Post on Dali's interest in film: [link]
Here's a quote from a 1937 letter Dalí wrote to surrealist André Breton: "I’m in Hollywood, where I’ve made contact with the three American Surrealists, Harpo Marx, Disney and Cecil B. DeMille." I also hadn't realized that Dalí created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchock's Spellbound (1945). Apparently, a phantasmagoric ballroom scene was shot for this sequence but ended up on the cutting room floor. Dalí's artwork and notes for this part of the dream are quite remarkable. It's sad that the footage was lost.
From IMDB news:
Chicago Sun-Times advertising/marketing columnist Lewis Lazare has accused Paramount/DreamWorks of launching a "bait and switch" ad campaign for its forthcoming (Dec. 21) release of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Lazare observes that although the movie employs the entire Stephen Sondheim score from the stage production and that 90 percent of the movie is sung, the official trailer "makes the movie seem like a fast-paced bloody period thriller/horror flick." Lazare suggests that the ads should "lure in enough unsuspecting moviegoers in the opening weekend" but that sales may fall off following "negative word-of-mouth from slasher movie fans who feel they've been badly tricked."
This is just so weird to me because, for fuck's sake, it's SWEENEY TODD. It's so odd to think about someone not knowing it's a musical. I guess it's not as popular as
Phantom of the Opera,
which everyone knew was a musical.
Lazare observes that although the movie employs the entire Stephen Sondheim score from the stage production
O RLY? That should be news to the Sondheim fans who've been tracking what's been cut. Such as "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," the opening/closing number.
Dana, I've heard they still use the score, but they cut the actual song as a framing device.
"makes the movie seem like a fast-paced bloody period thriller/horror flick."
So... it's not? The "fast-paced," I could maybe see, but I have a feeling it still fulfills "bloody," "period," and "thriller/horror."
I mean, it's not Mamma Mia, people.
I still can't believe they cut The Ballad of Sweeney Todd! It's just---wrong.
That's as silly as the notion that they called it "The Madness of King George" so nobody would skip "George III" on account of missing "George" and "George II".
That's as silly as the notion that they called it "The Madness of King George" so nobody would skip "George III" on account of missing "George" and "George II".
Sophia Coppola sucked in "George II".
Didn't SMG just star in a movie with the same basic plot conceit as Possession? Also from Ghost House Films, if I'm not mistaken?
