Sweeney Todd

[thescarletwoman]

So, here comes the unpopular opinion time.

I'm DREADING the release of Sweeney Todd this christmas. Absolutely dreading it.

I don't know when The Trailer was released, but I just saw it today. And I've been weeping since I saw it.

There's dialog. What there hell is dialog doing in Sweeney Todd? The musical is basically an opera, even if Sondheim refuses to apply the name to said show. He looks like, IMO, Edward Scissorhands, only without the scissors. HBC, while I loved her in HP... is no Mrs Lovett. Hell, I don't even care for Patti LuPone as Mrs Lovett to be perfectly honest.

The only good thing about this movie, to be honest, is Alan Rickman.

I lived with this musical for... over a year when I wrote my thesis. It's near and dear to my heart, not only as a pit musician but as a Sondheim fanatic.

It doesn't mean I don't love Johnny Depp. But seriously... he's not Sweeney.

Give me Len Cariou or George Hern ANY day.

And there's no Mrs Lovett but Angela Lansbury.

Comments

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

Well, it does have to have music if you're filming the Sondheim musical, not the folk tale.

If they can be faithful to Andrew Lloyd Webber, why can't they be faithful to Sondheim?

[emiime.livejournal.com]

Because ALW=Musicals for the Masses. It takes a brain cell or two to get Sondheim.

[jadis31.livejournal.com]

Damn, there goes my grand plan to become rich and famous by directing a film version of Assassins starring Neil Patrick Harris.

;)

[thescarletwoman.livejournal.com]

Mmmm... NPH singing in Assassins.

I think I need to put that onto the MP3 player to listen to. I so love that show.

[thescarletwoman.livejournal.com]

A brain cell or seventeen, really.

What that man can do with music... blows your mind. I point to Sunday in the Park With George when he wanted to write the music just like Seurat painted, but in the end couldn't as it would be nothing but half-steps, so instead used 12-tone techniques...

/historian squee

[meleth.livejournal.com]

I at this point tend to simply consider films "based on" stuff. Also, I was needlessly snarky, and I'm sorry about that, Lia. I spent the morning e-fighting with a raging misogynist, and I was just looking for a fight. Sorry.

[thescarletwoman.livejournal.com]

Apology accepted. And I do know more than a little about the original Sweeney Todd story, given the whole thesis writing thing. But when it's billed as Sondheim's work... I was hoping for it to be more than a little faithful.