Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

God I hate musicals.

Even gorgeous, dark, stylized, gothic, gory musicals about a heartbroken barber who murders his customers and the lady downstairs makes meat pies out of their corpses. I just hate the earnest bursting into song. The cheesy lyrics and the suspension of disbelief that everyone in the room knows the words. I can't help but feel like all musicals are a little bit "Red White and Blaine" from Waiting for Guffman.

All that said, this is a pretty fantastic movie. Burton weaves a beautiful palate of gray and black and red. The costumes are great, the makeup was amazing. The sets were grim and pitch perfect. In truth, without the songs we wouldn't tolerate the artsy gore. They make the simple story and two dimensional characters worthwhile somehow, but I can't help thinking what a great movie Burton could have made without all the goddamn singing.

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