That was great musical except for all that singing...

Got out to see the film of Les Miserables last night. Not sure what I think about it in the end. I love the musical, and have since high school. I've seen it twice and have the original cast recording form the late 80s (and have had it *since* the late 80s) so I had very high expectations and know all the music very well. And...well...I was underwhelmed. The overall film and adaptation was great, but Hugh Jackman (as much as I love him) isn't  a very good singer and Russel Crowe was laughably bad in some spots. Dramatic moments and songs that brought me to tears in the past just fell flat. And Javert's dramatic suicide scene was so bleh...*I* wanted to push him off so he's stop singing! High school quality singing.
To me, Javert sounds more like this:

Anne Hathaway though? *She* was lovely. The minor cast men and the women were great in this...I wish that they'd taken the time to cast people who can sing in the major male roles. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for allowing interpretation and "earthy real singing" but it's like getting regular actors to voice over animations...often it just doesn't work. A musical is a musical. You know...with music. The friend I went with had read the book but never seen the musical and she felt the same way. Beautiful music that fell short of what it could be. Nevertheless...glad I did get to see it. I admit I had to put the cast recording on my ipod last night so I could listen to it today to remember the "good" versions of the score today as I work away in the lab. I still know all the words. Crazy... :)

This morning I came in for sculpt class and it was a good workout. I pushed myself to use a heavier dumbell as much as I could and feel all RAWR about it all :) Today will be a busy day indeed...and tonight is a final supper with Nanami before she goes home to Japan tomorrow. With any luck I can get some poster work in too. We shall see :)

Have a great day guys!