Tags: movies

Ishte, Entertainment, Music

Les Miséable Film

I took my daughter cheapcarnival to see it.  I admit that at the beginning, I was a little doubtful. I thought I was going to be disappointed. This is because I'm a little spoiled by the 10 anniversary dream cast concert.  The voices here were not as strong. Not as perfect. However, having said that, as the film progressed, it was clear that in the a worthy sacrifice was made of that perfect clarity in favor of delivering the raw emotion of some of these pieces.  cheapcarnival and I both agreed as we were talking on our way out, the longer we watched the more we liked what we were seeing and hearing, the better we understood what the director was aiming for.

Fantine's I dreamed a dream was thready and shaky and ... amazingly strong in it's emotive power.  Damn right, Hathaway earned that Oscar. Eddie Redmayne's Marius' "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables, heartbreaking in the beauty of it's delivery. I'm really surprised he didn't get one too.  I was also pleasantly surprised by Amanda Sayfried's Cosette.  I usually dislike Cosette's parts, the sopranos usually ruining it with too much vibrato, but Sayfried's high clear voice and excellent intonation carried the voice of innocence that made the part wonderful to hear. She was very well matched with the other voices she was paired with throughout.

I wish only that we had not had to wait so long to see it.  The reels at the second run theater were clearly not well cared for and nearly completely worn out. The movie had vertical lines and scratches all through it. Still for $3 a piece, I think we definitely got our money's worth. DVD goes on sale 3/22.  It's already in my shopping cart on Amazon.com.

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Sunflower

Sword of the Stranger

I got this movie from the library today. I had run a search on animé from Bones, because I almost always like the art style out of that studio. I picked this one in particular because it was a one shot instead of a series, and sometimes it's nice to see the end of the story in a couple of hours. I have to say I was not disappointed. I watched it in English, though I just as often watch my animé in Japanese because the voice acting is usually better. One thing I'll say for more recent high quality animé is that the English voice acting has improved a LOT in the last few years. I liked that in either version, the Chinese characters still spoke Chinese, and in cases when they were speaking it to people who didn't understand it, they did not subtitle it either.

I liked the story, but I have to say the real selling point is the artwork and especially the action scenes. Sometimes it's moving so fast you can barely see what happened, but it's exciting and really beautifully drawn work. Attention to detail is excellent, and that's another big selling point for me. If you want more information, go look for it here: http://stranger.bandai-ent.com/. It's definitely worth a view.