Comments on Terry Teachout on Sweeney Todd: Better Than Fosse's Cabaret, Better Than Sir Carol Reed's Oliver!, Better Than Sex with God

holy crap. im so excited

I can't wait.I can't wait.I can't wait!!

Looking forward to seeing this at the sneak preview!

But God never complained about sex with me ...

I'd pay a lot of money to not have to see this train wreck.

Better than Guys and Dolls?

@4: So far it seems like it's anything BUT a train wreck. The early reviews leaked are pretty unanimous about what a great film this is.

It's DEPP and BURTON.

They could wipe their exploded wart puss on a photo of an aborted conjoined-twin fetus and it would get rave reviews.

Is there any way to watch and enjoy the movie without having to look at Johnny Depp?

I'm seeing this Sunday at SIFF; I can't wait even though screenings at SIFF are sort of a nightmare because they're packed and I'm a bit claustrophobic...

but I'm confused by some of the other comments on here...the movie of Guys and Dolls isn't very good, in my opinion, and well, it really isn't a beloved member of the movie musical canon by any standards.

Tim Burton USUALLY gets poor reviews from mainstream critics and Johnny Depp has only started receiving mainstream love in the last three or four years. I'm also scared that all the blood is going to scare off the aged members of certain film academy who are more inclined to like shit like "Crash"...

@6, I hate musicals and Burton's tiresome goth thing is like shit frosting on the turdcake

it figures that FNARF hates Johnny Depp, the alt poster boy of choice for the last 20 years...

I'm suspecting he's more of a Benecio del Toro fan; they're hardcore!

Hey, you guys have fun. I'm going to be at home, watching Stargate and drinking some beers.

Watched the trailer, and it was a waste of time. I can not believe I fell for the hype genarated, and wasted my time watching the trailer. Depp can not sing, and the movie looks hamfisted and tarded. A nightmare before chrismas was good, but evey movie made by depp and co since then has disapointed(except the first pirate movie). depp should just make porn, so the dweeds can jerk off to something sensible, and spare the rest of use the hype.

My idea of a modern-day screen idol is Stephen Fry or Richard E. Grant, Steve Coogan or Rob Brydon. You know, someone who can speak, and read, and act a little. I'm not sure I've ever seen Del Toro in anything. Does he ever play human beings? Johnny Depp never has.

Wait, that's not quite true. He was almost good in Ed Wood, where the woodenness actually worked in his favor. And the character somewhat resembled a person.

I'm with you, Fnarf: I'd rather watch Steve Coogan or Stephen Fry any day. But Terry Teachout is no slouch critic and if he says it's good—well, I dare to dream.

I think they meant Showboat or maybe the archival print of the musical with that famous Rat Packer, Sammy Davis Jr (can't remember the title, set in New Orleans).

Much better than Guys and Dolls.

Still, most of my friends will be seeing this at the SIFF screening on Sunday too.

But, yes, Stephen Fry is much better.

All That Jazz is one of the best movies made, and I think that was a Broadway play before it was a movie. The film reviewers that will put this new piece of crap from depp above All that jAZZ SHOULD BE drafted into the army, and sent to iraq for an extended tour. My hate knows no bounds at this insult thrusted onto me, and what I know is right.

Really? Better than "West Side Story", too?

Porgy and Bess is what you're thinking of, Will, and it's magnificent. Guys and Dolls is an, ah, acquired taste, shall we say, though it does feature Marlon Brando in one of his sillier roles. The great Rat Pack musical, though, is Robin and the Seven Hoods, featuring Sammy's mind-blowing song and dance number with a Thompson machine gun in (and on) a bar -- shooting all the while.

Best film from a Broadway musical is an impossible goal; best in the past thirty years might be doable.

Re: Guys and Dolls, I always thought a bit bizarre that Brando was cast as Sky Masterston and Sinatra as Nathan Detroit, instead of the other way around. So, while I love the show and music, the movie never seemed right to me.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Sweeney Todd turns out.

I am excited about the movie as well. But, what most people don't know that the picture that is display, has a picture of Big Ben in the background in the window, well what the researchers of the movie came to find out is that it didn't exsist for another 50 years in this time period....check it out. They have now done a lot of damage control, accepting the fact that someone didn't do their research.

Obligatory pendantic note: Big Ben is a bell. The building you refer to, in which it sits, is the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament, aka the Palace of Westminster. Yes, I know, who gives a fuck, but by law all references to Big Ben must refer to this confusion of nomenclature.

The feeling I have about Sweeney Todd is this: if you saw the musical and didn't like it, then you won't like the movie. If you have no intellectual investment in this major hunk of Sondheim's genius, it's understandable that the uninitiated, the uncaring or the I-don't-get-its, stay home and hush. ST is an opera, it is in Cockney, it is unbelievably gory and it is a tragically gorgeous story.

I would gladly bear Johnny Depp's child.

No, I think I meant another film.

But, if you don't want to see a musical, with lots of blood, you probably shouldn't see Sweeney Todd.

i think i would be more excited if this was made as originally pitched, with stop action animation, therefore allowing angela lansbury to sing the title she's too old to play anymore. depp seems passable as sweeney, though i don't think he's going to have the chops that len or george had.

Sammy never made a musical set in New Orleans. Porgy and Bess is as close as it got (Charleston, SC) -- and the only one with a revival print. The only other musicals he was in were Robin Hood, The Threepenny Opera, and Sweet Charity.

Jeebus, does it cure cancer too?

Come on! It's a fawking musical for Christ's sake!

It looks like he's hanging out in Edward Scissorhands' attic!