Entertainment

Meet my new obsession: The extended trailer for the movie Les Misérables. You've seen us talking about its star, Anne Hathaway, and how skinny and shorn she'd gotten for her role as factory worker Fantine. And I thought Russell Crowe would be perfect as Inspector Javert. I saw the stage production years and years and years ago. But honestly, I didn't care that much. It was all, "bla bla Les Mis bla bla" -- until I saw this.

First of all, I forgot how powerful and passionate Les Misérables is: The story, the music, the emotional turmoil of it all. I mean, there's a reason they didn't call it Les Super-Happy. Just hearing the songs again reminded me. Brought me to freakin' tears, people! (Gah, I hate/love that.) But what really got me is how this musical is different from any other movie-musical we've ever seen.

Usually in a film version of a musical they pre-record all the singing and then the actors have to lip-sync along. For Les Mis all the singing is done live. That means it's woven in more organically with the acting. And just from this trailer you can see how emotionally raw the performances are because of it.

I think some people may not like the film version because we're not getting technically flawless singing (especially since a lot of these actors are not theater-trained singers). But I'll take emotionally-charged over technically-flawless any way. 

Dying to see this movie now! But who cares what I think. Let's hear directly from the stars: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne (mrowr), and of course Anne Hathaway. 

Are you excited to see Les Misérables when it hits theaters?

Image via Universal Pictures