SWEENEY TODD/ LA ORFANATO

SWEENEY TODD

I had my doubts about Sweeney Todd because I'm such a huge Angela Lansbury fan--and Mrs. Lovett was HER role. However, when you aren't watching a stage production, the camera allows you a more intimate glimpse of the characters, so that Helena Bonham Carter doesn't have to fill a theater with a massive set of pipes. And her acting is fantastic! She's a perfect Tim Burton heroine with her kooky, messy hair wound into a shape. And Johnny Depp is just a treasure to behold. He often sounded like David Bowie while singing! I noticed one accent slip-up and I thought that one white lock of hair--to indicate his age--was a little too stylized for my liking. But I certainly didn't mind the other stylized aspects of this beautifully Tim Burton masterpiece.

I didn't remember that the build-up to the murders was so lengthy in the original play. The movie's 1:57, and the slicing and dicing don't even start until one hour into it! Does anyone know if the film version follows the musical, or were they trying to add sympathy to the butchers for a mainstream audience? I went on New Year's day after no sleep--and I was literally about to slit my wrists after an hour of blood squirting.

Cheery it's not, but I knew that before I saw it. Now I'm not the biggest musical fan, but, honey, these show tunes are some of the corniest I've ever laid ears on. The song which the young suitor sings to his caged paramour ("I feel you, Joanna") was enough to make me slit my own throat and several other numbers were cringe-worthy. It doesn't help that many of the shitty ditties have reprises, so you get to cringe twice.

And am I the only person that thought the young suitor, with those plucked eyebrows, looked like a sex change? All in all though, the casting was fab. Sascha Baron Cohen has a comical cameo which enables him to sport not only a ridiculously foppish wig, but some tight knee breeches which must have satisfied his desire to show off his nasty nuts a la his bathing suit from BORAT. And the actor who plays the beedle is terrifically cast, as are Joanna and the boy who helps around the pie shop.

Highly recommended!


LA ORFANATO (THE ORPHANAGE)



In spanish, so you won't want to see this if you don't care for subtitles. This is one of those horror movies about a house with a ghoulish history which comes back to haunt it's new occupants. Here's the twist: the house is an orphanage and the new occupant was an orphan who grew up there. She's purchased the place with her husband and moved in with her HIV-positive son. He communicates with the ghosts of the orphans.

If this plot sounds entertaining to you, see it. It has a few good gasps in it, and the real star is the mom (Laura Rueda), who despite disheveled hair, no make-up and gritty close-ups, resembles a spanish version of Lauren Hutton. The rustic mansion is spectacular and the ghostly scenes are sufficiently eerie. Still, a lot of the film depicts the heroine trying to figure out what's going on. Maybe it was the subtitles, but I felt the same way.

Not really worth $11 if you like your thrillers with a little more action in them as I do.