Can you hear the people sing? ‘Les Miserables’ video flood begins

With the Hugh Jackman-Russell Crowe “Les Miserables� about to head to theaters, the viral videos of celebrities belting out the showstoppers (particularly the Valjean-Javert confrontation song) have started to surface. There’s Jason Segel and Neil Patrick Harris from a “How I Met Your Mother� promo appearance (when the show was first starting), Jason Segel and Paul Rudd (above) with Peter Travers from their “I Love You, Man� tour (notice, if you will, the subtle ways Segel developed his instrument in the interim), the recent Anne Hathaway “SNL� spoof (more late-night parodies can’t be far behind) and then of course this new one from Jackman and Crowe riffing in a New York stage show.

In addition to showing how badly Segel apparently wanted to be in Les Miz, the videos underscore the whole singalong-contagion thing the movie has going for it. (If you work in an office, you have probably experienced this already.) It’s why the film is poised to become a huge hit. Hollywood talks a lot about pre-awareness, but there’s no kind of awareness like hummable awareness.

Check out one of the Segel entries above, and annoy your co-workers in kind.

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