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Sweeney Todd

Why oh why oh why oh WHY do I PERSIST in falling into the trap of watching musicals when I hate them (because once upon a blue Monday there'll be a Wizard Of Oz or Nightmare Before Christmas, that's why).

Yes, it looks beautiful (hey, it's Burton).
Yes, I'm as in love with his fiancee as he himself is.
Yes, it's bloody (heh!) stylish.

But the singing...GOD, the singing...

There's maybe three lines of dialogue, the rest is songs, and not very good or memorable ones at that. The music is wonderfully cinematic and appropriately ominous and thundering, but the songs are overall insepid and pointless, not furthering the story one bit (and not helping the characters' motivation much either: I glimpse a girl in a window and I burst into THREE songs how I'm going to set her free??? Ugh!).

Depp (in the title role) is too stiff and zombielike to be enjoyable (his character is basically Gilbert Grape meets Edward Scissorhands, twenty years later), Rickman is utterly wasted (and CANNOT sing!). Timothy Small is his usually slimy self. I'm in love with Bonham Carter (that whole half-dead corpse bride emo-Goth thing I somehow find highly erotic).
Sacha Baron Cohen's bit part as Signor Adolfo Pirelli is surprisingly good.

I'm sure this film will have its audience.
I'm just not among them.

I wonder if that's the first use of Nessun Dorma in such a scene. It's such a powerful piece.

Ah come on.....it was nice! I liked it, and the music was beautiful; yes the singing (i waaaaaaanttttttt youuuuuuuuuu Joaaaaaaaaaaaaaanaaaaaaaaaaaaa) was mostly hideous but once you stop thinking about that, it's a pretty good production imo.

Martijn,

Neither hell, high water or Ceiling Cat will ever EVER get me to watch SWEENEY singingmurderinghumanfuckingpiemaking TODD themudderfriggin MUSICAL!

Considering your well known love of all things "Musicals" how did you watch this!!???

NEXT

Some film with Nicholas Cage where he can see two minutes into the future and the FBI want him to find terrorists who have a nuclear bomb but he's fallen in love with a girl whossszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

From a Philip K. Dick story......apparently

However, it was almost worth sitting through for Mark Isham's entertaining conglomorate of Thomas Newman and John Powell (in 'Bourne' mode) score.

Do you remember the name, by any chance? (Actually, I've since found out it was John Mackay, who I don't know of.)

Any UK folks watch the three-part Lost Land of the Jaguar on BBC? What a series!

Because once in every while there'll be a Muppet Movie or a Moulin Rouge, which I will actually enjoy. (Incidentally, in this thread I've now mentioned all the musicals in history I liked. All four of 'em. )

RV: He Was A Quiet Man (2007)
Not-bad little film about a lonely, hopeless office drone (an unrecognisable Christian Slater), who entertains revenge fantasies on his successful, beautiful and/or cruel colleagues. In fact he brings a gun to work to go "postal", but happens to take out another co-worker who had the same idea just a few minutes earlier...which makes him a hero.
Or does it?
Suddenly embraced by corporate management and in love with the beautiful, now paralyzed, first victim (Elisha Cuthbert) of the gun man, life is very much not like a fairy tale.

I won't spoil the ending (though it is rather predicatble due to a number of none-too-subtle clues), but the film is worth the effort: well directed, well acted (though Macy is miscast as the corporate top dog) and involving enough to keep your attention.
It's not a happy film, though, miing pain, desillusion and fantasy in a Brazil-like fashion (though nowhere near as well as that film).


The soundtrack by Jeff Beal is alternately estranging and light, reminiscent of his eery work on the underrated TV series Carnivále.

The good thing was that the makers were aware the studio was gonna pull the plug, so they did manage to glue an ending of sorts on.
It still leaves a lot of questions, but is satisfying enough under the circumstances.

But yeah, it will leave you wanting for more.
I cannot believe the pulled it. It was one of the most intriguing, interesting series since American Gothic in the early nineties.

...and what a bad accompanying score!

Agreed. I bought the CD immediately. It fit the series like a glove!
Not something to listen to everyday, for sure, but still: great accompanying work.

I see (and didn´t think you wanted to annoy me, just wanting to have fun). haven you seen the series or did you listen to the score out of context, which would make your opinion a bit more understandable (but not a bit more valid, of course... )

It's definitely one of those scores that one appreciates a hell of a lot more when one has seen the accompanying visuals.

(Yes, I realize how weird it is to elevate the proper accompanying art form -the film music- to a higher level than the primary art form. We've had that discussion before. It's why forums like these exist. To cater to the weird and otherworldly like us.)

Pah! Call that a spider? Nowt more than an itsy bitsy spider.


















actually it was one of the biggest mudderfriggin spiders i have ever seen

Wonderful!
I just saved myself some tme by NOT having to watch this!