The movie musical Les Miserables is now heavily promoted not only for its coming holiday release but because the awards season also coincides in terms of timing. Various screenings with different awards bodies (AMPAS for Oscars, GGlobes, Screen Actors Guild and other guilds) are now taking place. In a recent one on December 15 in Hollywood, the morning screening ( with the SAG, it seems, as the audience was addressed as "fellow actors" by Anne), a Question and Answer session succeeded the screening ( with Hooper, Jackman, Hathaway, Seyfried, and Redmayne) --
Thanks for posting. Now I can see why there is such a heavy backlash from some critics. They don't want to see such enthusiasm for any movie. They've got to cut it down to size somehow. Their mantra - If it's popular, it must be bad.
Bwnut, if your contention is true then why do many popular movies get good reviews: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, most Pixar films, The Lion King, ET, Star Wars, The Matrix, Chicago, Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, Avatar, Inception, The Sixth Sense, Spiderman 2, many of the Harry Potter films, such recent films as Skyfall, The Dark Knight, etc?
The film of Les Mis is very faithful to the show and as such has many story short-cuts that most prestige pics fill in. The lack of context for the rebels' scenes, I think, will cause the biggest challenge for some critics. Most critics saw the film before these advance screenings and formed their opinions on their own. Screenings are a bad indicator for not just critical opinion but the regular audience's response. I was at an advance showing of Nine and the crowd went crazy for it. I saw it again opening weekend and the audience hated it.