I like Django Unchained for the most part. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the non action parts were working so well for me that I was kind of sad to see it descend into a John Woo gunfight.

Also had no problem with the length but will admit that when it became clear the movie was not ending when it first look like it would that I was concerned.

High recommendations for Promised Land.

Saw Les Miserables. Liked it about as much as the stage production.

How did you like the stage production?

About as much as I liked the movie.

Both much less than I like the book.

They're fine, no complaints. But I'm not particularly engaged by the musical.

I love Les Mis. It is my favorite musical.

Saw the movie. Despite a few glaring flaws, the elements that are good are stellar (assuming you like the show to begin with). Jackman is powerful, the production is lovely, and the story and characters come through crystal clear.

The negative points (Crowe, HBC, SBC) were disappointing, but did not at all keep me from being enthralled.

However, I do not recommend seeing it before attending a party. Not exactly the best emotional state to put yourself in in preparation to celebrate.

I'd say it is one of the worst-filmed big budget movies I've seen in a long time. Everything being in extreme closeup kind of rendered breaking the confines of a stage pointless.

Therefore I give Russell Crowe the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he just had trouble singing with a camera up his nose. It was like Tom Hooper figured that rather than using the opportunity of film to expand the stage he'd instead use it to make the audience feel like they were sitting in the front row.

And, Anne Hathaway was very good. But if she wins an Oscar because she sang one song reasonably well I'll be disappointed. I know the precedent is set by Jennifer Hudson, but still. (Also sad to learn that even in heaven she didn't get her hair back.)

Castle in the Clouds and Master of the House are my two favorite numbers and they both came of kind of flat in the movie. Things did start to click in the last 45 minutes or I'd have ended up hating it a fair amount.

Oh, one other minor distraction. By the end, Hugh Jackman was looking an awful lot like Michael Landon on Little House. Especially the one scene where he comes out in an undershirt, wearing suspender. "Who am I? I'm Charles Ingalls!"

Oh, agreed for sue on Master of the House. By far the biggest disappointment for me. Completely sucked all the energy and humor out of it. Bleh.

I had been warned nasal-cam, but was totally okay with it. I suppose because when I heard about it the first thing I thought was, "Well, at least it's not like the Phantom movie where the cast was so bad at emoting that they shot all of the heavy emotional song solos from a helicopter so you didn't have to look at their faces." Being in their face worked for me in a show that's so dependent on the individual characterizations and their intense emotional struggles.

Les Mis was much kinder to its stage source than the Phantom movie. That said, I adore the live Royal Albert Hall production of Phantom released to video this past year. It squashed all memory of the Gerard Butler version. I kind of hope that eventually, a really good complete live staging of Les Mis will happen. (Not a concert.) I'm going to take in a second viewing soon, because I had mixed reactions to it, but now that I've calibrated, I might enjoy it more next time. (So much do I enjoy the show, I really want to get as much out of its imperfect film incarnation as I can.) The close-ups didn't bother me, either. Reviews had led me to expect something much more drastic than what I saw on screen. ("You can count their nose hairs and give them a thorough oral diagnostic exam!")

I don't see how the camera could have been closer. Often it was so close that the actors entire face didn't fit on screen. I think I achieved first name status with some of the pores on Jackman's face.

The reason it doesn't work great for me is that it is redundant. So much of the lyrics are expository. So you end up watching the actor go to great lengths to emote while they are verbally telling you how they feel and why. They're showing AND telling. Completely, in my opinion, undercut Redmayne's number at the end after he'd recovered.

Watching him grieve quite demonstratively while he is also telling me, quite explicitly, how much he is grieving. The result is like one of those literal videos on YouTube.