Sunday, March 16, 2008

AND FINALLY MY SWEENEY TODD POST

YESSS!!! AFTER AGES OF PROCRASTINATION... I'M GOING TO WRITE MY SWEENEY TODD POST!!! Yes, by this time, the hoo-hah over the movie is over. But it's still an awesome movie. So. Here's the lowdown on it.

Main cast-


Tim Burton
Role : Director

Every director has his own style. John Woo is the action master ( bombs, kung fu, whatever) and Jerry Bruckheimer is a bomber ( let's blow this up which makes that one blow up so we can blow up the whole set) and this guy? The goth. And his movies have his own brand of dark humour, and I love that about his work. Let's see.. if you guys want to know what he did, here's a few - Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Batman Returns, and Corpse Bride. ( Ok the last one wasn't that great, but still.)

Johnny Depp

Role : Sweeney Todd

And what's a director without his lead actor? You guys know him better as Captain- Jack- Sparrow. I know him as Johnny Depp because this guy is coolness. The way he does any role at all is amazing, well at least I like the way he plays people with a screw or two or a whole bucketload loose. In this movie he's lost it almost completely. He can sing pretty well, and he certainly carries off the psycho barber who thinks we all deserve to die very nicely. ( Well maybe he does have a few screws loose in real life. But he's still awesome)


Helena Bonham Carter/ Burton
Role : Mrs Lovett

And of course there's a female lead. In this case, it also happens to be Mr Burton's wife ( they met on the set of Planet of the Apes, which he helmed. Apparently she made a lovely monkey) and - for those who watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - she was also Bellatrix , the evil sorceress and one of Volde's lieutanents. She apparently didn't change her hairstyle from that movie. Which fits in, because here she's slightly less deranged - she plays a meat pie seller who sells the corpse meat from Sweeney's " customers" baked in her pies, but she also has a softer side with a boy, and is obsessed with Mr Todd in a cute little way. ( although he basically ignores her and it doesn't end up very good ) She sings too but I was noticing her hair more.


Alan Rickman

Role : Judge Turpin


This film is all about revenge - aka. bao chou in all those chinese period dramas . So we need someone for Mr Todd to go psycho on, and voila here we have, filling in that role, none other than Severus Snape himself! ( from Harry Potter too... hm. 2 actors from there so far...I wonder..) From his looks I'd say perhaps he does fit the role. Alan looks like a theatrical actor and basically, his face has this narrow serious look to it that says either librarian, sinister teacher or bad guy. Or tax collector. In this case he plays that mean judge who ruins Todd's life and makes him go wacko in the first place.


Timothy Spall
Role : Beadle ( Turpin's right hand.. or was it his left?)
Yes, that's him, the fat, squashed man in the middle with that wide black hat. In the movie he plays a brutal sidekick, a bootlicker to the mean Turpin who wallops anyone in their way. He also played Wormtongue in the Harry Potter movies - that makes 3 of the main acting cast from Harry Potter! What, did Voldemort have an interest in this musical too? Ralph Fiennes ( who plays Volde in the Harry Potter movies) might have made a nicer Turpin ( he has a very nice sneer) .. hm. But no, the Potter actor would have to fill in the boy role and I'm not sure he'd fit in. Anyway, about this man... actually I don't know anything about him. So there. = P

Jayne Wisener
Role : Johanna Barker
This newcomer songbird plays the role of Johanna, Todd's as-yet uncorrupted, sweet, innocent daughter who is raised by the Judge. She sings only one song in the whole movie, and she and this other guy create a kind of subplot of innocent romance, hampered by the terrible winds of revenge and hate that the movie focuses on. Dramatics aside, she's a lovely soprano ( not just the face I mean, she can sing pretty well) but it's a pity she's kind of a side role here. Not bad for a first role though.



Laura Michelle Kelly
Role : Lucy Barker ( Todd's wife)
Well well... honestly, I wasn't sure what she did, but I knew she was famous for some reason. I wikied her and guess what? She played Mary Poppins! And a lot of other stage productions , including the Lord of the Rings ( on theatre stage ) as Galadriel... but on screen, she isn't as popular, apparently. In this movie she plays the wife of Todd who's basically the reason the Judge jailed Todd in the first place. Not a big role as it appears, but important.




Sasha Baron Cohen
Role : Adolfo Pirelli, a barber who contests Todd
I half expected him to take out his sister and say " This is my sister. She is 5th best prostitute in all of London. Nice!" Which is a line from Borat the movie... because yes, he's the actor for Borat. It might be a really offensive movie but hey, I liked it =P . Just have to take these things with a pinch of salt... and possibly sugar, and soya sauce, and if you're really sensitive, maybe arsenic. But anyway, he doesn't play a crazy Kazakh with huge racial slurs here, but his character is not much less outrageous - an Italian barber who's also a fraud miracle elixir seller. And he's still very funny . " IT WASA THE POPE!!"
The plot... well, the plot is all about revenge. Todd gets jailed because bad judge wants his wife and gets her. Todd comes back, angry, jaded and hungry for vengeance and goes on a killing spree, while his friendly pie maker Mrs Lovett makes meat pies from his killing sprees. ( next time you order shepherd's pie, you might want to check if it's real shepherd) The rest, you'll have to see. In fact, you can search for the soundtracks on youtube... but honestly, you'll have to see the movie to appreciate it. But anyway for the curious, here's the links to the songs on youtube -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tox_UDjLRCc ( Green Finch and Linnet Bird)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eTUihny-OA ( Pirelli's Miracle Elixir- along with that crazy barber with really bad hair. Honestly, you'd think he would get a better hairstyle)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1muWt0vho ( Epiphany) My favourite one of the lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uyDbGgD-9E ( Johanna- sung this time by both Depp and the young actor for another set of scenes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjl09GT2UcM ( By the Sea - now this you really have to see the movie scenes with it)
And the other songs I'm not as fond of. But feel free to check for them on youtube.
Well, that's all I really can say without showing up the whole movie. ( although I've shown half of it already I think) That's all for now .


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)