Unless he decides to Method act a dystopian scavenging future and starve himself like he did for The Machinist, anyway.

Oh yeah, that doesn't really exist in my world.

You know what does exist? Newsies DVD extras with cutehead 17 year old Christian Bale speaking in his own accent. CUTE.

what the... people are bizarre.

Maybe that's a foreign translation of the title? For some reason?

Unless he decides to Method act a dystopian scavenging future and starve himself like he did for The Machinist, anyway

I saw that a few weeks ago. That was an experience... dunno what else to say. It was good, but fucking weird.

I saw Sweeney Todd last night, but first I have to pass on a funny thing that happened to DH at the I Am Legend screening on Monday - they did a ton of location shooting all over NYC, and so not only was the building he works in in the movie, but so was the building where the screening was being held! So yay location shooting.

Now, Sweeney.

Sigh.

There's a LOT about this movie to like. The production design is scrumptious. The costumes and makeup on Sweeney & Mrs Lovett, ditto. The re-arranged score is made of awesome (and as it wasn't done by Danny Elfman, it still sounds like Sondheim and not Batman).

And I think if you weren't familiar with the original musical, or at least loved it less than I do, or for different reasons, you might find this a very satisfying filmgoing experience. It's probably a very good movie musical in its own right.

But there are cuts. And the cuts are all very thoughtful and work to craft an entirely new version of the story that has its own internal consistency of tone. Unfortunately for my own tastes, the tone of this version did not overall work for me. It's too dour, too solemnly tragic.

I think the best way to highlight the horrifically tragic aspects of the story is to look that absurdity square in the face and say, look, people being killed and baked into pies is FUNNY. Anthony and Johanna's wide-eyed hopefulness in a world where people are killed and baked into pies is FUNNY. I think in order for the end of the story to really work, you need to be brought there from a place of giddy hilarity - if you're already feeling that the whole thing is kind of bleak and depressing, the emotional imact is muted. You need the contrast. And I feel like Tim Burton kept all the emotional lows but chopped off the highs.

And I'm not saying all the comedy is gone - "Try A Little Priest" is still funny, even though there are also cuts to that. (The exchange that ends in "LOCKSMITH" is gone, as are most of the other spoken bad puns. Boo hiss.) But almost all the cuts are of comic bits, and it changes the story from a black comedy to a gothic horror film. Which is fine, but I was disappointed that Tim Burton chose to go in that direction.

HBC needed to be having at least 87% more fun playing Mrs Lovett. Her performance had everything here I disliked about Patti Lupone's - if you're going to dress Mrs Lovett as a goth, she needs to be a cheerfully batty Jilli-esque Cupcake Meatpie Goth. And instead she's kind of dour and bleak. And WAY the hell too young. Half the point of "By The Sea" is that Mrs Lovett is way too old to be a giggling schoolgirl with a crush - it shouldn't be the only time in the whole movie the actor actually looks her age. "The Worst Pies In London" is just bad. She doesn't have the vocal chops to carry it, and the whole number just falls flat. And don't give me any bullshit about how it's haaaaaaaard to sing AND MAKE A PIE at the same time. Yes, she actually said that.

Dear Tim Burton,

You are allowed to make a movie without your girlfriend in it. I, the audience, give you permission to do this.

Johnny Depp is also too young, but manages to pull it off anyway almost all of the time. He's also not quite up to the role vocally (every time he goes above a certain pitch/volume, he sounds like a rock star where he should sound like an opera singer), but aside from that his performance is pretty stellar.

The kids playing Anthony and Johanna are fine except that their story's been kind of eviscerated. Again, they're supposed to provide contrast to the two leads - they need to be wide-eyed innocent teens, not sulky whiny teens. And Anthony needs a better haircut.

Alan Rickman is AWESOME as Turpin. Very very creepy and slimy.

Sacha Barron Cohen is pitch perfect as Pirelli. And HMOG he is ginormously tall.

And wow, that was longer than I meant it to be. Short version - it's a good movie, but with issues as an adaptation, and I stand by all (continued...)

( continues...) the casting quibbles I had going in.

Jess, my only "knowledge" of Sweeney Todd (apart from ym education via B.org) comes from Jersey Girl.

Also, I don't LOVE Sondheim, but I do like him a whole bunch. Should I wait for Netflix or go see it in the theater?

You should, at some point, Netflix the DVD of the staged production starring George Hearn and Angela Lansbury. Though probably after you see the movie, so you don't set yourself up for disappointment.

I haven't seen any version of Sweeney Todd so I've no expectations but this conversation reminded me to ask if anyone else has read the PD James novel of the same name on which Children of Men was based? I'm reading it now and the changes they made for the movie are kind of fascinating.

I'm still struggling with the gut reaction of "... but... they can't SING" that I got when I first saw the commercials. I'd very much like it to be good, but I don't yet trust it to be Sweeney. And Burton cutting out the funny is both worrisome and not exactly playing to his strength.

(Also, an addendum to Jess's note:

Dear Tim Burton:

You are allowed to make a movie without Johnny Depp in it. Yes, I know he's very pretty and you're his own personal employment agency or something, but you can't speak-sing Sondheim. Also, his English accents are not actually All That, except for values of "All" that equal "Captain Jack Sparrow". Still, very pretty. )

In the ads for Sweeney Todd I've been surprised by Johnny Depps resemblance to Rupert Graves. They should play brothers in a movie. Or maybe identical cousins!