The Worst Pies in London
Before the Christmas shenanigans began and Liz went away for a while, she and Valerie cruised into their local theater for a quick shave from Johnny Depp. They are delighted to report that Sweeney Todd is a most excellent film, mainly if you love Tim Burton movies as much as they do. Be warned that this is not a movie for children or people who are squeamish about blood; it is easily the darkest film that Burton has ever done.
Speaking of dark, the color palette for this movie, as you may have deduced from the trailers, is mostly black and pale with the initially occasional, and then increasingly frequent, spatterings of red. It isn't really a black and white movie, but everything is so muted that it sometimes feels that way. Which is just fine, because London as Tim Burton pictures it is a dark and smoky place where the sun rarely filters down through the thick clouds. As Todd puts it:
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren't worth what a pin can spit
and it goes by the name of London.
Creepy. Much like the performances, which some purists complain are much less funny than they tend to be in the Broadway musical. There are certainly some moments in which uneasy laughter escapes one's mouth because of how absurdly terrible something is, but overall Burton plays this straight. There is one particular scene that could have been lifted out of Edward Scissorhands or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and it's the one that elicited the most laughs despite a complete lack of dead bodies because it was clearly meant to be funny. Otherwise, the characters are loonies and while you're rooting for Todd, a part of you feels bad about it because, well, he's murdering perfect strangers for no real reason besides misanthropy.
Johnny Depp was wearing slightly more eye makeup than Jack Sparrow in this one, while Helena Bonham Carter was slightly less crazy than Bellatrix Lestrange. Alan Rickman is getting old, to Liz and Valerie's dismay, but he is still excellent in this role and his duets with Depp are beautifully cringe-inducing. Sacha Baron Cohen provided the requisite comic relief for the brief time he was on-screen, sashaying around in a distasteful velvet one-piece and a cape like he was the King of Italy.
It was somehow refreshing that few of the actors were really good singers. It gave the movie a sense of realism that most musicals lack by their very nature, being populated by amazing voices as they usually are. Few people can sing well, so to have a bunch of really good singers wandering around singing their heads off tends to make the whole suspension of disbelief thing that much tougher. But this movie was populated by normal people who happened to mostly sing rather than speaking, and you weren't sitting there focusing on their voices and whether they were hitting the tough notes and all the other stuff you usually worry about when watching a musical.
If you like Tim Burton's work, you will like this movie. If you don't like Tim Burton's work, you probably will not like this movie, unless you are really excited by the prospect of watching Johnny Depp slit a lot of throats. For the love of aftershave, do not take children to see this, or Liz will be happy to take them into custody and raise them as her own.
Speaking of dark, the color palette for this movie, as you may have deduced from the trailers, is mostly black and pale with the initially occasional, and then increasingly frequent, spatterings of red. It isn't really a black and white movie, but everything is so muted that it sometimes feels that way. Which is just fine, because London as Tim Burton pictures it is a dark and smoky place where the sun rarely filters down through the thick clouds. As Todd puts it:
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren't worth what a pin can spit
and it goes by the name of London.
Creepy. Much like the performances, which some purists complain are much less funny than they tend to be in the Broadway musical. There are certainly some moments in which uneasy laughter escapes one's mouth because of how absurdly terrible something is, but overall Burton plays this straight. There is one particular scene that could have been lifted out of Edward Scissorhands or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and it's the one that elicited the most laughs despite a complete lack of dead bodies because it was clearly meant to be funny. Otherwise, the characters are loonies and while you're rooting for Todd, a part of you feels bad about it because, well, he's murdering perfect strangers for no real reason besides misanthropy.
Johnny Depp was wearing slightly more eye makeup than Jack Sparrow in this one, while Helena Bonham Carter was slightly less crazy than Bellatrix Lestrange. Alan Rickman is getting old, to Liz and Valerie's dismay, but he is still excellent in this role and his duets with Depp are beautifully cringe-inducing. Sacha Baron Cohen provided the requisite comic relief for the brief time he was on-screen, sashaying around in a distasteful velvet one-piece and a cape like he was the King of Italy.
It was somehow refreshing that few of the actors were really good singers. It gave the movie a sense of realism that most musicals lack by their very nature, being populated by amazing voices as they usually are. Few people can sing well, so to have a bunch of really good singers wandering around singing their heads off tends to make the whole suspension of disbelief thing that much tougher. But this movie was populated by normal people who happened to mostly sing rather than speaking, and you weren't sitting there focusing on their voices and whether they were hitting the tough notes and all the other stuff you usually worry about when watching a musical.
If you like Tim Burton's work, you will like this movie. If you don't like Tim Burton's work, you probably will not like this movie, unless you are really excited by the prospect of watching Johnny Depp slit a lot of throats. For the love of aftershave, do not take children to see this, or Liz will be happy to take them into custody and raise them as her own.
posted by A Candle in Sunshine at 11:05 AM
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