SWEENEY TODD:
THE DEMON BARBER
OF FLEET STREET
(Review)

“For what’s the sound of the world out there?”
“What, Mr. Todd? What, Mr. Todd? What is that sound?”
“Those crunching noises pervading the air!”
“Yes, Mr. Todd! Yes, Mr. Todd! Yes, all around!”
“It’s man devouring man, my dear!”
“And who are we to deny it in here?”
-- “A Little Priest”

It’s odd that for a master of mainstream macabre, the film that turns out to be Tim Burton’s darkest and bloodiest, is a musical. That’s rated R.

Burton’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is yet another triumph for the 49-year old director who made a name for himself with his Gothic (and highly visual) romanticism for all things shadowy and decayed.
It’s his sixth collaboration with his cinematic alter-ego, Johnny Depp, and his fifth with his lady love, Helena Bonham Carter, both of whom acquit themselves admirably as the obsessed, single-minded barber out for revenge, and Mrs. Lovett, owner of a decrepit meat pie shop and adorer of all things Todd.
And not only do they have to act, Depp and Bonham Carter (and the rest of the film’s delectable cast) have to sing too. And these musical numbers sound tricky, in all probability a challenge to professionals, and certainly not a cake walk for untrained vocal chords. But they pull it off with skill and talent to spare.

Burton meanwhile, paints the multiplex canvas with yet another darkly gorgeous portrait of the outsider coming up against “normal” society, though admittedly, it’s been awhile since said outsider was homicidal (the last time we had one of those from Burton was Batman Returns).
The director’s assembled band of creative cohorts are, as always, impeccable. Colleen Atwood’s costumes (BAFTA and Oscar nominations; her 7th collaboration with Burton), Dante Ferretti’s production design (Oscar nomination), Dariusz Wolski‘s camerawork (Wolski also shot Alex Proyas’ The Crow and Dark City), all bolster performances by an excellent cast that includes Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Timothy Spall, giving us a film that not only moves, but looks good while doing it.

Having never been exposed to Sweeney Todd in any of its previous incarnations before, what came as perhaps the biggest surprise for me, was the music. By turns sweeping, infectious, sobering, and chilling, Sondheim’s musical landscape for this tale of tragic tale of obsession and revenge, is astounding.
Consider: one of the musical’s cheeriest numbers is entitled “The Worst Pies In London.” No mean feat, that. Then, to have that triumph and the audacious cannibal anthem, “A Little Priest,” all in one musical. Sheer bloody genius!
Getting Burton as appointed cinematic translator was a match made in Grand Guignol Heaven. When you can expertly juxtapose a beautiful number like “Johanna” with shots of throat-slitting and body dumping, well, surely you understand the material, right? (The pastoral idyll of “By The Sea”—in the midst of the pervasive ash grey palette of the film—was another masterstroke as well.)

With Sweeney Todd, Once, and Across The Universe (Julie Taymor’s Beatles-inspired work may be uneven, but no one can deny its daring), 2007 should go down in cinema history as the year the movie musical proved it could be so much more than just fat-suited A-listers in drag.
It no longer has to be just about people busting out into boisterous song and energetic, jazz hands-inflected dance. Like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge before them, these musicals obliterate the common perception of the genre.
With Sweeney Todd, Burton and Sondheim give testament to the fact that you can have blood and cannibalism—with the R rating to go along with all that wholesome family entertainment—and still have an emotionally involving narrative that utilizes the grammar of brilliant songwriting as its alluring language.
And let’s face it, if asked which was the more disturbing thought, Johnny Depp as a fright-haired, murderous barber, or John Travolta in drag and a fat suit, I know what my answer would be.
What about you?

“We’ll take the customers that we can get!”
“High-born and low, my love!”
“We’ll not discriminate great from small! No, we’ll serve anyone, meaning anyone…”
“And to anyone at all!”
-- “A Little Priest”

Parting shot: After Javier Bardem’s killer ‘cut in No Country For Old Men, Sacha Baron Cohen’s coif as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, takes runner-up as Dodgiest Cinematic ‘Do for 2007.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Once, Across The Universe, and No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive, along with a Tim Burton retrospective (“In The Shadows of Mainstream Cinema”).

(Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

(Thanx to Bianca, for springing for the ticket.)

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
(Review)

Julie Taymor’s Titus is quite possibly the wildest and most interesting Shakespeare film adaptation I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t overly fond of her Frida, though.
Those sentiments clearly don’t make me a rabid fan of her work. She is, however, one of those directors that are always on my radar, whose films are always worth, at the very least, a healthily curious look.
And when her Beatles-inspired musical, Across The Universe, ran into some studio interference, well, that just pumped up my curiousity all the more. I mean, when a film gets into trouble with the studio, more often than not, that means it’s not your usual, run of the mill Hollywood pap. (Or it’s gone insanely overbudget.)

Jude (Jim Sturgess) is a factory worker from Liverpool who makes the great escape to the U.S. of A. with a personal agenda. Lucy (Running With Scissors’ Evan Rachel Wood) is a privileged young girl about to go off to college.
The paths of these soon-to-be star-crossed lovers are about to intersect, and in the company of Lucy’s brother Max (Joe Anderson, who played Peter Hook in Control) and a motley crew of—in Lucy’s mom’s own words—“promiscuous drug fiends,” they spend a pivotal summer in New York, while war rages in a tiny Asian country called Vietnam.
It’s there, in the Big Apple, social unrest and awakening going on all around them, that Jude and Lucy learn life’s most valuable lesson: all you need is love.

At its core, Across The Universe is a love story.
But that, of course, is complicated by, not just the ‘60’s counterculture backdrop, but also the presence of the film’s supporting characters, some (like Max) more prominent than others (the sadly underused Prudence, played by the curiously named T.V. Carpio).
Things get a tad disappointing when a character like Prudence is introduced into the narrative with the quiet and poignant yearning of “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” only to be shuffled in and out of the story without any apparent rhyme or reason.
Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy) also gets a powerful and effective introduction, with the gospel stylings of “Let It Be,” his arrival in the big city heralded by Joe Cocker’s blazing rendition of “Come Together” as urban anthem.
Jo-Jo, at least, gets slightly more face time than Prudence, but his subplot (also romantic) happens largely off-screen.

Clearly, the choice to set Across The Universe during the ‘60’s was to give the story more depth and resonance, and I’m all for that. But when the narrative fails to support not just the number of characters, but also the weight of its own intentions, then the film falls short of the dizzying heights of its immense potential. The result is a tale that lacks substance, peopled by characters that aren’t as fully realized as they ought to be.
The narrative, as well as its energy level, doesn’t quite sustain itself over the 2-hour running time. And somehow, the climax leaves the impression that the characters survived the ordeal, rather than triumphed over the adversity of the times.
While it takes a page from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge by utilizing popular music as narrative shorthand, Across The Universe doesn’t hit the bull’s eye the way Luhrmann’s rousing and incredibly moving musical did.

That’s not to say that Across The Universe is a complete let down. This is one of those cases where the parts are most definitely greater then their sum.
“Strawberry Fields,” which juxtaposes Jude’s agonized personal confusion, with the horrors of Vietnam (though the flaming strawberry bombs are arguably a tad much); the snatches of “Across The Universe” that we actually manage to hear—as Taymor chooses to pit it in a discordant war with “Helter Skelter.”
And those final moments of “Across The Universe,” with eerie visuals that rival some of the more vivid images from Titus.
These are when the film works the best, when the imagery and the music (and in some numbers, Daniel Ezralow‘s choreography) merge into a cinematic experience that stays with you past the end credits.

Across The Universe also boasts some interesting appearances by Bono, Eddie Izzard, the aforementioned Cocker, and a past Taymor collaborator (the cameo’s too sweet to spoil the surprise).
It’s also got solid musical support from McCoy (touted as “one of music’s next big movements”), Carpio (daughter of noted Asian singer Teresa Carpio), and Dana Fuchs, who, as Sadie, eerily recalls Janis Joplin (whom she played in the off-Broadway hit, Love, Janis).
The central performances are however, slightly problematic. Sturgess and Wood can sing well enough, sure, but sometimes, the emotion doesn’t shine through as much as it should, particularly from Wood, whose Lucy, after all, is asked and demanded more of by the narrative.
There’s also the very suddenness of the film’s denoeument, sparked by a rendition of “Hey, Jude” placed in a weirdly improbable context. This is arguably one of the bigger shortcomings of the film, leaving the audience with a vaguely unsatisfying ending, as if they needed to wrap things up, and weren’t at all sure how.

Still, though Across The Universe may be uneven, and I’ve still to find that Julie Taymor film that slays me completely, this is clearly not a boring film.
In my books, Taymor’s still a far more interesting director for a musical than, say, Rob Marshall.
Or Joel Schumacher.

Parting shot: Proving she likes to work with familiar faces, Taymor is gearing up for the Spider-Man musical, with Bono doing the music.
To further reinforce that notion, word once floated on the web that Taymor was looking at Sturgess and Wood to play Spidey and Mary Jane in the musical, though I’ve yet to hear anything concrete regarding casting.
Taymor is, of course, best regarded for her work on The Lion King musical.

Parting shot 2: For those of you who love behind-the-scenes thingies, Dana Fuchs blogs about her experiences during the Across The Universe shoot here.

Parting shot 3: Reviews of Running With Scissors and Control can be found in the Archive.

(Across The Universe OS courtesy of impawards.com; soundtrack album cover art courtesy of amazon.com; images courtesy of Sony Pictures and about.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (44)
HEY, IF IT ISN’T OSCAR! 2008 (2)

So after last night’s post, I searched for a complete complete Oscar nominations list, and was successful at both aintitcool.com and variety.com.
For the sake of completion, here’s a list of all the Oscar nominations I’m excited about this year…

Across The Universe:
Best Costume Design (Albert Wolsky)

Eastern Promises:
Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen)

No Country For Old Men:
Best Picture
Best Director (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins)
Best Film Editing (Joel &Ethan Coen)
Best Sound Editing (Skip Lievsay)
Best Sound Mixing (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter Kurland)

Once:
Best Song (“Falling Slowly”)

Transformers:
Best Sound Editing (Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins)
Best Sound Mixing (Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell, and Peter J. Devlin)
Best Visual Effects (Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, and John Frazier)

And the nominations from films I’ve mentioned here at the Iguana, but have yet to see are…

Away From Her:
Best Actress (Julie Christie)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Sarah Polley)

The Golden Compass:
Best Art Direction (Dennis Gassner, Art Direction; Anna Pinnock, Set Decoration)
Best Visual Effects (Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Wood)

Juno:
Best Picture
Best Director (Jason Reitman)
Best Actress (Ellen Page)
Best Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody)

Lars and the Real Girl:
Best Original Screenplay (Nancy Oliver)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Best Actor (Johnny Depp)
Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti, Art Direction; Francesca Lo Schiavo, Set Decoration)
Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood)

I’m still bummed by Eastern Promises’ lack of Oscar presence, and concerned about the chances of “Falling Slowly,” though one must recall last year, when Dreamgirls had three songs up for the award, and Melissa Etheridge swooped in for the kill.
You never know, really.
Having mentioned “Falling Slowly,” though, here’s what Glen Hansard had to say about the nomination:

"It's insane. God, what a day it's been! I'd like to say I was out having a walk and wasn't bothered and took it all in stride but the truth is I didn't sleep last night and we just killed time until it came on TV, but then they only announced the major categories. We're in the Czech Republic so my friend in the States called me and we couldn't believe it. We were jumping up and down. It was hugely melodramatic and Irish. We cracked a bottle of champagne and got drunk before 3:00. It was only in the shower I realized what a riot this has been. We made the film in January 2006. We went to Sundance and won an award in January 2007 and now we have an Oscar nomination so I'm thinking January is my lucky month.”

Good on you, Glen!
Now if only the WGA strike gets resolved—fairly—within a month, so we can actually have an Oscar night, instead of an unattended event people won’t cross picket lines for…

Again, congratulations, one and all. (You can check out the now complete list here.)
Awards will be presented on February 24, 2008.

Parting shot: Reviews of Across The Universe, Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, Once, and Transformers can be found in the Archive.

(Oscar OS courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com.)