Demons can charm you with a smile, for a while

So I watched Sweeney Todd the other night, and it was about what you'd expect for a Tim Burton musical: dark, cool sets, twisted, lots of strange hair, and Johnny Depp. While I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone based on the content, it's one of the better musicals I've seen on film (right up there with Grease 2).

Everything I know about Sondheim, I learned from Mandy Patinkin CDs, so I wasn't too sure what to expect from this story outside the trailers. It was a decent story as far as revenge flicks about wronged barbers go (so glad I've given up the whole shaving thing...would have a hard time using the ol' Mach 3 for awhile), the use of the word macabre to describe this hardly seems fair to such a fun word to say. There are some truly great moments--mostly due to the music. The songs were great--it's like the Broadway success that Sondheim's had was deserved or something (yeah, I'm talking about you, Lloyd Webber).

Who knew these people could sing? The always reliable villian, Alan Rickman, Johnny Depp, and the proto-Goth Chick Helena Bonham Carter all made their singing debuts here. Who knew Sacha Baron Cohen could do something worth watching? What is with Timothy Spall showing up everywhere now?

I thought this was some of Burton's more creative uses of color--and was tempted to hang on to the DVD for a few more days to study it, but in the end I decided I'd find a decent discussion on-line or in the comments of this post.

I didn't have to see his face to reflexively shout "Giles!" during a certain actors' uncredited appearance. Anyone else do that? (my bad coffee-making coworker did, so I'm not the biggest geek I know).

Really can't think of anything else to say about this flick at the moment, so off to eat a couple of meat pies...

P.S. So TLomL doesn't hyperventilate, I should probably say that the Grease 2 thing was a joke. "Grease 2? What will people think? You know people don't always know when you're joking..."