Review: 'Les Miserables', 'Django Unchained'

NEW YORK (WABC) -- "Les Misérables" was captivating. There isn't a better gift than going to see this movie if you love shows when it opens on Christmas Day.

As the doomed "Fantine" Anne Hathaway makes "Les Misérables" worth seeing just to hear her sing. It's a go-for-broke performance which will make you forget everyone else who ever tried to do justice to this.

Hathaway starved herself for her brief role and Hugh Jackman is just about unrecognizable when we first meet him as "Jean Valjean" who's just spent 14 years in hard labor for stealing bread.

Jackman and everyone in this movie sang live on set with no lip syncing to pre-recorded tracks.

It lends an intimacy to his performance that gives it greater impact, but that also serves to expose the flaws of co-star Russell Crowe, who can't quite keep up.

The policeman's pursuit of his former prisoner continues for decades, long after Jean manages to reinvent himself as a prosperous factory owner.

It's all part of the epic sweep of a musical that includes a love triangle amid the Paris uprising of 1832.

"Les Misérables" definitely gives you your money's worth: two and a half hours of continuous music which for some will seem a bit too much.

Jaime Foxx's character, a slave, is liberated by Christophe Valtz who plays a bounty hunter in a new movie "Django Unchained". It's an orgy of violence and racism that comes courtesy of director Quentin Tarentino.

The overt racism of Leonard DiCaprio's character is just one reason "Django Unchained" is one of the most upsetting and disturbing movies that this reviewer has seen in a long time.

I found the picture so offensive in so many ways and the trailer does not prepare you for the blood and gore which made me almost physically ill.

I'm paid to watch movies the good the bad and the ugly, but if I could've walked out, I would have walked out.

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Please visit Sandy Kenyon's blog for more entertainment news at wabc.typepad.com/whatsandysays

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