Ten Statements About....SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007)

Even with the wacky hair and the razor, Johnny Depp manages
not to overact....

"At last...my arm is complete again."

1) I'm convinced there is an exceptional Broadway musical director fighting to get out of Tim Burton's body. One of the absolute brilliant things about this film is how easily the story flows, carried forward on the strength of its songs and the way he directs the film so it feels like a stage play when it needs to, and opens up when it doesn't....

2) ....and another brilliant thing is how this group of actors you think wouldn't be able to carry musical numbers succeed because Burton is able to recast much of Sondheim's songs (many of which utilize complex time changes, harmonies and dissonant lyrics) so that they're talk-singing their way through it. And because so much is talk-singing, it gives certain actors--especially Johnny Depp--the confidence to try full on singing.

3) You'll notice that this film utilizes a muted color pallete throughout its running time unlike many later Burton features where said muted pallete gives way to a much brighter one...and I think Burton could benefit from abandoning those damn eccentric candy color swirls and doing something more subdued like this more often....because those bright colors distract from Burton's storytelling abilities in other films, but here the moments where the bright colors appear (i.e. every time there is a throat slitting) empasizes the horror and shock of those moments.

Look!  Sasha Baron Cohen is using a funny accent...and
is actually good!

4) Why is it I love Sascha Baron Cohen except when his dialogue is written by Sascha Baron Cohen? I ask this because, quite frankly, he's brilliant as Pirelli.

5) Another performance I love is Timothy Spall's as Beadle Bamford. Not just because it is successful in its all-out oiliness...but because somehow with his body language and his appearance, Spall seems to have walked straight out of the illustrations for the Penny Dreadfuls from which this story originally came from.

6) As much as I dislike CGI...okay, loathe CGI...this is what it should be used for--enhancing the look of a film, making London look like a sinister picture book of the London of old. I can even respect the somewhat clumsy use of CGI blood in a few key moments at the film's climax, as using the slower flowing blood in those kills seem to be a subliminal cue that these are the murders Sweeney will learn to regret.

7) I didn't notice until this viewing how 'By The Sea' has a darkly funny staging thanks to the way Depp seems thoroughly out of it as Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett is planning their upcoming fantasy life. And speaking of which...

8) I'm really of two minds when it comes to Helena Bonham Carter's Lovett. She's very much underplaying it, which seems to make her more monstrous than Sweeney--after all, Sweeney's horrors are spurred forward by what Judge Turpin did to him, while Lovitt's is done out of practical capitalism--but there's a ring of falseness to the way she continues to go along with 'Mr. T' even when it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that he is working at his own purposes to the exclusion of hers.

"Didn't you once rob Nakatoni Plaza?"

9) While it is a delight to see Alan Rickman being Mean Ol' Rickman...I can't help but think that he's not exactly stretching himself here, that this is just a bit of lazy casting facilitating some lazy acting.

10) While it's obvious from almost the introduction of the romantic subplot that it's only there because it was there in the stage play, the way Burton literally forgets to pay off on it, satisfied with leaving Joanna in the chair and forgetting about Anthony almost entirely once the climax is in high gear makes his disinterest clear.

Overall...arguably the best of Burton's later films thanks to his eschewing of what has become his stylistic crutches, this succeeds both as a musical and as a full-on, grand guignol horror film.

Ten Statements About....CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005)

This is not the scariest character in this film.

"Everything in this room is eatable. Even I am eatable. But that is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies."

1) I think many people are down on this--maybe because it marks the beginning of Burton's regression toward only adapted material. But it does mark a near-perfect fusion of filmmaker and source material, and as such is pretty unique.

2) I'm surprised how, even though both it and the earlier movie based on the film, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (I really can't call this a remake; both films take the book and go off into very different directions with it) are similar in length, this one moves a lot quicker. But then, since Burton is more interested in presenting a truer interpretation of Dahl's original, he needed to speed up the front half so he could do the material the first film left out of their script.

...this is.  I mean, seriously--see her coming, and RUN!

3) Julia Winters, who plays Veruca Salt, may very well be the single creepiest child in the history of the world. That first shot of her smiling for the cameras holding the golden ticket is positively terrifying.

4) I'm going to say it--Johnny Depp's interpretation of Willy Wonka isn't as effective as Gene Wilder's in the first one. Depp's performance is all artifice and facial tics, and comes off more weird than creepy like Wilder's. Granted, I suspect Depp developed all this strange behavior so that when the third act hits Willy becomes more natural the more he comes to realize his need for a family, but the bulk of the film it's like he's jumping up and down screaming 'Look At Me! I's WACKY!'

5) Man, I love seeing Christopher Lee, whose acting is every bit as effective at this age as it was in the 60's. I'm sure they used some CGI to de-age him in the flashbacks....but it wouldn't have worked without Lee being able to change his vocal qualities to sound younger.

6) The true hero of this film, however, is the one-two punch of Danny Elfman and Deep Roy. I love how Elfman utilizes a different musical style in each of the musical numbers, and Roy's physical acting gives many of his OompaLoompas different personalities and attitudes. It may be Elfman's voice, but it's Roy's performance that gives those songs life.

In my nightmares, I am carried away by a Viking Ship full
of Deep Roys....

7) Apparently, a lot of people were up for the role of Granpa Joe, including Christopher Lloyd...but I cannot think of anyone who would have fit this version of the film as well as David Kelly. A more famous face would not have worked, and Kelly's physicality (there's that word again) and chemistry with young Freddie Highmore makes the character come alive.

8) I like the fact that John August's screenplay has some of the parents--particularly Mr. Salt--learn a lesson or two as well. I still feel a swell of satisfaction when James Fox expresses more emotion than he's expressed in the movie to finally refuse Veruca something she wants.

9) This is another one of these films where I kind of, sort of accept the use of CGI. Since there is a lot of fanciful elements, and the movie is never meant to be 100% realistic, shots of some of the stranger rooms, the glass elevator and other stuff done with computers make sense. In fact, the only time the CGI feels off is when we're introduced to the machine that costs Charlie's father his job.

10) There is a definite sense of ghoulishness and grossness throughout...but since Roald Dahl delighted in infusing his children's book with a touch of gross, it works here--once again, we're talking a fusion of director and source material that is very right.

Overall...a film that is sometimes unjustly denigrated, and also unjustly dismissed as just a remake, this is a fairly faithful adaptation of the Dahl original done by a director whose sensibilities fit Dahl's weird storytelling sensibilities like a glove.

(And no promises, but look for a Ten Statements about Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory in the coming days.)