Sweeney Has Come

Sweeney Todd screened last night three times for the media, once in New York and twice in Los Angeles. The early “reactions” have been extremely positive. Here is a sampling of the best:

Tom O'Neil, Gold Derby:

"An embargo surrounding this film prohibits us journos from reviewing it, but we're permitted to discuss it in general terms, so let's try to tread that fine line so I can inform you about the most important movie of 2007. Certainly, it's the best I've seen all year, although, of course, I'm a bit biased as a diehard fan of the Broadway show.

Everybody whose opinion I pooled after the screening tonight said they thought the movie and Johnny Depp were brilliant. And everybody thought it was outrageously bloody and grisly. Many said they didn't think it could win best picture because of that. Yes, there was widespread belief that it'll be nommed for best pic, director and actor — maybe even best actress (Helena Bonham Carter), too — and that MAYBE Johnny could win, but not the film. Not because it doesn't deserve it. But because of all the blood, they say.

But is that true? Hold your derby horses, naysayers! Didn't lots of Oscarologists say "The Departed" was too violent to win last year? Didn't "Silence of the Lambs" break the taboo against horror flicks winning? Hey, are we all such a nation of wimps that we'll let a little blood — OK, a lot of it — get in the way of the year's best picture winning best picture?

After tonight's screening, I asked a number of journos the same questions: Do you think "Sweeney Todd" is going to have huge megabuzz and a high Cool Factor when it comes out? Yes, they all agreed. Is it going to be one of those Gotta-See Pix? Unanimous answer: yes.

If that's true — and it clearly is — then those factors may be enough to help it float the blood biz. And, frankly, the red stuff is handled in such an outlandish, cartoonish way that it often doesn't feel real.

But the movie does. In fact, it makes viewers feel so deeply in profound emotional and psychological ways, that it will haunt you, on many levels, long afterward. Director Tim Burton has created a masterpiece for the ages. If namby-pamby Oscar voters are too squeamish to give it the best picture award it deserves, Sweeney Todd would be entirely justified to give them all a close shave."


Jeffery Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere:

"I went to last night's screening of Sweeney Todd (Dreamamount, 11.21) with a guarded attitude. Here we go, another flush of the downward Burton swirl, get ready for it. The man has been in a kind of losing-it mode since Planet of the Apes and he's had his day...live with it. And then it began, and less than two minutes in I knew it was exceptional and perhaps more than that.

Ten minutes later I was feeling something growing within me. Surprise turned to admiration turned to amazement. I felt filled up, delighted. I couldn't believe it...a Tim Burton film that reverses the decline! Call me a changed man. Call Burton a changed man. Sweeney Todd is his best film since...Beetlejuice?

I have to leave for LAX and a flight to Boston in less than an hour, but I have to get at least some of this down.

All my life I've loved -- worshipped -- what Stephen Sondheim's music can do for the human heart. Blend this with a tragic, grand guignol metaphor about how we're all caught up with some issue of the past -- needing on some level to pay the world back for the hurt and the woundings. Add to this Burton's exquisite visual panache and precision, the drop-dead beautiful, near monochromatic color, the ravishing production design and...pardon me for sounding like a pushover, but this movie pushes over.

At times it melted me like a candle. I was lifted, moved. I was never not aroused. Every frame is a painting.

Johnny Depp is fantastic as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- he has to be a Best Actor candidate as of this moment. It grieves me to admit this, but bully-boy David Poland predicted that Depp's Todd would be a major contender early last year. Helena Bonham Carter can't sing very well but she's great anyway. Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Jamie Campbell Bower (a major new arrival), Jayne Wisener, Sascha Baron Cohen...everyone fills the bill."

By a Nose

Are people still talking about Nicole Kidman’s Oscar winning role as Virginia Woolfe in The Hours? I didn’t think so.

What a ridiculous performance in a pretty dreadful movie. Not once watching the movie do I ever believe I’m watching Virginia Woolfe. What I see is Nicole Kidman strutting around the screen wearing a big rubber nose on her face. Oh, how brave of her! The illusion is broken folks… and it isn’t coming back. She would have been better off forgetting the prosthetic nose and just playing the role without a physical attribute and try to create some sort of emotional truth. Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t look anything like Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, but at least his performance, which I consider to be petty good makes you believe he could be Johnny Cash. He doesn’t reply on some gimmick, which the nose is...

... and she still doesn't even look like Virginia Woolfe!

My Top Ten of the Year So Far...

1. Hairspray (Adam Shankman)

2. Zodiac (David Fincher)

3. The King of Kong (Seth Gordon)

4. Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)

5. Ratatouille (Brad Bird)

6. Waitress (Adrienne Shelly)

7. Away From Her (Sarah Polley)

8. The Bourne Ultimatum (Peter Greengrass)

9. The Devil Came on Horseback (Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg)

10. The Hoax (Lasse Hallström)

There are still a ton of movies to see.

"It's a silly place"

Zack Snyder’s 300 is one of the great howlers of 2007. No film has provided me this much laughter in a long time. The first time I saw the film I was practically on the floor in hysterics. The prologue, the sex scenes, the dancing oracle, the deformed creature, the unintentional homoeroticism! It’s all too much for one viewer to handle…

I know this flickering hard-on is beloved to many, but I just fail to see it’s greatness. I’ve tried real hard during several screenings to see what everyone else sees, but I can not. Admittedly I’m jealous.

A Coversation with Irvin Malcolm

Friday Night

A lazy, lazy Friday night... no Real Time with Bill Maher tonight due tot he on-going WGA strike. I'll guess I just have to watch Hairspray again on DVD.

I can hear the bells.

The Baker

Where can you get this one-sheet?

Gold Rush

Here are my current Oscar predictions:

BEST PICTURE

Atonement
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
No Country for Old Men
Into the Wild
Juno

BEST DIRECTOR

Joel & Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Joe Wright - Atonement
P.T. Anderson - There Will be Blood
Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Ridley Scott - American Gangster

BEST ACTOR

Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will be Blood
Denzel Washington - American Gangster
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
James McAvoy - Atonement

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose
Julie Christie - Away from Her
Amy Adams - Enchanted
Ellen Page - Juno
Keira Knightley - Atonement

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton
Casey Affleck - The Assignation of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
John Travolta - Hairspray

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett - I’m Not There
Kelly McDonald - No Country for Old Men
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Leslie Mann - Knocked Up
Ruby Dee - American Gangster

Attend the Tale

I want this movie to come out now!

Eat Hearty

My friend Ramses agrees with me.

Days of Heaven

I remember renting Days of Heaven a long time ago from my local rental house and when I got home to play it, the sound was completely fucked up on the VHS tape. It didn’t matter. I found the plot easy to follow. The film contains very little dialogue and the gorgeous images simply spoke for themselves.

I wish I could hug this film.

No American film has rivaled Days of Heaven’s beauty since 1978. Most modern films use filters and are digitally color corrected so they appear slick and glossy and look like every other motion picture. Rarely now does a filmmaker rely on his film stock and lighting.

Cinéma du Look

Diva makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, yet it still manages to be rather brilliant. Jean-Jacques Beineix's film has something do with bootleg audio recordings of an opera star, blackmail, and police corruption, but that’s all a McGuffin for stylish chase scenes and show-off camera work.

The film is so busy with nonsense that it’s marvelous look at.

Black Saturday

I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever see Michigan beat Ohio State again in my lifetime.

Go Blue!

BEAT OHIO STATE!

Redacted Still Sucks

I’m glad I’m not alone with opinion on Brian DePalma’s Redacted. Jeffrey Wells nails it with his review posted earlier today:

"Brian DePalma's Redacted pretends to be a video verite account of some horrid homicidal behavior on the part of some U.S. troops (based on an actual incident) with a third-act stab at depicting the moral penalty for such deeds. I saw it as a sloppy film about a group of badly directed actors playing soldiers, and the hell of being surrounded by pretension gone wrong. I've never seen a worst-acted film by a major-league director in my life. DePalma has no ear -- no ear whatsoever -- and those who see Redacted will suffer because of this.

It's basically about a grunt who sees himself as a future director (Izzy Diaz) incessantly taping his deeply irritating buddies talking about their pathetic lives and viewpoints, and basically watching these guys (a couple of whom are disgustingly overweight) be gross, common and deeply uninteresting. On top of DePalma making us listen to loop after loop after loop of George Friderich Handel's Sarabande (this music is owned by Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon -- what was DePalma thinking?).

I'm in full agreement with David Denby's comment, which is that Redacted is "hell to sit through." It's the atrocious acting that gives it this quality. It made me do the usual thing I do when I'm trying to get through a rough sit -- leaning forward, tapping left foot, hands over face, quiet groans, singing my favorite songs to myself, etc."

Noah Forrest also wrote a very good piece about the film for Movie City News.

I’m pleased that Redacted is finally being exposed as the piece of shit that it is. These reviews have also reminded me what a joke Brian DePalma's last film The Black Dahlia was… and that film contained my beloved Scar-Jo!

'Johanna' from Burton's Sweeney Todd

Johnny Depp knocks it out of the park!