Shave and a meat pie, with blood!
URGA MOTW
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
After a bit of a communication mixup last week, quuux and I managed to get down to Mitcham to see Sweeney Todd this week. (reverancepavane went last week). I had wanted to see this film, because - well, Tim Burton's films are generally pretty good, I like musicals (and Sondheim is good!), and I didn't really know this one. Plus - Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter adds to a good combo.
If you don't know much about Sweeney Todd - the basic premise is a) it's a musical, b) a barber wants revenge on a judge who had him 'transported' (shipped out of England) purely so the judge could pursue the barber's wife and c) the barber starts killing people and the bodies are stuffed into meat pies.
So it's fairly dark/gruesome subject matter, but still something worth watching. My knowledge of the details of the musical were fairly sketchy (based mostly on hearsay and that scene in Jersey Girl) so it was nice to get something unexpected.
There are spoilers below...
So Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) arrives back in England after 15 years to seek revenge, and sets up shop above Mrs Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) pie shop. He's really after Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his toady, the Beadle (Timothy Spall) but almost anyone's a victim for the razor, once he sets his mind to it.
The makeup on Depp and Carter is very distinctive - dark eyes, pale skin, black hair (with white streak) and makes them more caricatures than 'human', but that's fine, because they are the monsters (and protagonists) of the story. A lot of the filming is done almost black and white, so these two don't look out of place, but the touches of colour (Johanna's hair & dresses) stand out even more. There's even a great 'dream' sequence (of Mrs Lovett's) where the background, sky, extras etc are in bright colours but with Depp and Carter still in their black and white, showing even more contrast.
The use of CG for city backgrounds works well purely because of the dark/gothic-ness of the city, and even if the animation looks a little cartoonish, it still fits in quite well.
I couldn't fault anyone's singing - they all sounded fine. I had heard that Sacha Baron Cohen was going to 'speak-sing' his lines due to not having a great singing voice, but in the end, even his singing was pretty good.
So atmospherically, plotwise, makeup, cinematography were all great.
The bad points? Well, a rather mild criticism from me is that it was obvious that they'd had to trim the story - and it meant the relationship between Antony and Johanna got shoved in the background and abbreviated as much as possible - but this was probably to focus more on Todd & Lovett, who are indeed the stars of the piece.
It's also not really that much of an uplifting tale - not even much in the way of black comedy, so it's not like one of those feelgood musicals you come out whistling the tunes from. But that's probably due to the material, and not a fault in the music either. After all, Les Miserable doesn't really end that happily either...
Well worth seeing, if you like Depp/Burton/Sondheim/Blood.
8/10
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
After a bit of a communication mixup last week, quuux and I managed to get down to Mitcham to see Sweeney Todd this week. (reverancepavane went last week). I had wanted to see this film, because - well, Tim Burton's films are generally pretty good, I like musicals (and Sondheim is good!), and I didn't really know this one. Plus - Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter adds to a good combo.
If you don't know much about Sweeney Todd - the basic premise is a) it's a musical, b) a barber wants revenge on a judge who had him 'transported' (shipped out of England) purely so the judge could pursue the barber's wife and c) the barber starts killing people and the bodies are stuffed into meat pies.
So it's fairly dark/gruesome subject matter, but still something worth watching. My knowledge of the details of the musical were fairly sketchy (based mostly on hearsay and that scene in Jersey Girl) so it was nice to get something unexpected.
There are spoilers below...
So Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) arrives back in England after 15 years to seek revenge, and sets up shop above Mrs Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) pie shop. He's really after Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his toady, the Beadle (Timothy Spall) but almost anyone's a victim for the razor, once he sets his mind to it.
The makeup on Depp and Carter is very distinctive - dark eyes, pale skin, black hair (with white streak) and makes them more caricatures than 'human', but that's fine, because they are the monsters (and protagonists) of the story. A lot of the filming is done almost black and white, so these two don't look out of place, but the touches of colour (Johanna's hair & dresses) stand out even more. There's even a great 'dream' sequence (of Mrs Lovett's) where the background, sky, extras etc are in bright colours but with Depp and Carter still in their black and white, showing even more contrast.
The use of CG for city backgrounds works well purely because of the dark/gothic-ness of the city, and even if the animation looks a little cartoonish, it still fits in quite well.
I couldn't fault anyone's singing - they all sounded fine. I had heard that Sacha Baron Cohen was going to 'speak-sing' his lines due to not having a great singing voice, but in the end, even his singing was pretty good.
So atmospherically, plotwise, makeup, cinematography were all great.
The bad points? Well, a rather mild criticism from me is that it was obvious that they'd had to trim the story - and it meant the relationship between Antony and Johanna got shoved in the background and abbreviated as much as possible - but this was probably to focus more on Todd & Lovett, who are indeed the stars of the piece.
It's also not really that much of an uplifting tale - not even much in the way of black comedy, so it's not like one of those feelgood musicals you come out whistling the tunes from. But that's probably due to the material, and not a fault in the music either. After all, Les Miserable doesn't really end that happily either...
Well worth seeing, if you like Depp/Burton/Sondheim/Blood.
8/10