Johnny Razorhands
I don’t care for musical theatre, I never saw Miss Saigon, I didn’t like Rent, I wouldn’t go near an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical unless you paid me a chunk of money to plug my ears with (I have big ears), but I love Stephen Sondheim and I approve of Tim Burton’s adaptation of Sweeney Todd. Yeah yeah, they took out the song that introduces then sums up the story, and you can’t beat live theatre at portraying carnage (fountains of blood!) and horror (screams from the audience!), but it works for me. The voices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter are not powerful enough for the stage, but this is not the theatre, it’s the cinema. Actually, Johnny could front a band doing David Bowie covers, and one might say he’s been in training for the role since Edward Scissorhands. The kid who plays Toby is great, the young lovers are so forgettable even the movie forgets them (we never find out if they get away), and Timothy Spall could play the Beadle in his sleep. Alan Rickman I found almost sympathetic as Judge Turpin. (Finally I can trundle out the Rickman story I’ve been hoarding. A few years ago, Yodel was at Old Swiss Inn in Makati when she heard a very familiar voice at a nearby table. She looked, and it was Alan Rickman. He was with some Pinoys who were talking about the Harry Potter flicks, and Yodel wanted to say, “Truly, Madly, Deeply!”) The former Ali G/Borat Sacha Baron Cohen turns up as Pirelli, in pants so tight they must help him hit the high notes. Sweeney Todd is wonderfully horrible. I can’t think of more beautiful songs about the ugliness of humanity. Don’t bring the children.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 20th, 2008 at 21:41
wait… alan rickman was here in the philippines? man! i wish i’d seen him! i’m a big alan rickman fan, and seeing him singing in sweeney todd made me swoon. my boyfriend gave me a little jealous look.
three of the cast of harry potter were in the movie, hehe. :D and the songs in sweeney todd are LSS-worthy.
January 21st, 2008 at 02:36
and definitely don’t go after a grueling and dragging exam. unless you’re more masochistic than I am.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:20
Saw it yesterday…I’m glad that Mr. Burton didn’t try compromising the look or texture of the film to please the Big Hollywood suits.
Johnny Depp is an unsympathetic charcter but you can’t help but be dragged along in his blind quest for revenge…his vocal gymnastics would have made Meat Loaf out of lesser talent.
Speaking of Meat Loaf…guess whom Timothy (Enchanted) Spall looks like?
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:56
Speaking of Timothy Spall, why rely so much now on Ms. Iza Calzado for a pinay to make it big in Hollywood when all these times we have….Mahal? She can be a character in Pirates 4 or a loveteam of Dobby in Harry Potter or a “lola” of Prodo in “The Hobbit”. The lists are endless. Or the wife of Timothy Spall in Enchanted 2.
January 22nd, 2008 at 15:14
Alan Rickman? Here? Wahhhh!!!
January 22nd, 2008 at 19:14
Having had no information background about this film, I was amused at a friend (a confessed Johnny Depp fan) who allegedly has watched it 4 times swearing that he has somehow memorized the lyrics of the songs featured in “Sweeney Toad”! I say to him, hush it’s Sweeney Todd, you sonuvatoad! He says it’s a dark musical based on a stage play, & proceeds to narrate a brief summary of the film adaptation in his best way possible. I then sudenly wondered how the play went considering its macabre nature, & he abruptly blurts out, ‘tara nood tayo, libre kita! Para makita mo kung paano ginawa yung film’.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:21
Yeah, Johanna and Anthony were annoying. “I’ll steal you, Johanna…” eek.