Les Miserables 2012

That's right, Les Miserables made it's debut in the U.S. recently and I couldn't be more thrilled as it would be coming to Philippine cinemas on January 16th. Les Mis is my number one favorite musical and novel of all time and I might have watched a couple of adaptations of it on film and television, and in various languages too. So you can say I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to it. It's also a Broadway classic for decades now, making this year's movie adaptation an even bigger hit.

This year's version of Les Mis stars Hugh Jackman as the ever famous ex-convict, Jean Val-Jean, the protagonist of the story. Russell Crowe played the part of the antagonist, Inspector Javert, while Anne Hathaway stars as Fauntine and Amanda Seyfried as Cosette and with the four main characters being huge celebs, this production has definitely been abundantly budgeted.

Les Miserables tells us the tales of Jean Val-Jean as he comes to the end of his term after an 18 year sentence in the Toulon prison, set in early 1900's France. The story follows Val-Jean as he tried to cope up with life and in his journey of becoming a renewed man. Les Miserables is an enthralling story of broken dreams, unrequited love and redemption and will surely, once again, touch the hearts of millions of people.

I will definitely see this on the cinema next month. This is just an opportunity I cannot dare to miss.

In other news, and a completely off topic one, I have just been invited by the Iowa City Owl website to write for them. This is definitely the biggest news I've received this year. It's like a hidden Christmas present that came out of nowhere. I'm just really thankful about it. See you there, soon! :D Cheers!

Quand J'étais Chanteur

Sorry for the French title, but if you're quite into films, especially French films you'd know that the title is from a French movie. The English title, if I am not mistaken, is said to be The Singer, or When I was a Singer. Meh. Sorry for the confusing information, so not an expert. :P The movie is written and directed by M. Xavier Giannoli and it stars Gerard Depardieu and Cecile de France, and yes, I watched the movie because I was fan girling over M. Depardieu. You can't blame me though, he's such a good actor, and his performance in the movie bagged positive feed backs from French movie critiques. It was even nominated in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and the main actors were nominated as best actor and best actress consecutively in the Cesar Awards that same year; the movie won Best Sound in the said competition.



The movie tells the story of a middle-aged, ballroom singer (Depardieu, as Alain Moreau) who fell in love with a younger woman (de France, as Marion), who happens to be working as an intern in one of his friend's Real Estate company. The two met in one of Moreau's gigs, and they had a one night stand, which Moreau cannot seem to get over with not only because she left him without even saying a word, but also because he was really attracted to her. Being friends with Marion’s boss, Bruno, he went to her office one day and asked Marion to help him find a house for him. The two eventually fell in love, but were hesitant to fully show and give what they feel and have for each other because of a lot of reasons and because of the different situations they were in.

It’s a really great film, if you’d ask me, and I’ve been looking forward to watching it for weeks since I have seen its trailer on YouTube. As a growing fan of Gerard Depardieu, I got curious so I tried to get my hands on a copy of it, and when I finally did, I eventually went gaga over it. The chemistry between Depardieu and de France was quite unexpected, but came out to be wonderful after all. Gerard Depardieu has that something in him that makes him suddenly match a random actress that plays alongside him in movies, and it’s really one of the factors that make a movie better.



Apart from the chemistry that both lead actors possess, another factor that swayed me to watch the movie was the music. I suppose that this is not the first time that Gerard Depardieu was seen and heard singing in a movie, but it’s definitely the first movie where he sang seriously. He has a soothing voice, typical deep male voice, but he definitely carried out his role as a singer throughout the entire film by performing well known French songs and giving new life into them. The song selection was really good, and my personal favourite song in the movie is “Save the Last Dance for Me”, a song which I admit I don’t feel like listening to in the past, but I learned to love and appreciate because of this movie. As a matter of fact the song has been stuck in my head for over a week now, and I’m really having a hard time trying to get it out of system. I also happen to really like the finale, which is Quand J'etais Chanteur, wherein Gerard Depardieu has surprised me with a powerful vocal ability at the latter part of the song. Gerard Depardieu proved himself to be really talented in this movie when he swept along the dance floor with Cecile de France. Cecil de France has also showed her flexibility as an actress and not only did she feature it, she also did it well.



The story progression was good as well, it was neither rushed nor slowed down, it went on smoothly and orderly, in my opinion. But it lacked character background, especially on the part of Cecile de France’s character. I personally find her character background mysterious, even if her personality shows that she was ironically a strong yet fragile woman. I yearn to find out more about her character, since the movie focused on Depardieu’s character background quite well. I feel that some part of the movie was cut during final editing because of this.



The movie ended well, and the director really made it a point that the audience hold their breath at the story’s ending. It was even heartbreaking at first, especially when the lead actors parted ways, but like a fairy tale, it ended happily ever after just when I thought that the credits would roll.

It’s really a great movie, and I highly suggest it to movie fanatics like me who are looking for something easy, simple yet magnetizing. It’s a movie with a very simple plot, typical as some might find, but it was beautifully and superbly told and performed.


Nota bene: All photos are all screen capped by moi. :)

Segunda Mano 2012

I went to the mall with Mac this morning. It's been nearly two years but we still haven't watched a movie together in the cinemas so we decided to finally do it today, since we're kind of getting tired of watching movies on computer screens. Ha-ha! We were planning to watch The Asiong Salonga Story, but the screening schedule is not until 6:30pm, so we opted for another movie instead. We chose to watch Segunda Mano since the trailer seems to be pretty nice, we figured that the movie is great. But that thought was cut short as the movie reached it's first half-hour. Before we went in the theatre, we bought snacks first from the department store then we had brunch at KFC. We shared one Zinger Fully Loaded Meal, four rice and three bowls of gravy. No other fast food would ever satisfy us than KFC, it's an all time favorite and no date is complete without it. If it's not available we opt for McDonald's, but it will always be our first choice. :)

The movie is okay. I can't say it's bad, and I can't say that it's good either. The plot is pretty predictable, but it's okay, it's not like we wasted money or anything; it's not disappointing as well. We find the movie pretty funny, or perhaps we're just one of those people who snicker at the most simple things. The actors are convincing, they were great it's just that the plot is, as I said, predictable that it kind of made the movie a little boring. There are no scenes that would make the audience scream as we have expected, or perhaps we just don't find it that way either. I guess we're just used to more horrifying films, or maybe the actress who played the ghost doesn't look creepy or scary at all. But whatever the movie turned out to be, I could say that we both really had fun watching it.

And yes, believe it or not, it's actually our first time to watch a movie together in the cinema. It was actually my idea at first, because I find watching movies pretty costly and I have this fear of watching a lame film. That's why we've been watching movies at home, at least we get to choose what movie we want to watch without worrying of the date or year it was shown. I was just being practical ha-ha, but he insisted that we finally do it, and I just can't refuse when he said that we're going to watch The Asiong Salonga Story. I've been wanting to watch it since they first aired the trailer on TV. We're still kind of disappointed that we haven't seen The Asiong Salonga Story, but we promised ourselves that we'll watch it soon, no matter what it takes. Ha-ha! Nonetheless, we loved what we did today and we will definitely have a go at it again in the future.

I love hanging out with Mac like we both have nothing to do, we kind of miss being bums but we just could not afford to bum around for too long anymore. It's a great feeling though, being productive, but nothing beats a chill out day with the person you love being with. <3