The first time I was ever made aware of the Broadway play, I was sitting in a theater in Marion, IN, with my good friend Toll, watching Kevin Smith’s latest creation - Jersey Girl. In that movie a little girl is given the assignment to re-enact a play for the school talent show. Everybody chose Cats….except for this one particular girl. So all I knew was that there was this barber that killed people, the barber chair flipped down to allow the deceased to slide down, and there was a restaurant down below that cooked the victims and sold them in meat pies.
I was immediately interested in Sweeney Todd because Johnny Depp was on-board and Tim Burton was directing. Also acting was Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and the ever-funny Sacha Baron Cohen. I can’t really think of a single performance from Depp where I’ve been disappointed. He always finds new roles to push himself as an actor and do something new. I think it’s fair to say he’s never phoned-in a performance.
I was reading somewhere that this is one of the best Broadway plays adapted to the silver screen. I was pretty impressed with it. In some ways I think it resembled Edward Scissorhands, only darker and more menacing. Oh yeah, and lots of people were killed. Personally, I wasn’t bothered by any of it, but I’m sure the graphic nature of the throats being slit and bodies being dumped down a chute will bother some.
Afterwards we were all discussing parts of the movie and I said I thought Cohen’s pants were “interesting,” kind of like Bowie’s in Labyrinth. Rajeev, my brother-in-law, quickly stated anyone who’s seen Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan should know if that was fake or not.
I really enjoyed this movie and would suggest checking it out. Definitely not for kids though, or for people who can’t handle the content.
I just saw this movie tonight and wow, was I missing something. I loved this movie…I loved pretty much everything about it. It was entertaining and beautiful, christmasy and wintery (not the same thing), and a movie I found myself getting way way too into. It’s always very telling when you, the 22-year-old, are thinking the same things as the seven-year-old girl sitting behind you. The only difference is, she’s not afraid to yell out these thoughts at the screen (i love seeing movies like this and having kids talk back sporadically to the movies…it makes me smile).
Anyways, if you haven’t seen it…go see it. I now know what Roger Ebert has been raving about. It’s the first movie I can think of that is based on a children’s book that seems to not lose any of the magic found in the book but rather, on the contrary, brings the magic and wonder of the book to new heights! But then again, maybe I’m just a sucker for a really really good holiday/kid’s movie? Whatever the reason, I loved this movie.
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