Swing your razor wide...

[tzikeh]

The trailer for Sweeney Todd is up.


No. No. Just... a gigantic meat pie of no. You do not have sprechsingen in Sweeney Todd. You certainly don't engage in sprechsingen AS Sweeney Todd. And what little we hear of Johnny's singing is... no. No, no, no, no. No richness, no flavor, no depth -- thin, colorless... the best you can say about his voice is that it's not exactly off-key.

Tim Burton's hard-on for Johnny Depp has ruined it, as I feared it would. I was stupid to allow myself to hope. And what kills me is that this is what the overwhelming majority of the audience will think Sweeney Todd is.

So, if you don't give a shit about whether the musical is any good, you know, musically, but you like pretty pictures, then hey, this is the movie for you.

Comments

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Okay, but (*tries to put a good spin on it*) there's always the possibility that they're holding back on the singing-singing in the initial trailers because they think a musical won't sell, even though Sweeney Todd is...a musical. I mean, what...is "Joanna" not going to be sung?

*crosses fingers*

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

is "Joanna" not going to be sung?

To which "Johanna" do you refer? There are three of them. ;)

If they keep the Judge's in, well, that would make up for a LOT of my current distress. :D

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought about Depp's voice, what we hear of it: thin and colorless. It's a shame, but kind of what I expected based on his speaking voice: it's a movie voice, perfectly flexible and sufficient for the screen, but without particular depth or resonance.

I can't say I'm surprised. ::sigh::

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Raffi Todd: The Bananaphone of Fleet Street.

(Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring SERIAL KILLER!)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm missing the reference entirely. ::is uncool::

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Well... it's a song by Raffi that makes no sense and has, in that inexplicable way that some things do and some things don't, become an internet phenomenon.

Here's a page of videos made to Bananaphone.

http://www.purevideo.com/video-Bananaphone

ebaumsworld.com has the ultimate Bananaphone I-can't-get-this-song-out-of-my-head hatred video:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/play/681

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Out of our Sweeney-related grief comes...

JOY!!!

::dances off, humming "Banana Phone"::

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

It's no baloney - it's not a pony!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I want a bananaphone so I can call my cat, dammit.

[debchan.livejournal.com]

*sighs* I am sadly not surprised.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

It coulda been a contendah! Instead of a bum....

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

But ... it's going to look great.

[brave face]

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

:D It will, indeed, look lovely. However, that is not why I see Sweeney Todd. That is why I see ballet.

[lumenara.livejournal.com]

Sprechsingen? Is that the same as talk song?

Yeah, that was disappointing. I'd honestly hoped for better from Depp-- you know, this crazy naive notion that he wouldn't take a part he couldn't do well.

Damn.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

yeah - "speak-singing". Made famous in the U.S. by Rex Harrison :D

Dammit.

[debchan.livejournal.com]

My Fair Sweeney.

[thecomfychair.livejournal.com]

By about 2/3 through the trailer I'd wondered if they'd cut out the singing altogether. And then Epiphany started. :( Still, at least they didn't make it PG-13...and I did like the graphic behind the title...*remains naively hopeful*

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh, the visuals are stunning, but then I never doubted they'd be anything but.

It's not Sweeney Todd: The Ballet. (Though that could be interesting.)

[thecomfychair.livejournal.com]

Sweeney Todd: The Ballet

!!! So, that needs to exist now. (The slashing could be oddly graceful.)

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

Also seems to have lost any trace of wit.... *sigh*

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

*sigh* indeed. I still can't tell if I'm even going to go, I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of seeing this show in a guise that disappoints me. If I do manage to go, and we get to "A Little Priest" and I'm not laughing, I'm leaving.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

The Depp fans are loving it, though. Even the ones who know the original and thus should know better.

Oh, Tim, I had faith in you even after you cast Depp, and you have betrayed me. :(

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I just knew the Depp thing would be the weak link... and I hoped against hope I would be wrong.

As for Depp fans loving it regardless, well... not much to be done about that. Lucky them, actually.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

I don't like Depp (I know this makes me a failure as a fangirl), so if I see the movie, it will be in spite of him. And now, in spite of his singing. *sigh*

[brak666.livejournal.com]

My worst fears have been realized.

[speaks.livejournal.com]

CLUE!

And its Madeline KHHAAAAAAANNNNN!

[sunqist.livejournal.com]

I just had a horrible thought. Burton is in love with the people he loves, and there's nothing to be done about that. Couldn't he have cast someone he loves who we know can sing? Someone like... Danny Elfman?

*runs screaming into the night, villagers with torches and pitchforks close behind*

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

OMG, that would have been MADE OF AWESOME.

::clings to the hot talent that is the Elfman::

[sunqist.livejournal.com]

He could definitely sing it, and he could certainly look the part, but something tells me he couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. Still, a dirty part of me would love to see Elfman on screen for two hours running around slashing people's throats, even if he made a hash of the character.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I recall enjoying his performance in "The Forbidden Zone", but he wasn't so much acting as doing a Cab Calloway impression. Still, the idea pleases me. (:

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

This is clearly a marketing ploy. They probably took the few lines of dialogue, cut them together and made the trailer. They are hiding the musical part.

I never had great hope for Depp's voice. Sweeney on stage is an opera after all. Movies are not the same as stage shows.

Still... I loved Amadeus on stage but it also made a good movie. It was just different.

If they were transferring the stage show intact, it would be running on PBS and not 1,000 screens at Christmas.

Sweeny will survive no matter what and continue to be part of the rep of opera companies everywhere.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Amadeus wasn't a musical, though. When they had opera scenes in the film, they used opera singers. I'm just... it could have really *been* something. And now it's just not.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

No, i know. It wasn't a musical. And we can't judge by the trailer if the film version of Sweeney is no longer a musical either.

I never considered Richard Gere a singer nor his fellow cast members (also not known for singing) but they all did okay in the end in Chicago.

So, I remain optimistic. I've seen so many versions of Sweeny; I guess I never expected the film to be definitive, just another version.

And hey, if the piece can survive the recent B'way revival, it can survive anything.

(And the Burton film at least looks really great).

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Eh, we're never going to change one another's minds -- but Gere started out in musical theater, and Zeta-Jones was a famous musical theater performer in Britain before she came here.

And I loved the recent revival -- and so did most of New York, if the rave reviews from the New York Times and The New Yorker and all the Tony and Drama Desk awards are anything to go by.

The trailer is visually pretty, yes.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

RE: revival. The leads were very good. The staging was... odd.

I must admit that, overall, I was disappointed (although I did like the Tobey frame they added to the story).

And folks who were in the audience around us who'd never seen Sweeny before were thoroughly confused.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

I should add that my 15 year old son who's a great Sweeny fan, has watched the trailer now several times and is beside himself with excitement (so thanks for the link).

He's going to be Sweeny Todd for Halloween and I'm going to be Mrs. Lovett. I'll post the photos. :)

[tv-elf.livejournal.com]

I'm not looking forward to it anymore, but I'm also reminding myself that most trailers are crap to bring in the drooling masses who would turn their noses up at a musical...

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

All my initial enthusiasm was based on the assumption that no one in it would be able to sing, and any good musicianship in it would just be gravy. So I'm still looking forward to it, a lot.

[iko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a bit my take on it as well, especially when I read an article about HBC being a bit unsure about all of the singing.

The visuals are fantastic, though. And the shot of Rickman peeping gives me a GREAT deal of hope...

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

Epiphany is probably one of my favorite songs in the whole thing. THAT was not it.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not pleased that this is the singing we're hearing in the trailer. I'm definitely in it for the pretty pictures and the non-singing scenes at this point.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to the explosion of YouTube videos that will surely follow the general release of the movie, in which the totally sweet visuals will be synced up to audio from the New York Philharmonic concert recording (or the people-who-can-actually-sing-this-material version of your choice). Now *that* I'll watch repeatedly, and it won't cost a thing. ;)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

They could sync the visuals to "Bananaphone" and it would be better than this.