Sweeney Todd

[[Syl]]

Ok, so I pretty much hate musicals. But Sweeney Todd always looked interesting. Well, my wife's taking a drama class this semester, and one of the requirements is that she has to see each of the theater department's plays. So last night, opening night, we went and saw Sweeney Todd. I was pleasantly impressed.

All well and good, you say, but that's not a movie. Actually, it is. Or will be. If you haven't heard, Burton is directing and Depp is starring. It opens December 21st. I'm looking forward to it.

Any thoughts?

[lucimay]

oh! omg! Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Lovett!!! Alan Rickman as the Judge!!!!

Tim Burton, that seems...totally appropriate!!!

i'm sure i'll have to see it.

the only thing i never liked about Sweeny Todd was Angela Lansbury!!

[balon!]

Whoa....freaky.

I just went and saw this play thursday night. It was great. I liked it a lot, although seeing it as a flick? I dunno. I don't know if Johnny Depp can portray murderous revenge very well.

It's supposed to be dark, not emo.

[The Dreaming]

I am actually extremely excited about this. I ADORE black comedy. I will laugh my ass off even at a shitty one, and from what I hear ST is a pretty good one. Burton is also one of my absolute favorite directors. Too bad Elfman isn't doing the music .

[dANdeLION]

The movie was awesome. I got to sneak preview it on the 13th; I'm also a hater of musicals, but this one rocked!

[dlbpharmd]

We'll definitely see this.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I have just made plans to go see this film with Lucimay on Sunday and we are gonna get some CAKE from Just Desserts too! WHOO HOO!

[Menolly]

I wanna see I wanna see I wanna see...

I haven't been this anxious to go to a movie since OotP...

[Cagliostro]

Yeah, the girlfriend is hopping up and down as well. Still, a chance to drool over Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp.....works for me. I wanna hear Johnny sing too.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Luci and I will post full reviews on Sunday.

[sgt.null]

looks interesting. love musicals.

[dlbpharmd]

We saw this tonight, and it's very good. There's a part where the word "ambergris" is used and I was laughing hysterically - then I realized that I was the only person in the theater laughing.

[The Laughing Man]

Precious hamburgers?

[bloodguard bob]

I will protect youuuuuuu!
I loved it although I thought there were only two distinct melodies in the whole musical, meaning it all sounded the same to me, which began to wear on my ear. Musically I didn't care for it but I thought it was visually awesome.

[The Dreaming]

Sondheim ain't for everyone.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I loved it. Tim Burton, Depp, Carter, Rickman rocked the house. I agree with BGB, musically it did get repetetive. Visually it was a feast. The cinemetography, the costuming, the sets, the staging, all wonderful. The performances, just stellar. It is obvious that JD and HBC are not singers by nature but they did a fab job anyway. JD delivers as always, I bought him hook line and sinker. I generally tend to think of musicals as a play in which the actors burst into song several times, not so much so in this, it was more like opera in that the whole thing is in song and occasionally the actors burst into speech. Sasha Baron Cohen...... hysterical. Lucimay said that when he first came on screen she thought Adam Sandler and operaman and surely that must have had some influence. Hysterical. Tim Burton is a genious. It's that simple, genious.

[bloodguard bob]

Sondheim ain't for everyone.

West Side Story, I thought, had many moods as did Sunday in the Park with George which I truly enjoyed; ST just seemed to have only three different tunes and I rather liked two of them.

[lucimay]

Sondheim ain't for everyone.

sweeny todd is NOT Sondheim at his best.

blech. i hated the thing. the best part was the seaside song.
the best actor in the thing was Helena Bonham Carter.

the makeup was dreadful, the blood was a crappy color, there were
too many close ups, and the pies looked too pretty.
the cockroaches totally grossed me out tho.

and really, i'm not a big opera fan.

[dlbpharmd]

Wasn't the makeup supposed to be bad? And, the blood was red, wasn't it?

Luci, you confuse me sometimes.

[Zahir]

Saw it Friday. Loved it.

I have seen both Angela Lansbury and Patti Lupone perform Mrs. Lovet. Helena Bonham Carter was their equal. Johnny Depp was as good as George Hearn, while Alan Rickman did the best Judge Turpin I've ever seen. Sasha Baron Cohen was brilliant as Pirelli and Timothy Spall was so venal as Beadle Bamford I swore his shadow probably left a slimey trail.

The singing was for film, not stage. No need to belt when the camera is literally right in your face and the space you have to fill is a movie screen rather than a 1200-seat theatre. As such, Depp tended to hit sustained consonents rather than vowels. Likewise certain lyrics were able to become intimate with a whisper, in a way nearly impossible on stage. Bravo! Likewise, certain bits of stage business that would have looked hammy on screen were dropped while new ones for the different medium were added. For example, the fact that razors have a reflective surface was put to good effect.

Depp's take on Sweeney was if anything more wounded and more tightly wound than any other performance I've seen of the part. His monomania was so obviously a means to avoid feeling pain, and there were some lovely nuances added to the script--most especially the line (which isn't a spoiler, lacking context) "Forget my face." Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett is a far cry from the boisterous, charming hag of most productions--rather, she is a very faded (and amoral) ingenue bound totally to her (clearly unrequited) love for "Mr. Tee" as she calls him.

That Turpin ended up very slightly sympathetic (a lonely and deluded as well as greedy and sanctimonious creep) person. Anthony, usually an incredibely naive weakling on stage, is here a young man capable of great passion. He--and Johanna--find some steel in themselves by the story's end. I like that choice better than the stage productions I've seen.