So, we went to see a preview of Sweeney Todd last night, which was fun--perhaps not the feel good Christmas movie one might expect to see this time of year, but a great movie. This is not a musical for kids or the squeamish! It is a rated R, bloody movie but if you're familiar with the Stephen Sondheim musical, you kind of know that going in.
Johnny Depp is GREAT and sings the songs well (no surprise there, we heard him sing in the John Waters classic Cry Baby. Actually, it was weird because there area couple of shots of him and I started thinking, "Man, Sweeney Todd is hot." but then I'm, "Wait, he's a blood thirsty killer--ingore the Johnny Depp animal magnetism, he's not hot!"
Helena Bonham Carter did a good job, she doesn't have that strong of a voice for singing, but since it's a movie and the camera can make the scenes more intimate and she's a great actress, it works for the most part.
The story is about a barber who gets swindled out of his cozy family and years later seeks to exact revenge...as only a barber can. There is an issue of disposing of the bodies, but fortunately, the barber shop is over a meat pie shop...it's the best bloody serial killer movie with cannibalism and singing that you'll see this year! If you're worried that you can't take the gross factor, the music almost always clues you in that a murder is about to happen so you can cover your eyes, but make no mistake there is lots of blood. Again, not something I would take kids to go see.
And because Amy (who is hosting the next I and the Bird, get her entries in by December 20th) asked for it, here it is. MAC cosmetics was at the preview and offering free "Sweeney Todd makeovers". They asked if I wanted a little or a lot, so I got a lot. Also, Sweeney Todd Hair Salon was there too giving out white hair extensions, so I signed up for that too. Here's the end result:
Born Again Bird Watcher calls this The Demon Birder of Fleet Street...or at least of the Twin Cities. When they started to put the pale make up on to make me look dead, the woman said, "Wow, on everyone else, this looks like deadly pale, it's actually a good color for you!" So she went under the table and brought out something that was just pure white and that gave me the dead person look. Non Birding Bill was confused--he liked the goth look but was not used to me wearing so much make up and found it hard to have a conversation with me. Not a big call for having "smoldering eyes" at bird festivals.