Movies

My anticipation for “The Hunger Games” has abated somewhat since the movie has opened (though I still haven’t had a chance to see it...). So that allows me to get more focused on what will be my next movie obsession, the big-screen adaptation of “Les Miserables.”

Last thing I had heard was that Taylor Swift was going to be Eponine, which threw my feelings about the whole enterprise into a tizzy. Swift is a fine singer / songwriter but she didn’t seem to me to have the dramatic heft to pull off Eponine. But somewhat along the way, Swift fell out of the running and a much less well-known actress, Samantha Barks, was announced as having the role. Based on the video embedded in this story, Ms. Barks certainly has the vocal chops to pull it off and she looks adorable, but some of her phrasing or her accent or something in this particular performance just doesn’t quite sit right with me. Still, she’s not Taylor Swift.

I like this picture of Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe as Javert looks fine. What I’d really like though is a sense of how they are going to sound. Anyone got some YouTube of Crowe singing “Stars?”