Jersey Boys (1 Viewer)

A number of Jersey guys here and nobody has seen this Eastwood directed film?

I saw it yesterday and liked it. Not as poor as the reviews IMO. I did like the stage show a bit more. I didn't like the desaturated look Eastwood chose. It could have been better in vivid color.

I saw the play a few years ago and loved it, and I thought the movie was terrific. Eastwood's choice to use the stage actors in many of the roles was a good one. The movie explores a few things I don't remember the play getting into as much (the death of Frankie's daughter, for one), and I found it to be overall a great experience. Loved the "curtain call" segment at the end.

Well, I'm going to see it tomorrow then as I grew up listening to the Four Seasons. Being from the NYC Metro area, I always preferred them over that California Beach sound from the Beach Boys.

Kind of a bleak movie, like watching a "VH1: Behind the Music", but the music is great. I thought that the desaturated, almost ugly look, really suited the feeling of the movie, which was very melancholy.The casting was excellent from top to bottom. I'm glad Eastwood avoided Hollywood stunt casting and wasn't afraid to mine the show's stage talent. John Lloyd Young won a Tony playing Frankie Valli on Broadway, and he's excellent here in the same role. Bob Gaudio, who got fired from the Vegas production of the stage show, is also terrific as Bob Gaudio. Michael Lomenda previously played Nick Massi in the touring production of the show. Vincent Piazza, as Tommy DeVito, is the only one of the four who hadn't previously played his character on stage. But as a second-generation Italian American who has been a series regular on Boardwalk Empire, the Jersey mob scene had to be very familiar territory for him. John Lloyd Young's voice is tremendous. And Christopher Walken is Christopher Walken, so that's enough said. Eastwood knows how to employ Walken's talents in exactly the right way for this movie.My favorite supporting performance was Mike Doyle as Bob Crewe. Not only is the physical resemblance uncanny, but he has to walk a very delicate line in the movie, since some of the characters have a laugh at his homosexuality (in keeping with the sensibilities of the time), but the movie has to laugh with him and not at him. Doyle plays Crewe as flamboyant, but not overly so, and a sharp businessman and competent producer. Outside the band itself, he's probably the most important player in the Four Seasons' rise to fame.I also thought Freya Tingley did a terrific job in her couple of seasons as Frankie's daughter Francine, in the months leading up to her overdose. That relationship is only sketchily established in the movie, but in really two conversations Tingley establishes that character in such a way that you have an investment in the character when she dies and not just Frankie's reaction to her death.

I just got a kick out of Joe Pesci being a character in this movie. He had to have suggested having his character's name in Goodfella's be Tommy DeVito.

I'll wait for home video, but in the meantime I found this interesting:http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/06/20/jersey_boys_accuracy_fact_checking_clint_eastwood_s_four_seasons_biopic.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

I love this film! One of the best cinema experiences I had this year. As most of you know, the tragedy of this great group was not uncommon among those groups from that era. Just about every one of them had their downfalls. Perhaps, it's just the nature of the business combined with the gigantic egos involve with musical artists along with the lack of morals.

'Jersey Boys' is 134 minutes long... and felt like 200. The last 20 minutes (including the credits) were very entertaining. And a few minutes here and there are also entertaining. But the majority of it was almost a snooze-fest for me. Too much "acting" and not enough MUSIC.
If you've seen the stage show, it's likely you'll be at least a little disappointed with the movie. If you haven't seen the stage show, then maybe you'll like the movie a bit more, but I recommend you save your money to see it on the stage.
The Booth Bijou gives 'Jersey Boys' 2.5 out of 5 stars. Without the last 20 minutes, it would be 2 out of 5.
Mark

Mark Booth said:

'Jersey Boys' is 134 minutes long... and felt like 200. The last 20 minutes (including the credits) were very entertaining. And a few minutes here and there are also entertaining. But the majority of it was almost a snooze-fest for me. Too much "acting" and not enough MUSIC.
If you've seen the stage show, it's likely you'll be at least a little disappointed with the movie. If you haven't seen the stage show, then maybe you'll like the movie a bit more, but I recommend you save your money to see it on the stage.
The Booth Bijou gives 'Jersey Boys' 2.5 out of 5 stars. Without the last 20 minutes, it would be 2 out of 5.
Mark

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Not entirely true as I know more than a few people that have seen the show and still loved the movie.

I'm one of them. Saw the stage show and loved it. Saw the movie and thought it was great.
BTW, the actress who plays Frankie's first wife is from the stage show and this is her first movie. She's terrific in it.

I saw it on Friday. The story was interesting, the acting was good, the period details were excellent and I had no problem with the multiple fourth-wall perspectives. What I did have a problem was the relative shortness of the musical sequences (despite the out-of-nowhere ending, this is a biopic with music, not a musical), the editor's regrettable inability to linger on the same shot for more than a few seconds (it is especially grating at the end) and that the drab, washed-out color looks out of place in a film set in the 1960s. But I had no idea that Bob Crewe, who also wrote "Music to Watch Girls By," actually liked the boys who watched the girls who watched the boys who watched the girls go by.

The real test of this film is what my Dad, who was a Four Seasons fan way back when, thinks of it.

3/5

Went the 20th when it opened and liked it quite a bit. I just didn't like the mix of the real recordings and the imitations. Would've preferred for the actors to just lip sync whenever possible.

Instead, you only hear the real deal here and there, mostly in the end credits.

Glad I went, almost didn't when the trailers weren't using the real music. Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons is pretty much my favorite (And still sounds great if anyone has the opportunity to attend one of his concerts where he can still draw quite a crowd).

LeoA said:

Went the 20th when it opened and liked it quite a bit. I just didn't like the mix of the real recordings and the imitations. Would've preferred for the actors to just lip sync whenever possible.

Instead, you only hear the real deal here and there, mostly in the end credits.

Glad I went, almost didn't when the trailers weren't using the real music. Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons is pretty much my favorite (And still sounds great if anyone has the opportunity to attend one of his concerts where he can still draw quite a crowd).

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Unless I missed something, the ONLY place you hear the real Four Seasons is in the end credits. I'm pretty sure all of the rest of the singing was the actual actors.

And it IS the actors doing the singing (lip synced or not). Each of those actors also played those parts at different times in the stage show. In fact, when we saw 'Jersey Boys' in New York in 2012, John Lloyd Young played Frankie Valli. We felt he was TERRIFIC on the stage. And his singing was terrific in the movie. But his acting is a bit stiff in the movie (particularly at the beginning).

Mark

LeoA said:

Went the 20th when it opened and liked it quite a bit. I just didn't like the mix of the real recordings and the imitations. Would've preferred for the actors to just lip sync whenever possible.

Instead, you only hear the real deal here and there, mostly in the end credits.

Glad I went, almost didn't when the trailers weren't using the real music. Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons is pretty much my favorite (And still sounds great if anyone has the opportunity to attend one of his concerts where he can still draw quite a crowd).

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You have the same actors from the Broadway show, and on Broadway lip synching is not done.

LeoA said:

Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons is pretty much my favorite (And still sounds great if anyone has the opportunity to attend one of his concerts where he can still draw quite a crowd).

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My Dad told me he saw Frankie Valli live solo in the late 1980s. He only wanted to do new material, but fans wanted the old stuff, so he walked.

Forgot about my only real criticism of the movie. I didn't like the actresses they picked to portray The Angels, they didn't look anything like the real singers, and 'My Boyfriend's Back' didn't sound anything like the real deal.

And from what I know, they weren't dimwits but the movie has at least one of them acting like the stereotypical modern blonde bombshell that has been so common since the 1950's in film.

That said, I like what they were trying for by including them since they were New Jersey girls trying to make it in this business right around the same time.

Mark Booth said:

Unless I missed something, the ONLY place you hear the real Four Seasons is in the end credits. I'm pretty sure all of the rest of the singing was the actual actors.

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It has been a week and a half at this point so I can't give you any details, but I'm pretty certain there was another instance of a real recording being used before the end credits.

But every time you actually see them singing, it's their own voices. But they did a solid job of it so I can't complain much (Although 'Can't Take My Eyes Off of You' I thought didn't really sound much like the real deal).

MatthewA said:

My Dad told me he saw Frankie Valli live solo in the late 1980s. He only wanted to do new material, but fans wanted the old stuff, so he walked.

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He's not that way anymore, thankfully. Or at least he wasn't when I attended a concert in Verona NY on New Years Eve last year.

He opened with 3 or 4 of his big 70's hits (To a bit of concern for me since I was there for his 60's classics), and then it was all stuff I love from his earlier days like Sherry, Rag Doll, Big Girls Don't Cry, etc. Even covered a lot of my favorites that weren't big hits for him like Silence is Golden, Spanish Harlem, and I've Got You Under My Skin.


Was an excellent two hours.