Hathaway's standout movie performance

Anne Hathaway: Alpha autograph your accepting speech. Now that I've apparent "Les Miserables," I can affirm that "The Dark Knight Rises" star, who plays the bedevilled factory-worker-turned-prostitute Fantine -- and sings her tonsils off -- has hit a actual top note. In her acknowledging turn, Hathaway sings the signature song "I Dreamed a Dream" and brings the admirers to tears. She's like agreeable meat tenderizer -- already the tears alpha flowing, they don't stop for the blow of the movie.
Director Tom Hooper (who won an Oscar for "The King's Speech" two years ago) casting Hathaway perfectly. She has brilliant ability to burn, has the basic to attending acceptable atrophied in rags -- and articulate talent. This is the affectionate of strong, analytical acknowledging role that acutely array Oscars. (She'll get the Golden Globe, too!)
And here's something that I abstruse at the post-screening Q&A: Hathaway's mother, who was in the audience, played the role of Fantine in a Philadelphia assembly if Anne was alone seven. Hathaway appeared onstage afterward, her hair accepting developed to an appealing, but still short, Peter Pan-pixie. In the movie, Fantine sells her locks to pay a debt, and Hathaway gave chastening up on camera for the role. "When I eventually looked in the mirror I just anticipation I looked like my gay brother," she told the by-invitation-only audience.


'Les Miserables' Sneaks for Stars and Industry Assembly at Alice Tully Hall
I saw the cine at the actual aboriginal accessible screening Friday at 3 P.M. at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Aswell in appearance were Hathaway, Hooper and co-stars Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried and Samantha Barks. I brought my aggregation of experts -- my two vocally-trained teenagers and their artist father. I accept it: I don't accept a agreeable ear so I brought in some ringers. As the pumped-up army abounding all the seats in the theater, I spied a man in the wings of the stage, bubbler a canteen of baptize and pacing. I anticipation it was a stagehand but, no, if the abode lights dimmed it angry out to be Hooper himself, pacing nervously and peeking through the curtains to get a attending at the audience.

Oscar-winning Administrator Tom Hooper Gives Thanks
When the tall, jeans-clad English administrator -- endure apparent acrimonious up his Oscar for "The King's Speech" two years ago -- took the stage, he autonomous for a absorbing humility. He told the accommodation matinee audience: "I'm beholden that I've finished." He accepted that he'd completed the blur at two a.m. He aswell quipped, "I'm beholden to Victor Hugo, who can't be actuality with us." The archetypal novel's columnist died in France in 1885.

The Admirers Thanked Hooper with a Continuing Ovation
Hooper didn't charge to anguish about the admirers reaction. The army was as admiring as amid girls at a "One Direction" concert. They greeted the cessation of the many, abounding agreeable numbers with acclaim and clapped for the administrator and anniversary aerialist at the end credits. If you tracked the applause, it seemed that Jackman, Crowe, Hathaway, Redmayne and newcomer Barks got a little added love. Again came the continuing ovation. Yes. And it was spontaneous.
But remember, it was ad-lib a part of a New York army of assembly anticipating a big success -- or a big failure.

Hathaway, Hooper, Redmayne, Seyfried and Barks reside off screen
Then the date lights came up on four director's chairs. The date aggregation added more, and more, and again Columbia University assistant Annette Insdorf alien the talent: Hooper, Redmayne, Barks, and Hathaway -- but not Seyfried. "What affectionate of mother would I be if I didn't acquaint my daughter, Amanda Seyfried," Hathaway abundantly adapted the oversight, apropos to the extra who plays her child, Cosette, on screen. It turns out that Seyfried had played the role afore in an abecedarian assembly at fifteen.
The altercation led off with what anybody who has apparent the film's featurette at the movies (I saw it at the Poughkeepsie Galleria afore "Skyfall" with a agnostic army of Bond watchers) already knows: the singing was all performed reside so that the actors could both emote and sing. This method, in adverse to the accepted convenance of laying down advance advanced and again lip synching on set, allows the amateur added abandon and captures the carelessness of reside performance. The aftereffect is abundantly acknowledged although there are times if both Jackman and Crowe assume to be carrying songs in that chat-sing way that recalls Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady."
 

Hugh Jackman will be nominated for best actor
As the advocate Jean Valjean, Jackman goes from rotten-toothed aged captive to chichi ambassador to avoiding agent father, crumbling a acceptable twenty years forth the way. We knew he can sing -- he starred in "The Boy From Oz" on Broadway -- but there are times if he goes for the affect and talks out the lyrics to the damage of the melody. And, accuracy be told, the melodies of the songs become a little monotonous. (My bedmate claimed Neil Diamond's "I Am, I Said" started arena in his head.) In fact, Jackman may just be bigger than the material, and it's accessible that my expectations were so top that I was a little disappointed. And, in the end, he's up adjoin Daniel Day Lewis in "Lincoln," which is still the achievement to exhausted as far as the Oscars go.

Crowe can sing, but Redmayne can sing better
Oscar-winner Crowe has a bandage and he can sing in a rich, able articulation as the adamant adversary Inspector Javert. We adulation him as the villain. But sometimes his supply is a bit "yawning," an affair of diction. The adumbration is Redmayne, as Marius the adventurous advocate that avalanche in adulation with Cosette (Seyfried) at aboriginal sight. He just pulls out every stop in every arena he's in. His tortured, bawling songs of baffled adulation prove that Hooper's charge to reside singing works. We've apparent the amateur before, a lot of afresh in "My Anniversary with Marilyn," and I saw him on Broadway in the ball "Red," but this is the affectionate of achievement that makes him pop. If "Les Miserables" will get one best acknowledging amateur choice in that race, I'm risking a bet on Redmayne.

'Les Miserables' will be nominated for best account -- and could acquire the a lot of nominations ever
"Les Miserables" will absolutely be a part of the 5 best account nominees. As my Gold Derby aide Tom O'Neil wrote afterwards seeing the cine this weekend: "'Les Miserables' could set two records. One would be for a lot of nominations. Currently, that account is captivated by 'Titanic' (1997) and 'All About Eve' (1950), which becoming 14... 'Les Miserables' could [also] set a almanac for a lot of acting bids in one film."
Is 'Les Mis' a slam-dunk for Best Picture?
I wouldn't bet on the agreeable to win just yet. The acreage is competitive, with "Lincoln," "Argo," "Silver Linings Playbook" and "Zero Dark Thirty" in the mix. Another analytical Oscar-race cine -- "Django Unchained" -- will awning this anniversary in time for the New York Blur Critics Circle to vote on the morning of December 3rd. Full disclosure: I'm a affiliate and it's absurd that "Les Mis" will win our best picture. It's just too boilerplate for the group, which may account "The Master," "Zero Dark Thirty," or "Lincoln." Or the Circle may go in a absolutely adverse administration and acme Michael Haneke's "Amour."
The takeaway: "Les Miserables" is a above contender, and a battleground cine adjustment of the berserk accepted mega-musical that opened on Broadway in 1987 and annoyed a countless of bussed-in tourists. That said, accustomed the huge abundance of aptitude -- not alone in acting, singing, staging, costuming and administering -- I would accept been added swept abroad if it had been channeled into a agreeable I like more, say, "A Little Night Music," "The Drowsy Chaperone," or "Promises, Promises."

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