This one has been out there for more than a while so chances are you’ve seen it already… but every day is Johnny Depp day so you can see it again!
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a Tim Burton musical, stars Depp as a London barber whose landlady, Helena Bonham Carter (hey! “Bellatrix Lestrange”!), disposes of the men he murders in his high chair by turning them into meat pies. Yum. It gives a whole new twist to the term ‘mystery meat’, doesn’t it?
Film is based on the Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name that debuted in 1979 and has been brought to stage many times since. Title character “Sweeney Todd” is a figure of English urban legend with his roots in the trashy novels of the early 19th century. Everyone from Ben Kingsley to Angela Lansbury has appeared in various productions.
Co-starring Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber and Alan Rickman (lookit! “Severus Snape”!) as a creep with a thing for another guy’s girl, the movie also stars Timothy Spall (“Peter Pettigrew a.k.a. Wormtail”). Those darn Death Eaters are everywhere!
Early buzz on the movie has been nothing short of glowing. People are variously calling it Burton’s best movie since Beetlejuice, Ed Wood and pretty much any and every movie he didn’t make in the past ten years. If such universal love doesn’t make the non-conformist in you stay at home, you can find the truth of this (man)meat pie for yourself this December 21. You bet I will.
INDIEQUILL 