LES MISERABLES – 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Last night I saw this movie.. As a young guy, I used to love the MGM musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. They were so much fun because the dance scenes and songs were fabulous. I also loved watching Broadway musicals

But Les Miserables was a different kind of musical experience, unlike any I’d ever seen in my life.  I may not have the correct term for this genre, but I felt as if I was watching an exciting operetta in English.

Use whatever term you want to describe the performance, it was the most incredible musical I ever saw. Every aspect of the film felt as if it was near perfect.

• It took place in a large, magnificent London theater in the year 2010, with a huge, sellout crowd.
• The camera angles were exquisite. I felt as if I was in the theater, watching the performance live.
• The orchestra and the quality of the music was outstanding throughout the entire film.
• The costumes were creative and colorful.
• Every musical number was special. There wasn’t one moment in the show where I wanted to move onto the next song. That’s how good each song was.

Finally, never in my life did I see so much talent on one stage. The cast was huge, I couldn’t even begin to count the number of people on stage. If that wasn’t enough, they had a large chorus sitting behind the orchestra.

I don’t know how the producers found so many extraordinarily talented people for one show. Every member of the cast was outstanding, producing one masterful performance after another. Their voices and expressions, captured by the outstanding camera angles, were literally fabulous!

As stated above, this show was quite unique, I’ve never seen anything like it. I love aspects of life which are unique and different. This movie qualified in that regard big time. As much as I love MGM Musicals and Broadway Shows, I thought this was definitely the greatest musical I ever saw.

NOTE: The only complaint I have is the running time of the movie, which is slightly less than 3 hours. At one point in the film, I thought I was watching a vibrant, rousing finale, which received a long, standing ovation from the audience. That seemed like the perfect ending to a very exciting musical. However, I was dead wrong. That was not the finale, it was only HALFTIME, I mean INTERMISSION. In the movie, intermission lasted a mere thirty seconds. I’m LOL!