Book/Movie Rec: Auspicious Beginnings for 2013!
In Books:
The Incense Game, by Laura Joh Rowland (Sano Ichiro mysteries, #16): Beginners beware, this is not the place to start this excellent series; you'll spend too much time wondering who is who, and not enough marveling at Rowland's ability to spin a murder mystery in the middle of a tale about recovery from terrible disasters. The story opens with the murder itself, which takes place just prior to the earthquake of 1703, also vividly described. Rowland deftly juxtaposes the small tragedy against the backdrop of the larger one, as people scramble to recover from the disaster that's leveled much of the city. I think one of the strongest testaments to her storytelling power is that even sixteen volumes in, I still remember and care about each of the characters. I think she only needed a sentence to remind me of who they were and the problems they're facing. I often wish these books had a larger fandom and/or could be made into a compelling mini-series; there is so much rich plot and character development in them that they would catch on like wildfire. What an excellent read, and with a plausible but completely surprising twist about three quarters of the way through.
At the Movies:
Les Miserables: Funniest overheard dialogue prize of the entire holiday season goes to my Dad, who overheard the following sentiment about this movie, while at Ralph's: "Why would anyone go see a movie called 'The Miserables' during the holiday season?!" another shopping earnestly asked another. There's a longer answer, of course, but the shorthand one that I came up with long after hearing this story (and therefore unable to use it to actually answer the original, overheard speaker) is that suffering is part of this story, but it's not the whole, and the whole is a beautiful, uplifting thing. I really loved this movie version, although it wasn't exactly perfect. With the exception of Russell Crowe, I thought the casting was fantastic, and the setting was appropriately epic. Seeing Jean Valjean attempt that hike through the mountains early on in the story really laid out the stakes of the drama very nicely, and the tone, perhaps occasionally overblown, was compelling and exciting throughout. The director's approach to the music (letting the actors sing their lines live, and then syncing up the music afterwards) really paid off, too. The stirring numbers, like the Red/Black rallying-the-troops song, and "Do You Hear the People Sing?" felt organic and natural, even with the musical conceit of "hey, people have spontaneously started singing!"
Anne Hathaway, in particular, was just fabulous, and it was "I Dreamed a Dream" that wrung the most tears out of me. (Dammit, movie. So glad I didn't wear mascara that night!) Up until this movie, I'd always thought Fantine's role was a somewhat thankless one: she's so pivotal to the plot, and she gets a dynamite onstage break-down, but as a character, we don't know much about her, and she exists largely to spur Valjean's later actions. Hathaway's performance changed my opinion: the song as a soliloquy of her mistakes and regrets rang a lot more true to the rest of the story, and she didn't just seem like a plot point anymore.
As I mentioned before, Russell Crowe seemed a bit out of place throughout the whole thing, and I'm not sure what went wrong. The other moment that seemed a bit out of scale was the "One Day More" number, which I think needed a different kind of pause immediately afterwards, instead of "More action! More stuff happens!" If there had been a moment that felt like an actual theatrical intermission, I think the pacing would have felt a little more natural and less rushed. (We could have used this time to develop the Marius/Cossette relationship, which sure did need it.) But aside from those two issues, I loved the movie overall, and it was a pleasure to reach that finale, because it's one of my favorites in all of musical theater. :)
Wow, two great starts for 2013! I like how this is going so far.
The Incense Game, by Laura Joh Rowland (Sano Ichiro mysteries, #16): Beginners beware, this is not the place to start this excellent series; you'll spend too much time wondering who is who, and not enough marveling at Rowland's ability to spin a murder mystery in the middle of a tale about recovery from terrible disasters. The story opens with the murder itself, which takes place just prior to the earthquake of 1703, also vividly described. Rowland deftly juxtaposes the small tragedy against the backdrop of the larger one, as people scramble to recover from the disaster that's leveled much of the city. I think one of the strongest testaments to her storytelling power is that even sixteen volumes in, I still remember and care about each of the characters. I think she only needed a sentence to remind me of who they were and the problems they're facing. I often wish these books had a larger fandom and/or could be made into a compelling mini-series; there is so much rich plot and character development in them that they would catch on like wildfire. What an excellent read, and with a plausible but completely surprising twist about three quarters of the way through.
At the Movies:
Les Miserables: Funniest overheard dialogue prize of the entire holiday season goes to my Dad, who overheard the following sentiment about this movie, while at Ralph's: "Why would anyone go see a movie called 'The Miserables' during the holiday season?!" another shopping earnestly asked another. There's a longer answer, of course, but the shorthand one that I came up with long after hearing this story (and therefore unable to use it to actually answer the original, overheard speaker) is that suffering is part of this story, but it's not the whole, and the whole is a beautiful, uplifting thing. I really loved this movie version, although it wasn't exactly perfect. With the exception of Russell Crowe, I thought the casting was fantastic, and the setting was appropriately epic. Seeing Jean Valjean attempt that hike through the mountains early on in the story really laid out the stakes of the drama very nicely, and the tone, perhaps occasionally overblown, was compelling and exciting throughout. The director's approach to the music (letting the actors sing their lines live, and then syncing up the music afterwards) really paid off, too. The stirring numbers, like the Red/Black rallying-the-troops song, and "Do You Hear the People Sing?" felt organic and natural, even with the musical conceit of "hey, people have spontaneously started singing!"
Anne Hathaway, in particular, was just fabulous, and it was "I Dreamed a Dream" that wrung the most tears out of me. (Dammit, movie. So glad I didn't wear mascara that night!) Up until this movie, I'd always thought Fantine's role was a somewhat thankless one: she's so pivotal to the plot, and she gets a dynamite onstage break-down, but as a character, we don't know much about her, and she exists largely to spur Valjean's later actions. Hathaway's performance changed my opinion: the song as a soliloquy of her mistakes and regrets rang a lot more true to the rest of the story, and she didn't just seem like a plot point anymore.
As I mentioned before, Russell Crowe seemed a bit out of place throughout the whole thing, and I'm not sure what went wrong. The other moment that seemed a bit out of scale was the "One Day More" number, which I think needed a different kind of pause immediately afterwards, instead of "More action! More stuff happens!" If there had been a moment that felt like an actual theatrical intermission, I think the pacing would have felt a little more natural and less rushed. (We could have used this time to develop the Marius/Cossette relationship, which sure did need it.) But aside from those two issues, I loved the movie overall, and it was a pleasure to reach that finale, because it's one of my favorites in all of musical theater. :)
Wow, two great starts for 2013! I like how this is going so far.