Saw There Will be Blood last night. Very strong, very long. As we were leaving at the end of the 2 hours and 40 minutes, I announced to my companions that the next film would be "there will be going to the ladies room" which made the ushers we were walking by laugh.

I recommend the film. DDL was terrific and there are some INCREDIBLE scenes. Paul Dano holds his own with DDL and really gives a career-making performance. It's also gorgeous--PT Anderson has a wonderful cinematic eye as a director. Like others in the thread, I thought the end was the weakest thin in the film. It felt tacked on and the tone was off.

My biggest issue is the idea that good Christians should never, ever hear anything that challenges their beliefs.

Yeah, this sort of thing bugs me a lot. There's quite a large group of Christians for whom my saying "I don't believe" is very dangerous and threatening. Which only makes me think that particular strain of faith isn't terribly strong or resilient, and that maybe G-d wants something a little tougher than that.

Just an outsider's opinion, of course....

Pullman's interview's make me like him even less. I felt he was going there, so I sought out more information, but he just seemed so damned smug all the time it made it worse.

Saw Sweeney Todd with my mom, who LOVED it. I didn't love it -- I thought JD's and HBC's voices in particular weren't strong enough to carry the songs fully. But I did enjoy it, the darkness and the singing and what little humor remained from the show. I appreciated that the blood was so un-blood-like, all bright red and viscous and syrupy; that made it easier for me to handle the extreme goriness, because it was so clearly fake. I was grossed out by the bodies hitting the cellar floor, like several other people mentioned -- that was pretty disturbing. And I thought "By the Sea" was the best bit in the whole movie.

And I thought "By the Sea" was the best bit in the whole movie.

But they cut out the best joke in the song, one that revealed something key about Sweeney.

Really? Care to whitefont? My memories of the stage show are dim.

OK - the joke whitefonted:

When she was singing about how good life would be, Mrs. Lovett had the line she sang about taking in guests, and then sang: "Now and then you can do the guest in". At which point, Sweeney, who had been just nodding distractedly through the whole thing suddenly perked up. Maybe this "by the sea thing" would be worth considering says the expression on his face. Which also reveals that aside from the whole "driven mad by injustice" thing, Sweeney really really enjoys killing.

Heh. I wonder why they took that out?

Cuz it would have ruined the "every time we see him he has the same frozen expression of doom and gloom" pattern that made me laugh over and over. Making him an active participant would have interrupted that pattern. (I also laughed hysterically every time a body hit the floor, but maybe that is just because i am sick and twisted. *shrug*)

Yeah so glad they lost three fourths of the humor of the play for the sake of two or three new jokes in the movie. Believe me the play had a lot more and better funnies than bodies hitting the floor.