les miserables

what is it about les mis? four brilliant tunes, an epic plot rattled through at 200 novel-pages a minute, a series of injustices and pathetic deaths ending in those of the protagonists: the baddy jumping off a bridge, and the goody going off to heaven

the guy in the toilets afterwards told me it was his tenth visit, and made darn sure he told me; this is the kind of show that brings people back

it’s growing on me, as i move from an unfortunate highbrow sneer (that’s too nasty a word but you know what i mean) to a desire to wallow in it again – the tunes are so hummable and the story so vast – it’s a kind of cross between some great epic you need years to get into and the cheesiest tear-jerking pop song: if you can take the best of these, not the worst, you’ll end up telling strangers in the toilets how many times you’ve seen it

die hard

bucket list one item shorter

what a fun movie

but how seriously anti-cop too, and not just in the incompetent-plod way, but the big cops who fly in on helicopters are really evil

one nice ordinary guy in a vest (and the one decent ordinary cop outside) against both groups of bad guys – beautiful – this is A MYTH

How they are related

They appear at first glance to be myths of very different scales, but both in fact are similar in experienced-time – if not in plot-time. Both take a couple of hours give or take, but the fun at the plaza is of an evening, not a lifetime.

Both also are ‘icons’/memes/legends/things-some-people-have-seem-umpteen-times, and both star a valiant and honourable male hero, pitted against forces of evil represented by state officials. Both heroes end as saints. And at the moment I prefer Bruce.