Les Miserables: The Musical, The Movie, The Book, and The 25th Anniversary Concert

I love Les Mis.  It is definitely in the running for my favorite musical of all time (which is tough because I've seen so many musicals).  I went to see the movie over the holidays and would like to quickly share my thoughts:

One of the biggest surprises for me was Eddie Redmayne as Marius.  He was fantastic, RoB even went so far as to say he made the movie.  Marius is a weird role and I've never really liked him, maybe it was because I've never seem someone play the role well, but he did and I suddenly really liked the character.  I had heard lots of talk about Anne Hathaway being great, and she lived up to all of those expectations.

Both of the young actors did a great job. Young Cosette was great, very cute and everything you'd expect out of an innocent girl.  Gavroche was also great, and I really enjoyed how they gave him a longer part in "Look Down", a little more history about the uprising.

Worst singer goes to Amanda Seyfried as Cosette.  Another character I've never really liked, but the vocal part seemed beyond her capabilities and it was obvious when she was singing with two great singers that played Eponine and Marius.  Russell Crowe's singing wasn't great either, he wasn't terrible but his voice just wasn't powerful enough for the officer Javert, I never really felt like I would be scared of him.

I really liked how the did the song "Do You hear the People Sing", it was in a different place than the musical and I had a panicked moment when I though that they left it out.  Just as I leaned over to RoB to whisper "they skipped a song" the first chords of that song started, whew!  It was great and not just because the love of my life (Aaron Tveit playing Enjolras) was leading the song.  I liked how you actually felt like the people were going to rise and take over.

One very small thing I was sad that they left out.  A the very end when Jean Valjean is dying, Fantine comes to him as a ghost.  However in the musical both Fantine and Eponine come to him and sing "Come to Me" with one of my favorite harmonies of all time, it is beautiful.  I was sad to see this left out but then I realized that Valjean never really had any interaction with Eponine in the movie like he did in the musical so it might not have made sense.  But it is one of my favorite parts of the musical so of course I was sad to see it left out.

One other issue I had was with the cinematography (I think) basically some of the weird camera angles and close ups.  They were very artsy and I'm sure lots of people liked that, but I just felt like it was weird.

(I also just read a great review on the movie over at Semi-Charmed Kind of Life.)

For Christmas RoB got me the 25th Anniversary Concert, which is AMAZING if you haven't seen it.  We put it in on Christmas while we were cleaning up the mess of wrapping paper and starting breakfast and my whole family would be transfixed and basically stop what they were doing to watch and listen.  If you want to hear quite possibly the best vocal performances for every part (except Marius, nick jonas sucks) you should watch this.  I would love if they would've had someone good play Marius (like Eddie Redmayne!) because that would've made this performance perfect.

(This is just a taste of how good it is, go rent or buy the whole thing!)

About once every two years I get an urge to actually read Les Mis.  I tried once when I was in either middle or high school and it was way too overwhelming, but now I want to try again.  I've never read it and think I might have a hard time following through with it, so RoB and I are going to try and read it at the same time.  I will read it on my new Kindle (!!) and I think he bought the last copy available in Lexington.  I would like to come up with a better name than the Les Mis Challenge (there's got to be something witty I can come up with), but that's what it will be for now.  We are going to try and read the First Book: A Just Man from the First Part: Fantine (~50 pages) by Sunday and try and discuss it.  I will keep updates on my blog here as well.  If you have read it or want to read it now I'd love for you to chime in on the discussions, maybe I could even do a link-up or something fun like that!

Lastly, I was sent a review book called A Merry Requiem: The Gathering Storm that is loosely based on Victor Hugo's life.  I recently finished it so watch for that review soon!

Billy Elliot, the Musical

Last week we went to see Billy Elliot, the Musical in San Francisco.  The partner and I LOVE musicals but we are also very judgmental about them.  This was one that fell into the category of not so great, sadly.  We knew that they were doing rush tickets for $40 each (which is a lot for rush), so I was there early enough to grab some of those.  We also heard that the show was closing a month early and canceling the rest of its national tour.  Even after hearing all of this we decided we still had to see it, it won the Tony for Best Musical two years ago so there must be something good about it, right?

Well there wasn't much.  There weren't very many good singing numbers and besides Billy and a few other select leads the dancing wasn't even that good (wasn't this suppose to be all about the dancing?).  The overall show didn't really go anywhere either.  It wasn't really a drama and it wasn't quite funny enough to be a comedy, which just left us feeling very blah.  The accents were awful and some of the characters were pointless.  But none of these were the worst part.

The worst part was that this musical beat out Next to Normal for best musical that year.  I saw Next to Normal a few months ago (see here).  And it was one of the best musicals I've seen in a while, not to mention one of the few original musicals* to come out in the past few years and has some really great music.  Now that I've seen both musicals I feel like I can sufficiently judge them and confidently say that Next to Normal was by far the superior musical and definitely got snubbed at the awards.

Ok done complaining. I don't recommend spending the money to see Billy Elliot (even if its $40 rush), there are much better musicals out there and I will happily recommend one if you ask :)

And now my crappy TV shows are over and I've finished drinking the rest of the wine out of the bottle (classy, I know) so that's all for tonight!

*I really wanted to link this to the song "Original Musical" from title of show, but couldn't find it on youtube so here's a great montage from that show.

Do You Hear The People Sing?

First off, I know I'm breaking one of my blogging rules (I'm at work...shhhh) but its breaktime and this is important!

One of my dream jobs is to play in a professional pit orchestra for a musical, however that probably would've required me to be a little more focused on studying and practicing music.  I recently got an opportunity to play in a pit orchestra, although not quite broadway.  Its for a local youth production and our community orchestra was asked to play for it!  Of course, I jumped at the chance, figuring this is as close to broadway as I might ever get :) The fact that they are performing one of my favortie musiclas of all time, Les Miserables, didn't hurt either.  It is seriously awesome, the music is wonderful, the kids who are performing ar super talented, and I just love the atmosphere surrounding a production like this.  This brings me to the point of the post:

Everyone should come out and see this show!!

They are trying to get a full house every performance, which would be so great for everyone involved.  Yes, its a youth production of a major musical, but don't count these kids out, there is some great talent there. Anyway, here are the details:

What: Les Miserables (school edition)
When: August 11th (TODAY!), August 12th (Fri), and August 13th (Sat) at 7:30pm
           August 13th (Sat) and August 14th (Sun) at 2pm
Where: The Performing Arts Center at El Cerrito High School, 540 Ashbury Ave, El Cerrito, CA
            (Walking distance from the El Cerrito Plaza BART station)
Tickets: $20 and you can buy them here, or at the door.

Mother's Day Fun

Yes, I know everything is very late on my blog, sorry!

Instead of doing the usual go out to brunch, wait a long time, end up paying too much for not great food for mother's day we just hosted our own brunch.  The bf made all the food, although I did find some of the amazing recipes for him (like this french toast recipe from The Kitchn).  I made the mimosas and mock mimosas (with sparkling tangerine juice from Whole Foods).  The food and drinks were a hit! It was a little bit too much food for the average person, but it was all so delicious we ate almost all of it!

I made a gift for my mom, which I haven't done since I was a small child.  I was very proud of myself for being crafty and getting in touch with my creative side.  I got the idea from here (which I saw on here) and was inspired from here.  I didn't go for the exact straight lines or perfect measurements, but went for a more handmade look :)

I got a little overwhelmed when I walked into Michael's with a plan of what I needed to buy to complete my project.  When I saw that the canvases came is two packs I decided that if the first one came out the way I wanted, I would make a second (for myself)!  The other decision I had to make were the colors I wanted to use (I probably should've done this before I went since my default is always maize and blue and I'm trying to branch out).  So I spent quite a bit of time in the paint aisle deciding what kind/size of paint (I went for something cheap) and a good color (I ended up with a blueish periwinkle).  Then I walked to the fancy thick paper/cardstock and tried to decide on a complementary color, I ended up with dark brown.  I also needed Mod Podge (which had too many options so I went with matte) an exacto knife, paint brushes, and a paint holder thing (for all of these I just went with the cheapest option).

With all my supplies in hand I started by making evenly spaced lines on the canvas for the stripes, but of course I couldn't find a ruler so I just ended up using binder paper and made each stripe 3 lines long.  This left an oddly large final stripe so I fudged the lines a bit to make it look more even.  I then painted every other line and let it dry.

Next came the California shape.  I found a random simple outline of California online and printed it out.  Then I taped it to my fancy dark brown cardstock and using my exacto knife, followed the outline.  I then Mod Podged it into place (I had no clue what this meant, nor did I investigate it, I basically used it as glue and then as a finish, maybe I should've checked out this website first).  Lastly I cut out a little red heart and glued it where Lake Tahoe is.  End result: my mom loved it and here it is hanging in her bathroom!

Super blurry pic from my Mom, I think my sister's photography talents must be form the other side of the family

I also received a mother's day present since I am a mother to this adorable pupperz. 

Aww

I got the Memphis CD, and I'm pretty sure he had some help from the bf.  We just went to see the Broadway on screen version of Memphis and both loved it (although I think the bf loved it more, which makes me question the motives for the gift ;) Btw, the music form Memphis is great, and if you're into Broadway shows/music you should definitely check it out!

Are You Ready to Rock?

A few weeks ago we went to see Rock of Ages, the musical.  This was the second part of a groupon a couple friends and I had bought (the first part was Next to Normal, here).  I was pretty excited for this show, my parents and sister had seen it in New York and loved it, and all the music sounded fun (all 80s rock).  Headlining the tour was Constantine Maroulis, American Idol reject and star of the original Broadway production.  This was also exciting because he seemed to be a perfect fit for the show.

Sadly, the musical didn't live up to my expectations and the whole group I went with felt the same way (we are a bunch of theater junkies, we have good taste).  The music was fun and loud, but it was very hard to understand the lyrics.  The storyline was kinda blah and felt forced to fit the music.  It just didn't seem like a real musical, which I guess it isn't, really it's more of a musical revue.  Anyway, the singers/actors/dancers were great but the musical itself left much to be desired.  Maybe it would've been more fun if we had dressed up like the guy who turned around to the whole balcony and yelled "Are you ready to rock?" and then stood up to sing and dance to the songs, maybe next time!

Beach Blanket Babylon

Love love love love LOVE this show.  This was my third (or maybe fourth) time seeing it and I think it was the best so far.  We decided last minute to attend and bought tickets about an hour and a half before the show started and then waited in line.  Since it is all open seating within the section you purchase, it's a good idea to get in line early so we ended up with pretty good seats in our section. 

The actors were amazing, as always, but the content was quite different from the last time I saw it.  Of course all the political stuff was still there and Meg Whitman (played by a man) was probably one of my favorites.  They did a big thing about the Giants and their World Series Championship, which got a great reaction from the crowd.  All the current pop starts got their due, Katie Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, even the cast of gLee!  Towards the end they did a spin off on Les Miserables to represent the current state of our country.  I found this very amusing, but I guess the average person doesn't know the music/story from Les Miserables as well as I do :)  Luckily, the bf liked the show and thought it lived up to all my hype (this is rare, since I always tend to hype things up too much).

Avenue Q

It sucks to be me! (ok, not really, at least I don't have a B.A. in English)

Wish I could've gotten a better picture, but the bf was tired and didn't want to wait...

A few friends and I got $50 tickets to see Avenue Q in SF.  It was my second time seeing it so I knew most of the jokes and punch lines already, but I still really enjoyed it.  There are so many great and inappropriate things about that show.  The boyfriend seemed to get a little sentimental during this line "the more you love someone the you want to kill them" and kept looking my way, I wonder if he was hinting at something...

I love this line "being on an elevator when somebody shouts "hold the door",  No!  Schadenfreude, fuck you lady that's what stairs are for!" because every time I'm on an elevator and a door shuts in someone's face I feel like singing out that line.  I also love the song "I Wish I Could go Back to College" because it is so very true.

The actors were great, especially the guy who played Princeton/Rod (David Corris).  We had an understudy for the female lead, but you never would've known because she was great too.  All around I forgot how good of a show this was and it kept me laughing and entertained the whole time!

Next to Normal

Last week I went to see Next to Normal in SF.  It was an amazing show! 

Alice Ripley won the Tony for Best Actress in this part and she was staring in the tour.  Love or hate her voice, she is perfect for the part.  I knew the music and the basic idea of the story, but seeing it live made it all come together and made it an even more moving show.  The set, lighting, and music were really great.  The actors were all very talented, but the one character I really wanted to like was probably my least favorite.  I don’t want to give too much away, but I didn’t love Gabe as much as I though I would.  At first I thought I didn’t like the actor (mostly because I LOVE the original actor, Aaron Tveit) but I later reconsidered that maybe I just wasn’t crazy about that character.  Here’s their performance from the 2009 Tonys:

After being blown away by this show, I’m a little surprised it didn’t win best musical in 2009.  Billy Elliott won best musical that year and I will be seeing it this summer, in my mind it has a lot to live up to, to convince me that it was the best musical that year.