From the page to the stage to the screen, it’s been quite the journey for Les Misérables. Once Victor Hugo’s novel, then Cameron Mackintosh’s stage musical, and now Tom Hooper’s movie, the beloved tale of lives in the gutters of 19th century France hits the big screen in musical form looking, well, almost identical to…
Sixto Rodriguez, a little known American folk-rock singer/songwriter in the tradition of Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, released two albums in the early 1970s, Cold Fact, and Coming From Reality but failed to achieve any popularity. Though praised by critics, his haunting songs about love and loss, drugs and politics, such as “I Wonder, Cause,”…
Adam Shankman’s new film/musical Rock of Ages tells the story of a small town girl Sherrie (Julianne Hough) and a city boy Drew (Diego Boneta), whose separate journeys to chase their dreams of stardom bring them together on the Sunset Strip. At first it all seems like paradise to Sherrie as sparks fly between her…
Whether it was needed or not, the stage sensation, Les Miserables, is making its way to theaters yet again. With a powerful cast, Universal Pictures’ adaptation, stays true to the play, following paroled prisoner Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) as he seeks redemption in a gritty 19th-century France. The trailer runs through some powerful backdrop scenes…
“Dance the winds will touch your feet, just dance and dance feel the beat, dance the last atom cutting a knot, just dance and dance until you cannot” — Miroslava Odalovic I sometimes have dreams about being in a place with gorgeous colors and heightened emotions and a feeling of weightlessness. I was thinking about…
My neighbor is a borderline Christian extremist. When she’s not bashing homosexuality or quoting the Bible, she particularly enjoys listening to gospel music and watching Tyler Perry movies. Once, being the self-appointed film snob I am, I asked about her obsession with the Madea series. She applauded the franchise’s family-friendly and pro-God morals — completely…
The primary creative force behind Lady Magdalene’s, J. Neil Schulman, may be somewhat of a successful novelist, but he cannot in good conscience add filmmaking to his list of credentials. While Schulman wants you to believe that Lady Magdalene’s is a smart action-comedy satirizing today’s post-9/11 climate, the resulting picture is actually an agonizing catastrophe;…
