Movies OPENINGS
Les Misérables ---
(Century 16, Century 20) One has to admire the ambition of “Les Misérables,” the through-sung play that’s now a big-screen musical. A condensation of Victor Hugo’s 1862 epic novel, the musical by composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricists Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel achieved enormous popular appeal with its soaring melodies and grasping melodrama. But it’s equally true that “Les Misérables” has never been known for its subtlety, with its storytelling in all-caps and its music thunderously repetitive. None of this changes, exactly, in the film adaptation helmed by Tom Hooper, Oscar-winning director of “The King’s Speech.” And like so many movie musicals, this one’s a mixed bag of suitable and not-so-suitable choices. On balance, though, it’s about as compelling a screen version of “Les Mis” as we have any right to expect. Hugh Jackman stars as Jean Valjean, a parole violator, in 19thcentury France, who lifts himself out of poverty and decrepitude but lives in fear of discovery by his former jailer, Inspector Javert (Russell
Isabelle Allen and Hugh Jackman. Crowe). From his new position of power as a factory owner, Valjean becomes entangled in the fortunes of one of his workers, despairing single mother Fantine (Anne Hathaway), and he begins to feel responsible for the woman and her child, Cosette (Isabelle Allen). The story sprawls its way into the Paris Uprising of 1832 — a studentfueled rebellion against the French monarchy — and a sort of love triangle among Cosette (now Amanda Seyfried), student revolutionary Marius (Eddie Redmayne), and his beggarly confidant Éponine (Sa-
ANNOUNCING T H E 2 7 TH A N N U A L PA L O A L T O W E E K L Y
— that never once feels affected. Hooper maximizes his budget to make “Les Misérables” look as big as can be, and occasionally he manages an ingenious small touch amidst the bombast (like seamstresses tugging needles on the beat). But Hooper also shoots himself in the foot by so insistently shooting in wide-angle close-ups. The play is “in your face” enough as it is: With the camera swooping in so often, I was sure it was going to smack an actor in the forehead. Pop a Dramamine and you’ll be fine.
mantha Barks, reprising her stage role). Throw in street urchin Gavroche (Daniel Huttlestone) and comic relief in the devious Thénardiers (Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, the latter unfortunately channeling Adam Sandler), and you have yourself a show. Jackman is perhaps the only sensible choice to headline the picture, and though he’s able enough, his performance typically feels calculated. The same could be said for Hathaway, who’s given an Oscarsavvy showcase in her single-take performance of the über-emotive aria “I Dreamed a Dream.” Hooper’s best choice is also his riskiest gambit: By recording all the vocals live (rather than the standard practice of having the actors lip-sync), he gets more vital acting, with intentionally raggedy vocals lending a palpable verisimilitude. But for my money, best acting honors go to Crowe, Redmayne and Barks, who seem most “in the moment.” Crowe suffers from some wobbly diction, but his performance is always emotionally resonant, while Barks knocks “On My Own” out of the park (I’ll admit it: I got chills). Redmayne (“My Week with Marilyn”) busts out with a surprisingly rich tenor voice — who knew?
Rated PG-13 for suggestive and sexual material, violence and thematic elements. Two hours, 37 minutes. — Peter Canavese
Django Unchained ---
(Century 16, Century 20) Brace yourselves for Quentin Tarantino’s latest provocation, the spaghetti western-cum-slavery epic “Django Unchained.” Tarantino repeats the feat of Nazi-revenge wishfulfillment fantasia “Inglourious Basterds,” with subject matter yet more highly charged for American audiences. Like “Inglourious Basterds,” “Django Unchained” is always audacious and entertaining, frequently funny and, at times, juvenile and repellent. That’s the deal you enter into with Tarantino, so there’s no point in acting surprised when he fulfills his promise. He’s the king of his own genre: Call it scavenger cinema. A curator of down-and-dirty pictures, Tarantino crafts mash-ups of fave flicks from the ‘60s and ‘70s
JUDGES: ADULT/YOUNG ADULT
CHILDREN/TEEN Katy Obringer, Former supervisor of Palo Alto Children’s Library Caryn Huberman Yacowitz, Playwright and Children’s book author Nancy Etchemendy, Children’s book author
All Writers: January 11, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
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PRIZES
Tom Parker, Award winning novelist and short story writer, UC Extension and Foothill College Instructor and former Stanford Instructor Meg Waite Clayton, is the nationally best selling author of The Four Ms. Bradwells, The Wednesday Sisters, and The Bellwether Prize finalist The Language of Light. Ellen Sussman Author of New York Times best selling novel French Lessons and San Francisco Chronicle best seller On A Night Like This
EXTENDED ENTRY DEADLINE:
(such as the 1966 spaghetti western “Django,” whose star Franco Nero appears in Tarantino’s film). In keeping with those films, Tarantino serves up a strong graphic sensibility (hello, snap zooms!), a funky soundtrack (from John Legend to Ennio Morricone), and a hyperbolic hero in Jamie Foxx’s Django. As the film opens in 1858, Django gets sprung from a chain gang by a bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, reminding us why he won an Oscar for “Basterds”). Plainly noting, “I kill people and sell their corpses for cash,” Schultz enlists Django to help him track three nasties and put them down. Django’s a quick study, swiftly excelling his teacher in the art of killing. This initial mission is but prelude to Django’s one true purpose: to reunite with his wife, Broomhilda von Shaft (Kerry Washington), and free her from slavery. Taken with the mythic echoes of Siegfried and Brunnhilde, Schultz agrees to help Django, and they set off for Candyland, the Deep South plantation ruled with an iron fist by Calvin Candie (a Mephistophelean Leonardo DiCaprio). There, Candie subjects his male slaves to “Mandingo fighting” (the term a nod to the Ghost of Blaxploitation Past) and his female slaves to prostitution. Here, too, Tarantino introduces us to “house Negro” Stephen, expertly played to the hilt by Samuel L. Jackson. A shameful collaborationist who has learned to shuck and jive to thrive, Stephen cackles at Candie’s jokes and hovers over his
FOR ADULTS: $500 Cash - FIRST PLACE $300 Cash - SECOND PLACE $200 Cash - THIRD PLACE FOR YOUNG ADULT/CHILDREN/TEEN: $100 Gift Certificate - FIRST PLACE $75 Gift Certificate - SECOND PLACE $50 Gift Certificate - THIRD PLACE Certificates are from co-sponsoring area bookstores. Bell’s Books (*ages 15-17) Kepler’s (*ages 12-14) Linden Tree (*ages 9-11) *age as of entry deadline
All adult winners and first place young winners in each category will be announced in the Palo Alto Weekly in February 2013. All winning stories will be published online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com
CONTEST RULES
1. The contest is open to anyone who lives, works or attends school full-time in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Stanford, Portola Valley, Woodside, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and East Palo Alto. 2. Limit of one entry per person. 3. Stories must be typed, double-spaced. Maximum 2,500 words. Longer stories will be disqualified. 4. $15 entry fee, along with 2 hard copies, for all ADULT stories; $5 entry fee for YOUNG WRITERS under 18. Make checks payable to “Palo Alto Weekly.” 5. Entries may not have been previously published. 6. Signed entry form must accompany story. Author’s name should NOT appear anywhere on pages of story. 7. All winners are required to email their story to the Palo Alto Weekly in a Microsoft Word Document as an attachment. Mail manuscripts to: Palo Alto Weekly Short Story Contest, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302 or deliver to 450 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto Questions: shortstory@paweekly.com ÜÜÜ°*> Ì " i°V ÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ iVi LiÀÊÓn]ÊÓä£ÓÊU Page 23