Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I enjoyed the hell out of SWEENEY TODD.

This film was my first exposure to the story, and I admit that I went into the picture not expecting to like it. My tastes run to the bright and cheery, frankly, and this stuff is pretty dire. But it works. It works because Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, even under all their makeup, infuse the proceedings with a compelling, dark humanity. It works because of top notch supporting performances. And it works because Tim Burton creates a world, and a worldview, so complete that we can enter into it and live there for a while, even if we don’t care to live there much longer than a couple of hours.

Johnny Depp, a strong contender for Can Do No Wrong status, is Todd, a man with vengeance in his heart. I knew Depp could do vengeance (Hell, I knew he could accomplish most any acting task set before him.), but I didn’t know he could sing. His numbers, and his performance of those numbers, enhance his character and entertain – he’s just great here. Helena Bonham Carter, an actress to whom I’ve always found it difficult to warm, is just right, as well. She’s creepy and off and fascinating and, what do you know, she can sing, too.

As for the supporting work, well, look at this cast: Alan Rickman (CDNW), Timothy Spall, and Sacha Baron Cohen (a performer whose stock keeps rising, in my book), among others. Rickman, of course, Can Do No Wrong. Spall is taking too many “slimy guy” roles, but he’s mighty good at them, and who knew Cohen could sing? Even as I recognized their faces, I bought their roles.

And Burton, well, he’s Burton. He creates films that come fully alive in their self-contained worlds, and his choice of palette and scene here is spot on for the material.

This is a successful film, and a damn fine entertaining one. Color me pleased.

The Foot Fist Way

THE FOOT FIST WAY is the kind of film that invites us to spend an hour and a half laughing at, not with, its characters as they endure one uncomfortable and embarrassing situation after another.

I found it to be mean-spirited, hateful, and accusatory. I shut it off after forty-five minutes of stone-faced, arms folded indignation. I can’t imagine why anyone would write, direct, produce, or star in this picture, and I can’t imagine why anyone would recommend it to anyone else, unless they didn’t like their target.

Avoid this film. The world is a worse place for its existence.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK, a Preston Sturges picture from 1943, is laugh-out-loud funny. It offers a combination of verbal and physical comedy that’s irresistible, and it’s served up with verve.

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK is pretty sophisticated stuff for a post-Code, war-era comedy. A girl in an Army town goes out for a big night at the farewell bash for a bunch of new recruits headed off to war. Weeks later, she has vague memories of possibly having married some guy named, um, Ratzkywatzky, ?, and definite proof that she’s pregnant. What is a pregnant minor to do? Well, if her mother’s the governor, mom finds the son of a bitch and gets ‘em hitched after forcing ‘em to smile for the national television cameras. But what if her father is just a lowly constable? She finds a patsy.

And away we go, with sputtering fathers, stuttering patsies, and enough slapstick to make it all go down smoothly. Betty Hutton is winning as Trudy Kockenlocker, the girl in question, and Diana Lynn is utterly delightful as the sister who’s younger in years but older in the heart and head. William Demarest, as the father who is no match for his daughters, is a master of bluff paternalism and the expert pratfall, and Eddie Bracken, as the hapless patsy, is simply delightful.

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK is a wonderful time at the movies.

The Mist

THE MIST wrung me out. This is a scary, exciting, depressing, and fulfilling movie that did not get the love it deserved.

The film, based on a Stephen King novella from _Skeleton Crew_, is a variation on one of King’s favorite themes: a group of people are trapped in an extraordinary, possibly supernatural, situation. The rules of civilization bend and snap, and we’re witnesses to our own best and worst selves.

Sure, there are monsters and gore effects and all that sort of thing, but THE MIST is really Lord of the Flies in a supermarket. While some folks may be put off by the film’s religious and political positions, it isn’t the positions themselves that matter so much as where the picture goes with them. THE MIST has a bleak view of humanity, it seems, but it also believes in the potential for nobility. I enjoyed its exploration of those ideas as much as I did the visceral fear, adventure, and desolation it had on offer; for I knew that those emotions were emotions in a box, feelings I could sample for a while, then put away. But what I can’t put away are some of the ideas of THE MIST, particularly the one about the fragility of civilization and the human compact. I don’t agree with its position, because I consistently see people at their best when things are at their worst, but the film does offer rich food for thought, nonetheless.