“Les Miserables” – Film Review (*Spoilers*)

Let’s set the scene. I haven’t seen the stage show of Les Mis, but I’ve seen the 10th Anniversary and 25th Anniversary concert DVDs, as well as loads of videos on YouTube, which doesn’t equate to actually seeing it, but I had a pretty good idea of the plot and knew all of the songs very well before I went to see the film. 

I heard a lot of criticism – the amount was dwarfed by the amount of good reviews, but there was still a fair bit – of the film before I went to see it, and it got me nervous. I’d been excited for the film since it was announced at the end of the 25th Anniversary concert, and I followed all the news eagerly – casting and filming and everything about it – and I really, really hoped they’d get it right. When I saw that people weren’t impressed, my heart sank. 

The main issue people seemed to have was with the singing – so many were saying “It’ll never compare to Colm Wilkinson/Alfie Boe/Lea Salonga”, and I think they were forgetting that we are talking about the same show, but two very different mediums. In musical theatre, the voice is key, and people pay a lot of money to hear incredible voices and see incredible acting. With the film, that isn’t what I was expecting. I wanted astronomically good acting, and singing that was true to the emotions of the film, rather than – as Anne Hathaway put it, “going for the pretty version”. If I was to go and see “Les Miserables” and someone sang “Bring Him Home” in the way Hugh Jackman sang it, I’d possibly be disappointed – but if I went to see it in a film and it was sang the way Alfie Boe sang it in the Anniversary concert, I’d be equally disappointed, because in the concert it was powerful and beautiful but wouldn’t have suited the film (more on the singing later). 

Casting… would have been perfect, were it not for Russell Crowe. I mean, I don’t doubt that the man is a good actor, or at least he has his moments, but he was dire as Javert. He was the only thing letting that film down in my opinion, and I think there were plenty of other people who could have done a better job. His acting was… meh, at best, and his singing was completely devoid of any emotion. People are meant to be left crying after Javert’s Suicide, and yet behind us in the cinema a couple of people giggled when his body hit the weir with quite a thwack, because he just sang it… blandly. No emotion in it at all. The same went for “Stars”, that’s one of my favourite songs in Les Mis, and I was left completely underwhelmed by it. His singing voice isn’t fantastic, but the least he could have done was to put emotion in there – Javert is a cold, calculating character, but he isn’t a robot; he has emotions, and yet his character just had no effect on me the whole way through. 

Anne Hathaway stole the show as Fantine, she really did. She made such an impact in the short screen time she had, “I Dreamed A Dream” left me in tears because it was so beautiful. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t incredibly sang, but by god, it was emotional and powerful, and there was something so beautiful in the emotions she conveyed that I’d be willing to say it is the best rendition I’ve ever heard. I set a lot of store by emotions in songs, and she just blew me away. 

Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne as Cosette and Marius were great – I’ve never been huge fans of the two characters, because they both seem a little drippy – Eponine is my favourite female character, and Enjolras is so much more kick-ass than Marius, so they tend to be my favourite characters – but they were portrayed very well. Amanda Seyfried has one hell of a warble, which suited Cosette perfectly, and although at first I was a little iffy about Eddie Redmayne’s singing, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” had me in tears again (I cried a lot during the film, get used to it now!), because he conveyed that emotion perfectly. 

Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen… where to begin? They were incredible. Hilarious as usual, perfect as the Thenardiers, assisted by excellent costuming. “Master Of The House” was brilliant, and Baron-Cohen’s lines – calling Cosette, “Courgette” was a particular favourite of mine, and delivered perfectly – served as the comic relief we needed in the midst of all the darkness of the film (it’s a pretty grisly film in places, Gavroche’s death was quite heart-breaking!). 

Samantha Barks as Eponine… wow, wow, wow! I am so glad Taylor Swift didn’t get the part, because it wouldn’t have worked. She wouldn’t have been able to carry it off, I’m sure of it. Considering she was unknown outside of Britain – and even in Britain, she was only really known by those who followed her progress after “I’d Do Anything” (her rendition of Defying Gravity on that show made me a fan!) – she lived up to the pressure heaped on her, and then some! “On My Own” was incredible, as expected, and her acting skills really came into play during “A Heart Full Of Love” and “A Little Fall Of Rain” (the latter had me in floods of tears, that song affected me more than most of them!). 

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean was fantastic, a great choice. Singing was fantastic in that the emotion was always there, even if people have been complaining about his less-than-perfect vocals, but again I think that’s due to their unrealistic expectations more than anything else. 

Going back to the singing, I think that having them sing it live rather than dubbing in pretty versions over the acting was a genius move, and I’m so glad they did it. People have complained that it detracted from the film, but it absolutely didn’t, in my opinion. It added to it, bringing a level of emotion that you wouldn’t have gotten with dubbed voices. Again, the only singing I had an issue with was Russell Crowe’s, because it sounded like it had been dubbed and was completely devoid of emotion! 

Everything about the film was just utterly incredible, I don’t think it left anyone with dry eyes in the cinema – I shed many tears, and even my other half – who I don’t think I’ve ever seen cry at film or television before – was reduced to tears; I think either by “Bring Him Home” or “Empty Chairs At Empty Tables”, or the end (or all three, I know they all got me big time!). An astounding, incredible piece of cinema and I would recommend it to anyone, whether you’re a fan of the musical or not. 

Wanna read some sci-fi?

Then head over to Christopher Maine’s blog and check out his short stories – the Runner chronicles. They’re brilliant short science fiction stories, I’ve been hooked on them – and if you enjoy those, check out some of his other writing and buy his books, “Tales From The Terra Firma Fleet”, on Amazon! 

Science fiction has become a bit of a buzzword for me just recently; I can’t get enough of it. I don’t know if it’s because at the moment I’m alternating between writing science fiction short stories (set in Christopher Maine’s universe) and also a science fiction novel set (also set in that universe), but I really love it. I’ve also just finished watching the series of “Firefly” (I’ll hopefully be progressing to the film at some point soon) and I love it; so much so that I’m dedicating my next assessment to it by giving a presentation about the series. 

So I’m on a bit of a sci-fi kick at the moment. I’m making my way through the book of War Of The Worlds and my next television show I’m going to watch which I should have watched years ago is Stargate Atlantis. Let’s see where that one takes me!

Stay shiny x

Soundtracking.

I’ve realized that the soundtrack to this full trilogy I’m writing is almost completely made up of songs by Train, with one solitary one by One Direction (don’t shoot me! It’s the only song of theirs that I like, and it’s written by Ed Sheeran, so it’s not all bad!). I don’t know whether it’s the fact that Train is virtually the only music I’ve been listening to whilst writing, or just that Train have released songs perfect for every emotion and every occasion, and when you have a group of characters who go through the whole spectrum of emotions like mine do, Train is one of the only groups who could ever make music for each and every one of these.

It’s not just their more popular songs, although they have their place – “Hey Soul Sister” has definitely inspired a scene (yes, I refer to them as scenes, it’s the performer in me!). However, there’s others that are probably less well-known – “When The Fog Rolls In”, “Skyscraper” and “Hopeless” have all inspired some of the sad scenes, and when I imagine the novel being made into a film – which I often do, because it makes it easier to write in my opinion – the songs are always playing.

Some progress on the literary front!

Funnily enough, the time when I start getting busy – that is, Freshers’ week and being at uni in general – is the time when I start writing and reading again (as you may have guessed from my reviews). The writing is taking a while to start up again because I keep getting an idea, starting it and scrapping it, but I think I need to re-visit and continue older stories before I try and write new ones – I have so many that are un-finished and it’s really bugging me!

I’m also enjoying reading a lot more. I think that after the rowdiness of freshers week, reading is something quiet and pretty much free once you’ve bought the books. Currently lined up for me to finish/read are “Where She Went” (the sequel to “If I Stay”, which is proving a little harder to get into because it isn’t really as good as the first so far), “Before I Fall” by Lauren Oliver, which I think is in the same genre as “If I Stay”, and “Marley and Me” by John Grogan. I’ve wanted the book for ages because I loved the film so much, but couldn’t quite bring myself to buy it before now because I know it’ll require an evening where I’m left on my own, because I’ll end up crying at the end.

So that’s a little update on the literary front from me, I’m going to really try and get back into the hang of writing because I enjoy it and miss it, but it’s all dependent on how busy I get with uni.

REVIEW – “World War Z” – Max Brookes

(Yes, I’m on a bit of a review kick at the moment, just humour me)

Now then, I like zombies. I’ve never met one personally, as you can probably tell by the fact that I have all my limbs, can string together coherent sentences (on a good day) and don’t smell like rotting flesh (no-one say “debatable”). Still, I like zombies – I like the folklore and the stories and also the funny t-shirts you can get (yes, I do have one and yes, you can see it).

(if you can’t see it properly, it says “ZOMBIE – Eat Flesh”, in the Subway font)

So yeah, we’ve ascertained that I’m a fan of zombies. Shaun Of The Dead is one of my favourite films, and I’ve watched a couple of films in Romero’s zombie series too, although I’ll admit I found those a little scary. I’ve seen 28 Days Later, which I loved, and I like shooting zombies on Call Of Duty. However, I don’t think I’d ever read a book about zombies until “World War Z – An Oral History of the Zombie War”.

As far as the zombies themselves go, it’s quite hard to picture them how I think Max Brooks intended for them to be pictured unless you’ve read his other similar book, the Zombie Survival Guide, which discusses what they look like. I think it’s pretty much standard fare with zombies though – they all smell, they all look a bit rotten and bloated and you don’t really want to get a good close-up view of one, because that’s a slippery slope to having your arm chewed off – so that’s not a fault with the book at all (by the way, I do recommend reading Zombie Survival Guide before you read World War Z, because it helped me understand what was going on a lot better).

What I love about this book is that it stays true to the quintessential zombie – the zombies can’t run or climb walls, they don’t have that tiny drop of human emotion that may allow them to decide not to eat a dear old aunt or a pet dog – they are devoid of all emotion and intelligence, they can only communicate by moaning, their method of transportation is a shuffle, and the only way to destroy them is to go for the brain. They’re made into zombies by a virus, “Solanum”, and there’s no real cure – although a vaccine was developed but rendered useless. This book shows humanity at its most terrifying – in a form that is beyond saving, beyond reasoning, beyond appealing to a better nature. You don’t have to seek them out to find them – they’re all around you, they’re your family and friends and the people you love and eventually, they’re you too. That’s what makes zombies the ultimate horror novel/film subjects – in my opinion, anyway.

The only fault I can find with the book is that because of the nature of the novel – it is a collection of anecdotes and eyewitness accounts, as opposed to an actual novel -, it can get hard to remember who said what and what exactly happened at earlier points in the timeline of the zombie war, because there are so many conflicting accounts and it takes place in a number of different countries, so unless it’s one of the main events of the war – like Yonkers, for example – it can be quite hard to remember exactly what happened and the effect it had on other situations. Still, the book is made so unique by its style that to change it would detract from it, so I suppose if you’ve got a good memory, you’ll be fine. Even with a rubbish memory like mine, the book is still a great one and I really enjoyed it.

I’d recommend the book for those who are 16+, there’s some (ok, a lot of) swearing in there, and I think under-16s may find it a bit too frightening, because it does go into very graphic detail about the zombies and what they did. If you don’t like death/gore/icky things, this is probably a book to avoid, but if you’re a fan of the whole zombie genre, I’d definitely recommend it. You can tell that Max Brookes knows his stuff, because everything – except the zombies – is real. He did thorough research into every piece of information, every military tactic and weapon, everything, and it works – we see the events of the novel as a real possibility, and the novel almost feels like a history book sent from the future, which adds to the fear factor.

Oh, and don’t worry if you haven’t heard of this book yet – by this time next year, I predict that it’ll be one of the biggest crazes out there.

Writing Away!

Spurred on by my recent piece of writing (Night Of The Living Love, Actually), I’ve decided that I want to write a full-on zombie novel; without the mushy love story (I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know!). I want to write it differently though – it’s from the point of view of a girl living in the only zombie-free area in the world, and what happens when the barriers break and all the protective measures fall, and a group of zombie rights campaigners have to lead a group of people who are completely inexperienced at fighting and totally unprepared to battle zombies, in a war to save the world. All sounds very cheesy and lovely, right?

So, we have our main character, who starts off about as anti-zombie as you can get – a young American who’s managed to escape the virus ravaging the country, only to discover that the rest of the world isn’t doing too great either. She’s a blogger (I promise that’s where the similarities with me end!) and eventually discovers that she cares about the zombies and doesn’t want to fight them, but must if she wants herself – and her family – to survive.

I’m not going to divulge any more than that, because I plan on uploading it to fictionpress and posting it here for you all and I don’t want to spoil it, but if you see me jabbering on about zombies over the next few months, that’s why. I’ve already started my research – that is, I’ve read Max Brookes’ “Zombie Survival Guide” and have just started on “World War Z”, I watched some of “Dead Set” (I’m sure it would’ve been helpful if my novel was set in the Big Brother house, but alas, it isn’t) and I’m going to watch “28 Days Later” and many other zombie films, no doubt scaring myself silly in the process.

I don’t want my novel to be some ethical yarn about how even zombies have feelings and are human (no they don’t and no they’re not, otherwise they wouldn’t be zombies!)  – I want it to scare the reader and make them see this as a potential future and think about what they’d do. I’m not saying I believe that in the future there will be zombies, but we’re already starting to see the outbreaks of a possible zombie apocalypse, what with the bath salts craze… I kid, honestly. Still, I don’t think there’s anything scarier than the psychological warfare some authors utilize so well, creating the impression that however supernatural and improbable, this could happen one day – or may even be starting to happen at this very minute.

In other news, my sleep pattern is still messed up but I’m hoping that existing on about an hour of sleep in the past 24+ hours will mean that I’ll fall asleep almost instantly tonight and get back into a routine. I’m going on holiday in 5 days, which is very exciting, and I’m 18 in 9 days, which is very very exciting! There’s free Wi-Fi in some areas so I’ll try to keep you all updated, but things are going to be sporadic. I have a big weekend ahead too – especially Saturday, where it seems things are a bit non-stop – but I promised I’d keep blogging regularly now that my exams are over, and that’s what I intend to do. Particularly now that I’ve started writing again, I can start  blogging about what this was actually intended for – my writing! There’s also the good news that I’ve started reading for fun again – I was worried that studying English would ruin reading for me, and I don’t think my frayed relationship with Wuthering Heights will ever be repaired (sorry, Emily Bronte, but your ever-changing narrative perspective and use of dialect annoyed me, even more so when I had to analyze it, and it’s just not going to work out. It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s studying English A Level). However, I’ve started reading World War Z and can’t wait to read more once I’m all caught up on sleep, and after that I’m going to re-read one of my all-time favourite novels, “To Kill A Mockingbird”. That’s probably the only text I’ve studied that I haven’t ended up at least disliking, if not hating, and I think that’s because it’s written in a way that’s easy to relate to because we can remember those lazy childhood summers where the tiniest thing became the hugest adventure, and because I had a brilliant teacher who made the book come alive. Health-wise, things still aren’t great – now waiting on a specialist and a chest x-ray, which isn’t going to be fun – but it’s all progress in making me better, and if it means I’ll be able to do the half-marathon for BCH, I’m all for it.

Hello there!

Yes, ’tis me, venturing out of my revision-induced seclusion to say hello and, once again, apologize for the lack of posts. I keep saying that normal service will resume shortly, and I assure you all that it will, but “shortly” might actually translate as June 20th, the date of my last exam. I’m going to try and keep coming in and posting, but I can’t guarantee how frequent it’ll be. In better news, my first exam is on Thursday! It’s drama, which I’m not too worried about but the way I’ve been recently, I can’t guarantee how I’ll be on the day of the exam or how it’ll affect my performance. I’ve tried to revise today but today is a painful day so I didn’t get much done.

I’ve started writing again! Not my old story, which probably isn’t a good thing because I do need to continue it, but a short story which I may even post at some point. It’s got a while until it’s finished – when I say “short”, it’s probably going to be around 20,000 words (is that a novella? Novelet? I can’t remember) but I’m quite proud of the idea so I hope it’ll be good enough for you all.

So, some exciting things that have happened/are happening at the moment.

 

– Exams are nearly upon me, which means they have nearly finished and then it’s the summer and then university!

– Christopher Maine has something very exciting coming in the next three weeks (check his blog http://www.christophermaine.wordpress.com or his twitter, @CMaine_Official for details).

– I have my face paints! So I can now paint faces. Whether I’m any good at it remains to be seen, but I now have some semblance of a face painting kit and I like it.

– I saw the Olympic torch relay! It was exciting and fun to see and something I shall tell my grandchildren one day, so that’s always a good thing.

– I have finally read the Hunger Games trilogy. I will review them at some point but I’ll give you a little taste of what you will find in my review. The word “awesome” will appear a lot, as will the phrases “up there with Harry Potter”, “Katniss is so much cooler than Bella Swan” and “if you never read another book series in your life, make sure you read this one”. I spent the day absolutely enthralled from the moment I started “The Hunger Games” to the moment I finished “Mockingjay”, and I’m convinced reading those books is what has made me feel like writing again 🙂

Today is NOT a revision day…

I shall sum up what today is using my favourite method of expressing my emotions online. Warning, gif overload ahead.

Yeah. So that’s me at the moment. Don’t ask.

My Titanic Connection.

It hit me today that I haven’t fully explained my connection to the Titanic, even though I’ve told you all I’ve been on television and radio about it (more on that later). So, with the centenary of the ship setting sail today, and the centenary of the sinking on Sunday, I think it’s time I explained my personal connection to the Titanic.

For most people, their connection begins a hundred years ago, when their ancestors set sail on the Titanic on its fated maiden voyage. For me, it’s slightly different. I don’t have a familial connection to the ship – my story starts over ten years ago at my Nan’s house. She had the James Cameron film “Titanic” on video, and whenever we went to stay at her house, I’d sit and watch it, sometimes twice, at night. The story itself was rather lost on me – I was only six years old and didn’t really understand the romance between Jack and Rose, but the historical side interested me. I’d already decided, by this point, that I wanted to be a historian (of course, that isn’t my aspiration anymore, but I was fairly set on it at the time), so I devoured any information about the Titanic that I could find. I remember badgering my Mom for a book at a school book fair one year, called “My Story: Voyage on the Great Titanic”. She was convinced that I only wanted it for the little blue necklace that came with it, but in all honesty, I wanted to read the book. I absolutely loved it, and I think I only took it off my bookshelf last year, having read it many times.

I noticed, even that first time when I watched the film, that there was a character who did something very brave, and he had a Welsh accent, although I didn’t think much of it at the time. As time progressed, I kept watching it at my Nan’s house, and eventually my curiosity got the better of me, and I went on the internet and looked up the Welshman whom I’d seen rescuing another character in the film. I had no idea of his connection to my local area of Wales, but I was interested nonetheless. Still,  I found that he was Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe, and although he had been born in Eglwys Rhos, he spent some of his childhood in Barmouth, the nearest town to my village, just down the coast. I was only eleven, and although I was very interested, I still didn’t think much of it.

Two years ago, I was in a local cafe when I heard a man talking about the Titanic, and a man from Barmouth who had been on it, with my dad. I joined in the conversation, and we got talking about how it was surprising that there was nothing in Barmouth to commemorate Harold Lowe – so, when I went home, I wrote a letter to a local newspaper and started a facebook campaign, and it all started from there. Two years later, a plaque to him has been unveiled today in Deganwy, the town to which he eventually retired and where his grandson now lives, and a plaque will be unveiled this Sunday, the product of two years of this campaign, at the harbour in Barmouth. I feel immensely proud to have been a part of the campaign, but more than that, I am pleased that he’ll finally be commemorated in Barmouth and people will learn about him for years to come.

So, that’s basically what this campaign has all been about. The newspaper articles, the radio, the television – it’s all been leading up to this Sunday, but it doesn’t end on Sunday – the plaque will mean that, for decades to come, there will be a lasting memorial to the local hero many people didn’t know about until recently. You can find the television programme I filmed for last year, “Titanic With Len Goodman”, on BBC iPlayer, and I am on Episode Two.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

For those of you not versed in the Welsh language, that means “Happy Saint David’s Day” – yes, today is the day of St David, the Welsh patron saint, and, fittingly, one of the top trends on Twitter today was #WelshFilmClub, which was a feed full of people posting the Welsh versions of famous films. Some of them were a bit hit and miss (the ones with phrases like “where to” and stuff kinda went over my head, we have a more sophisticated Welsh up here in the north and don’t use such phrases), but a lot were hilarious. Here is a selection of my favourites 🙂

• Who Killed Roger Rarebit?
• The Lamb Shank Redemption
• Dai Hard
• Live and Let Dai
• Star Wars: Attack of the Jones
• Get Him To The Leek
• Gwladiator
• Rhyl Bill
• Dude, Where’s My Cardiff?
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bangor
• A Fish Named Rhondda
• BreCon Air
• Caerphillydelphia
• Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwyllsantysiliogogogone With The Wind
• Dial M for Merthyr
• Black Swansea
• Farmergeddon
• P.S. I Love Ewe
• The Wizard of Oswestry
• Treforest Gump

 

And, one of my personal favourites, “Cwtch Me If You Can” 😀 so, wear your leek and your daffodil with pride and belt out “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau” (that’s the Welsh national anthem), and have a happy St. David’s Day!