"...Extreme Poverty, Almost Always a Cruel Stepmother, is Sometimes a Mother; Privation Gives Birth to Power of Soul and Mind"

I read LesMisérables about 4 to 5 years ago, and, like Moby Dick, it took the good portion of the year for me to complete it. My problem with long books like that is that they become a burden. And Les Misérables is not named Les Misérables for nothin'. It's 829 pages of misery and poverty in 19th century France. I guess for me, that, while overall a brilliant read, it just wasn't a riveting page-turner.

Which I guess is why I shouldn't have been surprised that I felt almost exactly the same way about Les Misérables, the movie. As a side note, I had never seen the stage musical, so from frame 1 of the movie, I was thrown off by the fact that EVERYTHING was sang, all the way through. I am a mad lover of movie musicals - don't get me started, or you may find yourself suffering through my renditions of "Moses Supposes" or "Sisters" - but most movie musicals usually only have songs interspersed between dialogue. Whereas this was all singing! All the time! Which just wasn't my favorite. And this was probably just my naïveté of having not seen the stage version, but sing-songy talking just takes away a bit from the action for me.

But my main problem with the movie was, like the book, it was so friggin' long! Yes, I get that they're spanning ~17 years worth of time across like 10 main characters, so there's a wholelotta story to jam pack in there. Plus, I'd imagine when Hollywood is spending big bucks for a sweeping epic movie like this, they're going to make it worth your (their?) while. But I kept thinking during the movie, if I was at home, I would be fast-forwarding through many of the songs; I think because they were singing the whole time, when it came to a main character's solo song, it just wasn't that monumental to me. Also because I knew the story line, I probably had a bit of a "C'mon let's get on with it!" attitude about it.

So overall, mehhhhh, it was just ok. It's worth seeing it for Hugh Jackman's and Anne Hathaway's performances (seriously, when she finished singing "I Dreamed a Dream" I think I actually said "Fuckin' A" out loud in the definitely-not-empty theatre), but maybe save it for leisurely at-home fast forwarding.

In other news, I have 2 more short stories in A Good Man is Hard to Find. Which I'm planning on banging out today. So if you're lucky, you'll get 2 posts in one day. TTFN.