Les Misérables

Full disclosure: I'm a Les Misérables geek.  I don't see a lot of musicals, but I've seen it live twice.  Basically, the movie had to not-severely-eff-up and I'd like it.  Luckily, it was really well done.  Warning - the movie is (and feels) long as hell.  But at least nothing was cut out.

Now, the way it was filmed - with the live singing - was actually interesting and I loved it.  I didn't really realize until the end that there weren't any of your typical big musical-movie numbers.  The performances weren't big and grand, there wasn't singing and dancing -- they were much more intimate.  The way it's staged is more like you're there with the actors, not watching them.  It was cool to see the movie that way.  But I think it means the soundtrack itself wouldn't be any good to listen to.  The music didn't stand out to me, it was more about watching the performances in addition to listening to them.  For just listening, I'll stick with a stage cast recording. 

The performances were great.  However, the movie doesn't get better than Anne Hathaway singing "I Dreamed a Dream."  It totally lives up to the hype and is this amazing uninterrupted take (or at least it seemed that way) and is absolutely the pinnacle of the movie.  Not that the rest is bad, it's just not that good.  Everyone keeps slamming Russell Crowe, but I thought he was really good!  He fit this particular style of filmed musical, which is quieter and more "real" and less over-the-top.  Hugh Jackman has the bigger, booming voice.

It was just what I wanted in a movie adaption of Les Misérables.  By the end, the tears were streaming down into my cleavage.  Now that's a movie.

Fringe

Our team can't get Observer Baby to talk.  They bring him to Nina, who takes everyone to a convenient secret lab where the Resistance has been experimenting on Observers.  They've got a device that can basically read Observers' minds, but it doesn't work with the kid so they decide to try linking one of their mind's with the kid's.   

In the midst of tracking down all these secret labs and tech, the Observers find out Nina is working with our team, and locate her in the lab.  Soon it's R.I.P. Nina, who kills herself rather than have her brain probed by these assholes.  Luckily, she had stashed away Observer Baby so the team finds him after the Observers vacate the premises. 

The team takes the tech and Observer Baby back to the amber lab and hook up OB and Walter's brains.  Walter asks OB why he's important and he gets answered in a bunch of memory flashes, culminating in the revelation that September is Donald.  Man, I can't even remember what happened to September.  Didn't he die?  This show was complicated enough without rebooting this year.  Oy.

This Week's Code: SENSE

The Best Movies Are Out Now

I don't blog anymore.  That much is obvious.  To wit, I've seen a bunch of movies since September, and haven't said a thing about them.  And now I have to try to remember what they were, but I can't think of anything other than Lincoln.


So Lincoln was good.  It was great actually, especially for what could be a boring historical drama.  I actually think Sally Field is way over the top and annoying, but I loved Daniel Day-Lewis.  No shocker there, he's always good.  But I just wanted to hug Lincoln by the time it was over.  He seemed like a really cool guy, all chill and casual while also doing historically-important things.  We could be besties.

I was in New York this past weekend, and seized the opportunity to see Zero Dark Thirty.  It doesn't come out nationwide til January 11th and I was way too excited to have to wait that long.  It was amazing.  Like, A. May. Zing.  I love how it felt like you followed the whole story -- from interrogations to investigation to the raid on bid Laden's compound.  It was wonderful.  Kathryn Bigelow is such a great director - she excels at this war stuff so much, just making it feel real and tense and exciting.  Loved loved loved it.  Might be my Movie of the Year.  Also... god, I love Jessica Chastain.

 Finally, Santa brought me just what I wanted this year -- a new Quentin Tarantino movie, Django Unchained.  I am the World's Biggest QT Fangirl, so of course I'm going to love whatever he does.  Even if it stars Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio....

It was a quintessential Tarantino movie, naturally.  Just this time set in the slave-era South.  I love Christoph Waltz and he was wonderful in it.  I could listen to him speak all day.  I loved the first part of the movie best, with him teaming up with Django.  The dialogue was great, the music was great, the violence was over the top - everything you'd expect.  I feel like I might love Inglourious Basterds more, but who knows - it's early.  I've only seen Django once.  But I think my disdain for Foxx may keep me from full-on loving this as much.  He kind of plays Jamie Foxx all the time.... Then again, one could argue Christoph Waltz is the same all the time too.  Difference: Waltz is awesome.  Anyway, loved Django Unchained as much as I figured I would, and eagerly await Tarantino's next one.  You know what he hasn't done and should do?  Sci-fi.

But I digress.  There are still lots of year-end movies to see, like Silver Linings Playbook and Les Miserables.  They will all be Oscar contenders -- it'll be a tight race! At least I'll be a fan of whatever wins.

Fringe

Damn you, DVR, for screwing up and not recording Fringe on Friday.  Thank you, internet, for offering me other options....

The radio from the Pocket Universe is picking up a signal.  And Walter dropped acid.  This might be a good episode.  Walter has visions of a Tinkerbell type of girl as well as the chick who was burned to death in his lab. The team uses Convenient Resistance Tech to determine the source of the signal --  a skeleton in the woods.

There's a bunch of skeletons in the woods, and one of them is Sam Weiss, the awesome bowling alley dude from back in the day.  In their hunt for the source of the signal, they come across a couple in a house with a Child Observer.  The same one from the Pocket Universe, and the one they all encountered in the other timeline. Donald left the kid with the couple 20 years ago.  All they know is that he's somehow important to defeating the Observers, and he hasn't aged or spoken since.  They turn the kid over to our team, because that's what Donald instructed.

Then we get Walter reliving the past, with him crossing over to get Peter, etc., etc.  He's becoming the Asshole Walter he never wanted to be again.

This Week's Code: GUILT.

Fringe

Observer Peter is in full effect, with his transparent Wall of Crazy.  Windmark's out to get him and finds the Wall, realizing it means Peter can "run futures."  Peter does a lot of anticipating-everyone's-next-move tricks to outsmart Windmark, and fights him with all that blinking-out-of-existence stuff.

Olivia gets ahold of the tech/needle-thing that Peter used from their Resistance pal whose name I can't remember or understand.  She tells Astrid and Walter what Peter has done and wants Walter to take that tech and try to figure out a way out.

Goddammit, more of the Great Hunt for the Video Tapes.  The next one tells them to retrieve an industrial magnet.  Olivia goes to do it so that Walter can check out the Observer tech.  Walter's tests on the tech confirm that the brain gets, like, super-smart, and has no more emotions.

Olivia finds the people with the magnet - they've been holding it for years, waiting for Walter's return. Now Olivia has to transport this giant magnet back -- she's not gonna get stopped?  The Observers don't check for random big trucks on the roads?  The Observers don't find her, but some random thugs on the road ambush her - and they figure out she's got a bounty on her head.  The thugs call it in to the Reward Wire, saying they'll only meet the Observers in a "Truth Church" - a place they can't be read, I guess?

Peter shows up in the lab after his fight with Windmark to get his shoulder stitched up.  He feels no pain.  Walter says the changes will "soon be permanent" -- so I suppose there's hope for Peter to change back?

Olivia escapes the thugs, because she is Olivia and is awesome and rigs up a super awesome gun thing out of steam and Etta's bullet.  She is sure to retrieve the bullet.

Everyone on this show goes from Boston to NYC in 2.4 seconds.  It gets annoying.  Because suddenly Olivia meets up with Peter where he's watching Windmark to make sure he ends up on a trajectory that will lead to his death at Peter's hand.  But she convinces him to remove the tech from his brain so she doesn't lose him.  OK....  So does that mean Peter's whole transformation was totally pointless?  It's gotta have more repercussions down the road....

This Week's Code: PLEAD