Stealing a page from Doug Bassett ™, brief bullet points from my afternoon screening...

*Yes, it's a musical. Lots of songs, not as many as the show, but lots. No point playing peekaboo on that score (or "score").

*I was skeptical. So: I was wrong on Burton--it's his best film in years. Somewhat wrong on Depp: Not much of a singer (I think his chops will be overrated) but he's got the right passionate intensity, nothing cutesy or pirate-y about him. Good work. Somewhat right, alas, on Helena Bonham Carter: she comes up with some nice moments as an actress (I think she will be underrated here) but a songstress she is not. Paging Marni Nixon. "Not While I'm Around" is carried by the child actor playing Tobias. She and Depp look a little like Edward and Edwina Scissorhands (also about barbering) in their garb. Suggestion: Get a different cast album/soundtrack than the one that's coming and hear how these songs should be sung.

*Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall are cast to a T as the Judge and Beadle. Their character singing is fine.

*Sacha Baron Cohen is a riot as Pirelli. Delightful in all respects, including costume (Colleen Atwood).

*The heavy lifting, vocally, is done by Jayne Wisener (Johanna), Jamie Campbell Bower (Anthony), Laura Michelle Kelly (The Beggar Woman), and--big, big kudos here--young Edward Sanders as Tobias. He's completely terrific as an actor and singer.

*Regarding...never mind, adaptor John Logan has given the story a distinctive new ending. I'm not sure I liked it, but still felt the movie, while closing on a suitably stark image, needed a "button." And we do not "Attend the Tale of Sweeney Todd"...the movie simply begins, and proceeds as naturalistically as possible, with two of the numbers skillfully rearranged as daydreams.

***Believe the hype: Once the throats get cut, the movie is as bloody as all get out. Hard R. In that sense, this many be the first musical to appeal to fans of 300. :) Burton has put the Grand Guignol excesses back into the material, and fans of the far more suggestive musical I talked to afterwards were irate. The movie is awash in arterial spray, bodies falling with sickening thuds, and worse--the black humor gradually leaches out of the material, leaving only the black (and the red). Again, not sure how this will play but Burton is really staring into the abyss here, and I applaud his, err, guts.

*The largely black on grey production (offset with red, of course) is typically voluptuous. "By the Sea" is a nice, Burton-esque mood swing, in an idealized CGI-achieved background.

*I kept waiting for the familiar strands of Danny Elfman or Howard Shore but Sondheim holds his own in this company. Audience members unfamiliar with the score were delighted with its twists and turns, even given some lackluster vocalizing.

While other movie musicals since CHICAGO have arrived with scores largely intact, they suffered from being indistinct. This one has a strong central vision--how much it overpowers the original vision of the score will be debated come 12/21.

Anne Thompson posts some links to other reviews on her (highly recommended) blog:

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononholly...ey-todd--1.html

Oh, Cashill, sez YOU! :)

I jump every time a commercial for this, my favorite musical, shows up on TV. I would've taped "Today" this morning if I hadn't missed the promo for Burton and Depp's interview, but we had a kitchen sink being repaired and all the attending mishegoss.

And I turned 50 yesterday, to add to the fun!

Given the release date of the film, I'd love an ending like that of the "Simpson's Treehouse of Horror" which featured "Bart Simpson's Dracula..."


SPOILER?

Bending over the dead beggar woman, Sweeney raises his head and yells "Merry Christmas!" into the camera; everyone, murdered or not, comes into the shot, and they all croon "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," as in the Peanuts Christmas show.

Happy b-day, Bob. You're as young as you feel, yadda yadda yadda...

Actually, the "new" ending I mentioned isn't really new; it just plays differently on film than it does on the stage. Burton was messing with my head.

I like yours, though!

Happy Birthday Das Bob!

Now be careful jumping when you see those TODD commercials or you might break a hip. :P

Bob G., that's a brilliant ending you've come up with! Absolutely pitch perfect. Thanks for the laugh. And happy birthday and merry angels to you, too.

Thanks, boys, and may I share my mantra? "Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!"

Wow! Having seen you in the flesh (neck up, wrists down), I'm shocked... shocked to know that you are so much older than I.

As my 2-year-old daughter says, "Happy to you."

Yeah, well, the tea of ten tana leaves taken daily helps a LOT!

Happy Birthday!

And, was that a tongue twister you just posted above??

However this goes for him, Depp strikes me as a perfect choice to play John Dillinger in Michael Mann's upcoming adaptation of Bryan Burroughs' excellent history PUBLIC ENEMIES, which I read about in Variety this morning. I'm curious to see who else is cast.

Gee, I wasn't planning one, Derek but, as Mrs. Lovett says, "Bright ideas just pop into my head!"

I had a Sweeney mini-binge last night, going from the DVD of the end of the national tour to a "collector's" DVD I have of a January 1980 performance at The Uris (now The Gershwin).

Depp as Dillinger? I'm intrigued. No one's ever quite done Dillinger right. Not even Warren Oates in Milius' film from 1973. Depp's the right type and he's got the right face for it. Although I wish they were adapting John Toland's book, "The Dillinger Days" and not Burroughs' (which I have but haven't read yet, so maybe I'm not being fair, but I have a grudge against Burroughs for something else he wrote).

But I'm not sure Mann's the right director for this.

Dillinger is the most fascinating character (to me) of all the outlaws celebrated in American folklore and media. Unlike most famous outlaws, Dillinger, at least as presented by Toland, wasn't an out-and-out bad guy or sociopath like Baby Face Nelson or Pretty Boy Floyd. He had social skills and redeeming qualities and could indeed have gone on the straight-and-narrow with the right breaks as a young man. (Although, that could just be wishful thinking on my part and it certainly didn't ease the pain of the families of those who died on Dillinger's watch. There's more to be said about that, but too much for a post here.) He was also the first true media star among the outlaws. Charming and photogenic, he was photographed by newsreel cameras during one stint in the custody of the law and acquired quite a few fans. There's a book about him by Jay Robert Nash that claims he didn't die, that a lookalike substituting for him was killed that night, July 22, 1934, outside the Biograph Theater. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea used this conjecture to put Dillinger as a character in their massive conspiracy novel, "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and even put him as a presence in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. Great stuff. Interestingly, the only movie to include both Dillinger and JFK was Larry Cohen's THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER (1977). Plus a Frontline documentary that was, IIRC, called "The Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover."

Well, if we honor the legend about Dillinger and his...equipment, maybe Sasha Baron Cohen should play him - I see that his bountiful "wares" are once again on display in SWEENEY!

Between this and GOLDEN COMPASS, it seems like everyone's a victim nowadays!

Why is NAMBLA so upset about SWEENEY (and not "SWEENY")?

Oh. Never mind.

Why did no one ever cast Gerald Mohr as Dillinger?

Oh, they're just being childish.

Y'know, as a bitter, balding man I'm tempted to boycott their services with what is left of my patronage. But, hey... there's always the chance that there's a Helena Bonham Carter-type lurking around.

Zowie.

More from Anne Thompson's blog--these are her words:

"Most folks liked the movie while at the same time many refrained from eating the miniature creme brulees that were being offered around--they looked like pies. Burton said he timed the movie instinctively, adding more music but cutting back the opening Sweeney Todd chorus, which they recorded but never shot, because it just didn't feel right. What I like best about the movie is that it is utterly Burton's. No one messed with it, he confirmed: no testing, no rejiggering for any reason. It's just the movie I wanted to make, he said."

Here's the link to this entry on the blog (plus there's an interesting comment):

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononholly...c.html#comments

So, that boycotting barbers thing - it's not an Onion article?

Nope, but guess what happens when you do a Google search on The North American Hair Colorists Association?


Hmmm...what's that smell? :D.

I wrote it, hoping someone would nominate me for a Rydell in the category of Best Fake Press Release. It is the season, after all! Though honestly I thought the Andy Milligan reference would be an immediate tip-off.

Sorry to have waylaid the discussion. Let us now return to discussing Sweeney Todd. :D

I'm honored, I think - though I'm not sure I understand...

You, sir, are the wit of these boards and the suggestion was indeed made in honor.

Returning to the film proper, does anyone think a musical today could get away with its stars being dubbed by different singers, as was once sometimes done? This raises the question of whether the audience would dispute its "authenticity" and exactly what kind of authenticity the audience expects from a musical anyway. I imagine stars' egos would interfere in any attempts to try this, but it seems the final film would be better for it.

I - I am? Shucks, thought RHS had that one all sewn up. Double-stitched, even.

Thanks! :P

I sort of kinda wish audiences accepted dubbing, but first we have to get them back in the habit of musicals--all year round, not just one in summer, one at Christmas, and a few others that repurpose rock and roll. Westerns, too.

On the other hand, Sondheim says that he'd take good actors over good singers. (Of course, he's also looking to have a big movie hit with one of his own shows.) Still, I bet his ears perked up whenever one of the supporting castmembers warbled away.

(Another plus for the movie: Big orchestrations and a crisp, hear-every-lyric soundtrack, at least where I saw it.)

Bill, that was great. Really :). I'd give you a thumbs up, but there doesn't seem to be an emoticon for it.


As for the dubbing issue, i suppose it would depend on how it is done. Many actors may look great and be able to better act out the non musical parts, but then can't really sing. Hence, a dubover might not be a bad thing.

On the other hand, iof the audience is always aware that the voice is not the actors, then the illusion can be broken and the performance damaged.

What's with his creepy-style Mannequin Fu here?

Reviews are mostly raves...put Sweeney under your tree this Christmas...

EVITA had...um, problems, but the supporting cast, which was picked for its appearance, was certainly dubbed. I don't have any problem with that, but I want to hear the leads sing on their own - or they shouldn't have been cast.

Rumor hath it Placido Domingo dubbed one note for Baron Cohen. You'll know it when you hear it!

I listened to the soundtrack recording last night, and I'm very excited about seeing this later on next week. Some of the adikitions to the orchestrations are wonderful and very apt.

Wonderful movie. It's been a long time since I've heard SWEENEY TODD, but it seems to have been adapted very well. I'll admit to not being the biggest fans of Broadway musicals, but I enjoyed this so much, I'll likely see it again.

Singing wise, everyone held their own, as in they all can carry a tune. Depp has flirted with some personal bands on his own, so I'm not too surprised to see that he can keep up. Yes, Bonham's a better actress then singer, but visually, they are wonderful. Halfway through, I thought top myself that it seemed like an older Edward Scissorhands had come back, but with an attitude.
The biggest surprise comes from oh so the beautiful Jamie Campbell Bowder. I always thought that he could act, but was surprised at his vocal ability, as well. I think his new career will go far.
Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall are, as always, superb. Rickman actually brings just a touch of compassion to what's very much a villain's role. And I'm now convinced of Sacha Baron Cohen's talent. he made a great Pirelli. Though i certainly heard that note!

Tim Burton is also very much in control here. The movie certainly has his visual trademarks, but it's more balanced and mature here, with the right touches of humour to stop things from getting too grim. I think the trims that may have been made work very well, keeping the pacing required for a movie while still keeping the story intact. My only qualm was that one person's demise was, surprisingly, offscreen, and I thought it was deserving of something more spectacular. Also, the sound mix seemed weak, with a decent frontend, but little surround. I was looking forward to hearing the music swell up around me, but alas, this did not happen.

Still, though. I'd seriously recommend to go out and see this. It's doing o'kay, which is expected given that it's a musical and they just don't do very good box office. But it should be seen in a theater.

Just got back from SWEENEY; I was champing at the bit for days, but just couldn't get to an theater with a good sound system until tonight. First thoughts:

-My bias is "actors who can sort-of sing over singers who can sort-of act". Johnny Depp acts his way through songs, and that is the proper way for a semi-singer to survive a musical. He's figured out how to sell a song by making his limited range and shaky breath support part of his characterization, smoldering inside as if he's swallowed a fireplace log. It would be great if when Sweeney explodes in "Epiphany", Depp could've opened up his middle voice more, but he's not holding any such surprises. His accent tends to go ragged when he's rushing through difficult passages and the need to enunciate Sondheim's boggling rhyme barrages start to overwhelm Depp's usually seamless character work. That said, he's at his best when surrounded by other adequate voices, so in "Pretty Women" with Alan Rickman, we're not hearing a dream-cast at work, but two great actors are acting through the song in a compelling fashion. ...Also the song made me start imagining Sweeney/ Turpin slash-fic for the first time.

-Helena Bonham Carter... oh... just don't, lady. She can't keep up, and rather than go too mush-mouthed (which is still a problem) through the crazier parts of "God, That's Good!" and "Worst Pies", she does this breathy / raspy speak-sing thing to pull her through. So HBC gives an otherwise snazzy half-hinged performance without being able to control half an actor's tools for expression; she's fighting her voice for two hours. She pushes her voice well past where it can go in the "My Friends" duet, and it sounds like she's hurting herself. The only time time HBC's voice is interesting is a totally crazed "By the Sea," which is the movie's show-stopper. Tim Burton has imagined it as a series of acid-bright colored picture postcards staged by Charles Addams, and the whole number is so hysteria-driven that Carter's cracked vocal makes sense, even if she's not doing the music any service.

-So my biggest fear was that Tim Burton might be a poor match for the material. Not because he'd overwhelm the material with stylistic excess (I know it's a minority camp at this point, but I love Burton with the laces undone). It's an ugly, hateful, misanthropic show, and it's not particularly funny, save two or three numbers. While all of Burton's films have a launched wounded dreamer protagonists against a world designed to grind them down, his sense of humor is goony, childish and corny. And I mean that in an appreciative way. He may make movies about ghosts and living corpses and, uh, Batmans, but his tone is still "Famous Monsters" - or more like "Cracked Monster Party" - not grim, not joyless. Tim Burton's a romantic, and kind-hearted, and "Sweeney Todd" is deeply cynical, and cruel. I love them both, but that was my concern. But without betraying the show, Burton manages to latch onto what is passionate and tragic and funny about "Todd". Without being slavish and betraying himself, or resistant and betraying the musical, Burton's directed an uncompromised personal take on the show. Everybody wins!

-I dunno how you cut that score down. With 3000 leitmotifs stitching the show together, any reductions start to do structural damage to scenes forward and backward. Pretty admirable editing work in the face of hard choices, but the cuts are logical (the Ballad is painful to lose, but really, whatcha gonna do?) or make gut-level sense (I miss "Parlor Songs" but...). The gutted "God, That's Good!" and final act (important reprises like "No Place Like London" and "City on Fire" don't pay off in the movie) may make you wince, though.

-Anthony Stewart Head spotted at "The Contest" - look, either give the people Head, or DON'T, Tim Burton, but don't tease.

Whew! So, we all want David Fincher for "Assassins", right?

Regarding Chris' comments above, I I wholehearted agree with the assessment of Bonham Carter - her singing was horrible. She sounded as if she knew she couldn't sing and was scared to really try and belt anything out. 'Wispy' sums up her attempts at singing, for the most part.

The audience I saw it with literally did not laugh at anything in the film. I thought "A Little Priest" might get some chuckles, but nothing. I'm not sure how it's usually done on stage, but I didn't like the way in "Epiphany" that Burton cut from Sweeney in the street during his final notes to him in the room again, with Lovett looking down on him. It seemed to really undercut the power of the song, making it fizz out with a comedic shot mocking Sweeney's ambitions, which he then goes on to lovingly detail.

I really felt that "The Ballad..." and the Judge's number should have been left in as well, regardless of time; here, the Judge simply comes off as a garden variety pervert, with his telling Anthony about his collection of porn, and it renders his later expression of feelings for her rather hard to believe.

Overall, I liked it, 'cause it's Sweeney Todd and I love the music, but it's not an ideal version by any means.

I saw it Saturday night up near Lincoln Center. I loved it without being blind to some of its flaws. I thought Depp was underdirected in his response to Lovett's "idea," and that it started off the number ("A Little Priest") with lowered energy. Let's face it, she's not proposing they have cod for dinner, but that they should grind up Pirelli and feed him to her customers. That rates more than an "Uhh."

The filming of "God, That's Good" was a bit perfunctory and slap-dash, lacking some close-ups of Carter ENJOYING her new status as the baker of the land, I thought. As it looked, it seemed like just another night at Lovett's.

I agree that the transition after "Epiphany" was not helpful to the material, and I also felt a hiccup in the telling of "Poor Thing" - some theatre-writer friends of mine and I agree the song might've been over-edited.

I adored the casting. I loved the way Carter ferried Depp around for the first half of the film as he got his bearings. Rickman had some uinexpectedly vulnerable line readings, and Spall was just wonderful. I was enthralled for nearly two hours, and the audience seemed to "get it." I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Keep an eye out for a half-hour program from Dreamworks on IFC. It's superior to the similar one they've been showing on LOGO and VH-1.

Is this the one, by any chance?

I can't, ahem, get it up at work, but if that 30 min. feature was produced by Dreamworks, and the titling of the segments matches the titling of the ads for the flick, it's the same one.

It includes some talking head sequences with Sondheim, and I'll be damned if a mouse doesn't run along the baseboard behind him in one of them!

Went to see this yesterday and quite liked it overall, and this is from someone who really hates Broadway show-tune type stuff. I had never heard any of this musical before so it was all new to me. I can't say I cared for a lot of the music in it as it definitely has that show-tune sound, but a few of the songs were memorable enough and it's not all just about the music anyway. I did have issues with understanding a lot of the lyrics, though, as Helena Bonham Carter's mumbling delivery was a chore to decipher half the time. Some of the other lyrics were also hard to make out, including Cohen, because they didn't enunciate properly or all their faux British accents were laid on way too thick. If you don't know the songs already, this movie is not the best way to learn them on an initial viewing. I thought Johnny Depp's singing was impressive and relatively clear and easy to understand. The young boy was pretty incredible - probably the best in the film. Bonham Carter's first song is called "Worst Pies"? I tried to understand what she was singing, but barely made out any of it. I knew she was singing about her pies, though, so I guess I picked up enough!

I'm glad the film was very dark in look and theme. None of that wink-wink kind of dark, either. In the end, I was quite moved - although during the course of the film I felt somewhat detached, so that was a surprise. It has stuck with me, too, so I'm sure I'll revisit it on DVD.

"The Worst Pies in London"

Six hours till showtime for me. Can't wait, blacking out ...

Here's a snarky but funny review, which features a publicity shot of Depp and Rickman in which Johnny reminds me of the brunette-wigged Lucille Ball of my OTHER favorite horror-musical, MAME.

http://moviejuice.com/2007/sweeney_todd_1