I LOVED LOVED LOVED Sweeney Todd. In spite of being a Sondheim fan and being very offput by some of the choices, overall the movie was so wonderful that all the niggling problems remain little and niggling for me. I did repeatedly ask why Claire Danes had been cast as Anthony (the actor looked A LOT like Danes) but loved that Tobias was actually a child (usually played by young adults on stage) and the "By the Sea" dream sequence made me cackle hysterically. A brilliant bit of cinema, impossible to do on stage. I laughed a lot during the movie, and many of the sequences were breathtaking.

Unlike The Golden Compass, which i found disappointing for many reasons. Still hope the next one gets made, but i sat in the theatre for nearly a half hour after the credits finished, waiting for the rest of the movie which never came.

I withheld reading the books so that I would enjoy them more, but watching TGC. I felt that there was something missing at the end, despite what the score was telling me. I couldn't tell if it was my Daniel Craig lust that was demanding more Lord Asriel screentime, or an actual need for some sort of resolution to the Lord Asriel storyline, but the movie didn't seem ready to end yet.

Finished all three books, which were freaking amazing, and I want to smack every person that comes to me and declares to me that the books and therefore movie is anti-Christian. Smack'm, and smack'm hard. Please, watch the move and read the book(s) before you buy into the propaganda, please? Please form an opinion of your own.

How can the Church have a problem with a story involving persons creating a false god-hood and invading the freewill of mankind? It's not against God, or Christianity, but against those that would corrupt the idea of "God" and use that to invade to personal freedoms of every man, woman, and child of every world and dimension. How The Church doesn't see this strikes me as disgusting ignorance and paranoia.

It'll be interesting to see how the sequel(s) deal with the "Church's" involvement. Hopefully they don't chicken out.

I want to smack every person that comes to me and declares to me that the books and therefore movie is anti-Christian

Since I don't think the movie's necessarily anti-Christian, I may be avoiding a smackdown. But Pullman wants to undermine the idea of god with his books.

He's quoted as saying "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. Mr. Lewis would think I was doing the devil's work."

And:

Pullman, though, expected more. "I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak. I'm a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people - mainly from America's Bible Belt - who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven't got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."

I can totally see the churches being paranoid, but I can hardly see the moviemakers pushing the message.

I have a pair of girls in my class who aren't allowed to read/listen to the HDM books, because "Someone kills Jesus".

My biggest issue is the idea that good Christians should never, ever hear anything that challenges their beliefs. (These are 4th and 5th graders who are plenty old enough to say, "I think that's wrong.")

Hopefully, they would come to their own understandings from what Pullman has written, and take something away from it, like you have, Julie (though, of course, on a less sophisticated level).

Juno has been in the top 10 since its release. As of Thursday, it had grossed a little over $15 million. My DH and I saw it as a free sneak preview and loved it!

I saw it with some of the Bayistas today and loved it. Sweet, funny, and brilliant acting all around.

Juno is on my list of things to see. Oh yes.

There was a thing a few years ago in the UK where the BBC aired something called Jerry Springer: The Opera. I think Jesus was a black man wearing a nappy in it. It had something like 60,000 complaints from church groups (before it aired), including a load that turned up outside the BBC offices burning things, and the odd executive getting death threats.

The first 15 minutes of Juno are almost unbearably hip and precious, but it gets much better as it goes along.

Thanks, ita, I hadn't read anything about Pullman himself until now. And have to say, after reading those quotes, that I think he's full of poo. While what he wrote was amazing and subversive and mind-blowing in a "I can't believe he went there" way, the book twists away from that. So either he chickened out from his own propoganda, or never intended to go "there" at all and was just spinning his own publicity in the "controversy=higher sales" way.

I have a pair of girls in my class who aren't allowed to read/listen to the HDM books, because "Someone kills Jesus".

I can vouch that the crucifixion (there's a funny there with the way I originally wanted to spell that, but I won't go there) of Jesus does not take place in these books.

Many of the themes and ideas and situations in the books are very adult and mature, and for that alone I'd say young'ns shouldn't read it. I also think it was a mistake in rating the movie so that the young'ns could go see it. But that's horses and barn doors.

ION, I still love The Dark Crystal as much as I used to *pets DVD*

Typo Boy, I found a LJ post with lots of Johanna YouTube links from people with noticeably more normal voices than the girl in the movie, if you want to wash her sound out of your ear (it also includes several videos of "Kiss Me", one of the more sadly cut songs) [link]

Thanks Gris. We had a local Sweeney Todd production . A local small Theater owner, Jeff Kingsbury, recruited a Tony winner to play Sweeney, but filled out the rest of the cast with local talent - recruiting from college programs, church choirs, amateur groups and what have you. And it was gorgeous. I saw the original production with Angela Lansbury, and I would swear it was the equal of it; musical perfect, great acting; Ok the set wasn't quite up to a broadway budget, but still amazingly good. So I was already braced against being scarred by the movie production. The play version I saw before totally kept it from sticking, and may have made me a bit harsher than I would otherwise. I took two friends to see it who I thought would appreciate the dark humor. And not only did they hate the movie as much as I did; they now can't believe that the play could possibly be any good.