So Miserable.

This year I decided that I wanted to try to see as many of the nominees for Best Picture as I could.  Up until today I had seen 6 and they were all amazing.  Today I saw the last one on my to-do list, Les Miserables.  Up until today I didn't know which one of those excellent movies should win Best Picture...

... and I still don't.  

But I do know which movie should not win.  And that is Les-fucking-Miserables.

I knew the movie was long.  I knew it was a musical.  I knew it was about the French Revolution and pretty much everyone dies.  What I did not know was how much I would hate every second of it.

Ok, not every second.  Anne Hathaway's performance of 'I Dreamed A Dream' was every bit as moving as I hoped it would be.  Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were funny.  And boy is that Eddie Redmayne adorable with his freckles.

But as soon as the movie started I was regretting my decision.  Probably for the first half hour I was telling myself to hang in there, it has to get better.  Maybe I just have to get used to the style...

But I did not get used to the style.

I'd say I was ready to leave about halfway in.  But I didn't.  And there just kept being more movie.  It just kept going and going.  And they just kept singing and singing and crying and crying.  

And there were so many unbearably long... song-monologues or whatever.  I don't mind a character stopping to sing a song every few minutes.  I like musicals.  But this is not a musical.  Everyone needs to stop calling it a musical.  Because it is a fucking opera.

And I hate opera.

Why didn't anyone tell me it was an opera?

I just wanted them to stop singing dialogue at each other for two seconds and talk like normal people.  You're not even singing songs now!  There hasn't been a melody for this entire scene! Stop it!

The operatic nature aside, I think I may have actually managed to make it through the whole damn thing without wanting to scream if it hadn't been for Hugh Jackman.

I hate Hugh Jackman now.  This is a new development.  It just happened about 3 hours ago.  Right about the time he opened his stupid mouth for the first time and started sing-talking at me for 3 goddamn hours.  And every single sung-spoken line pissed me off.  

It's hard for me to describe why his sing-talking was so much more irritating than anyone else's.  Maybe it was because his sing-talking was more breathy and staccato than anyone else's?  Less like an actual song and more like some form of repetitive sound assault.  Like Chinese water-torture but for my ears.

I used to find Hugh Jackman attractive but now I don't think I can ever look at him again.  I hate his too-far-apart, bug eyes now.  

I know musicals and operas are inherently melodramatic but I think he laid it on a little thicker than anyone else.  By the time the end rolled around everyone else was weeping and I was just willing him to fucking die already.  That's quite enough Jean Valjean.  Quite enough indeed.

You're miserable. I get it.