At the movies...

After about a year of not going out to the movies at all, we've managed to see two movies in the last six days.  Not surprising really, if you know us and know what's new: The Hobbit (part 1/3) and Les Miserables.  A big thanks to my mum for babysitting twice so we could do it!

It's funny the way we process different movies.  We saw the Hobbit first; despite some criticism from some quarters for not sticking to every letter of the book, I thought it was fantastic.  I loved the way it drew on the appendices in the Lord of the Rings to flesh out a lot of the back story and other things that are going on at the same time as Bilbo's adventures.  I was also impressed (hat-tip to my brother Phil for educating me in this to begin with) at how they chose Azog the orc to be the "strong enemy" and the focal point of the orcish antagonism to the dwarves.  And the film certainly gets you in.  Petrina was snuggling up close to me at one point for security, despite knowing full well that if a dwarf and an orc are fighting, it's definitely not real.  We got home afterwards and I wanted to turn around and go see it again straight away.  Good thing for all our sakes that they don't do many midnight showings...

We saw Les Miserables last night.  Again, fantastic.  I don't know the story as well - when I was a teenager the rest of the family quite like listening to it, but I didn't pay much attention, mainly due to being (a) contrarian (how can I like the same thing as my brother? ugh!) and (b) a bit of a puritan (but it's got prostitutes, it can't be good!).

The singing was great, the acting just what you'd expect with Jackman, Hathaway, et al.  This time the emotions were the other way round though.  I teared up a bit when Fantine died; nearly lost it when Javert pinned his medal on Gavroche's corpse, and again during Valjean's death.  And it's got much deeper themes running through it too.  Redemption, forgiveness, justice, mercy.  Javert and Valjean both claim to be right with God, yet Javert has a strong "correctness" approach - people who work hard and obey the law are righteous, and if not you're damned to hell forever, vs Valjean's mercy and sacrifice.  That contrast came out much more strongly than I remember from the CD of the stage show.  One of my first comments coming out afterwards was thankfulness that, for all its problems, we live here and now.  There are a lot of other times and places where basic survival is much more of an issue than it is for us.

The other astounding thing was the price difference.  We were using up a couple of gift cards, so we didn't go to our usual cinema, where it's $8.50 a ticket.  For the Hoyts we went to, $15.50 each, and for the Greater Union, $20.00 each!  I think we'll be back to the regular for whatever's next...