> not quite sure about this – what do you think?).
I think it's pretty hard to find any realism in people bursting out in to song at the drop of a hat. Which is why musicals do absolutely nothing for me other than to send me slowly round the bend.
>> how do modern cinemas get away with so
>> many decibels? It wasn’t only an aural assault, either: I could feel my internal organs
>> shaking at some points.
Quite right. An American style more-of-anything-must-be-better approach. I find cinemas too loud also. Although speech is fine, it's the music and effects which are too loud. It's the same with TV broadcast, when my TV's at the volume level I need to be able to understand the spoken parts, subsequent music or special effects like explosions, sirens etc have me reaching for the remote. I'm forever adjusting the volume up and down during films. It's silly.
Last edited by: Alanović on Tue 15 Jan 13 at 15:28
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>> Haven't yet, but like the music (played an arrangement with various concert bands over the
>> years) and would like to go. Might end up waiting for it to appear on
>> TV though.
Saw it yesterday afternoon, wife's birthday treat, in a nearly empty cinema. Enjoyed it, but to be honest thought it dragged a bit at times when they were doing songs I didn't know. Very impressed with all the 'live' singing, especially Anne Hathaway's solo.
Strange decision by Marius to go for Cosette rather than Eponine. And why did Javert throw himself into Bath's horseshoe weir?
:)
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>> Saw it yesterday afternoon, wife's birthday treat, in a nearly empty cinema. Enjoyed it, but
>> to be honest thought it dragged a bit at times when they were doing songs
>> I didn't know. Very impressed with all the 'live' singing, especially Anne Hathaway's solo.
Never seen the stage show, but went to see the film yesterday evening, once again in an nearly empty cinema.
None of the songs meant anything to me, I don't recall ever hearing any of them before, and I'm not humming any of them today. Like Focussless I also thought it dragged. I'd rather that, as a story, it was done as straight play and had an hour chopped off. I found myself closing my eyes and almost dropping off during many of the songs that seem to last an eternity. It was certainly spectacular cinema, but not the sort of film to see if you wanted cheering up. Even my wife who is a dreadful one for weeping at the slightest thing didn't shed any tears, the only moment of any real involving emotion for me was the very end when Jean Val Jean dies.
Was it a good film? No idea. Overhyped? Possibly. But unlike our son and his wife, who saw it twice in a week, I won't be rushing back.
Last edited by: Mike H on Tue 26 Feb 13 at 15:39
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I love music of most genres ......... but not musicals - and I also thought that Les Mis dragged on.
If you want to see something that keeps you awake, then I implore you to go and see Argo; it kept me on the edge of my seat!
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Boss has just got back from seeing it at Berkhamsted Rex - nice picture house.
She enjoyed it, but it is a long siege at nearly 3 hours.
Seems to be the women who like it.
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Not as many good tunes as Grease.
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>> >> Many years ago, probably the 70's i saw a film version of Les Mis
>>
>> TV movie apparently: www.imdb.com/title/tt0077936/
It's on in a bit, ITV3 1.25.
www.radiotimes.com/film/kncr7/les-misrables
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Les Mis - who's going tomorrow? - WillDeBeest
