Review: Les Miserables

It's going to be quite hard to write this review without completely gushing, we're only in January and I think I may have already found my favourite film of the year. Les Miserables based on the stage show by Schonberg & Boublil follows Jean Valjean through decades as he's being hunted by policeman Javert. I saw the show in London a few years ago now and enjoyed it but was never a mega fan and I think that's the best way to see the film because from what I've seen online the mega fans are going to be more nit picky over the film.

Being a self confessed musical nerd, it's an exciting time anytime a show gets a big screen adaption and I think Les Mis is a particularly good one for showing all the people who can't stand them that they're not all cheese and jazz hands. That said if you're expecting to see some perfect belting singing then you will be disappointed, this film is all about the raw emotion of the characters and this was perfectly filmed with extreme close ups by Tom Hooper. I also think the live singing works well with this rather than having the actors mime to pre recorded vocals. 

The cast are all brilliant and I personally enjoyed playing spot the West End actor with all their cameos. In terms of the lead cast, Anne Hathaway is fantastic and she will be robbed if she doesn't win the Oscar for this performance. I also enjoyed performances by Hugh Jackman, Samantha Barks and yes although Russell Crowe cannot sing I think his Javert works well for this adaption. I left the cinema immediately wanting to watch it again and am hopefully going again next Sunday to see it in IMAX.

Award season

Only 10 days into 2013 and we're well into award season already. The BAFTA nominations were announced yesterday and the full list can be seen here, the Oscar nominations were announced today and can be seen here and finally the BRIT awards were announced this evening and can be found here.

Every year when we get the film based awards I realise how behind I am in seeing the latest films, I'm trying to make it up this year though and at the end of the month I'm going to take out a Cineworld card and try and see as much as possible. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Les Miserables tomorrow night and you can expect a review on it as I enjoyed seeing the show on stage a few years ago. I've also just seen the trailer for Lincoln the first time this evening and since that seems to be sweeping the nominations I'll have to get myself to that at some point too.

Looking at the BRIT awards I can't say I'm too enthusiastic about the list of nominees, I have to admit I am biased towards my favourite musical artists so when they aren't featured I'm not too fussed. We still don't have a release date for Lady Gaga's ARTPOP this year and I'm not sure if Florence's Ceremonials qualifies, if it does then it's an outrage they've only received one nomination. Emeli Sande leads the way with the most nominations and I think I'm one of the few who isn't bored of her and I've kept meaning to check out Paloma Faith's new album and seeing it nominated will give me the push to do that.

What does everyone else think of the nominees? Are there any films or music I MUST check out?

Round up

It's that time of the year again when U.S. TV likes to take an irritating mid season break, well I don't know if it's always this time of the year, it just so happens two of my shows are affected so now I'll write about it.

First up I watched Revenge which has taken so many twists and turns now that I feel permanently dizzy but there's something about it that means I just can't stop watching. We've been left with Daniel successfully overtaking Grayson Global meaning the Initiative are now moving in on him, Jack has finally realised the Ryan brothers are bad news and an old flame from Nolan's past could possibly blow Emily's cover. At least we don't have long to wait to find out what bizarre twist the writers will throw at us next.

Unlike The Walking Dead, which is a brilliant, brilliant TV series. Seriously if you're not watching it then you need to question what you're doing with your life. I think I'd be going on forever if I wrote what has just happened in the last episode so my absolute favourite bit would have to be Michonne's fight with the Governor. I was hoping she'd chop his head off with her awesome sword or maybe just kill him once, wait for him to come back as a zombie and enjoy killing him again but unfortunately Andrea had to show up to ruin things. This of course led to him turning on Merle and I somehow missed in all the smoke and gunshots that they managed to capture Daryl. He's probably my favourite character and I'm now going to sulk until February when we find out what happens there.

In recent theatre news, Whatsonstage.com have announced their annual theatre award nominations. Any time any kind of nominations are released it reminds me I never get round to watching enough film, theatre etc. I guess it makes it easy in a way that I've only seen one nominee in each category. To view the nominations and vote click here.

I was going to also write my view on the latest Homeland and Misfits but this post is getting a little long now. So finally in book news, I got sent a copy of The Fault in our Stars by John Green, which I've seen so many quotes and rave reviews over on Tumblr so I'm looking forward to getting into it myself. I got sent it by Spinebreakers who are running a competition to #passiton, basically the person who has passed their copy onto the most people will win £500 worth of books to share which is pretty much my idea of heaven so hopefully my friends will help me out with this. Fingers crossed!