These are fantastic

This clip makes me believe Depp can win. He's off the charts:

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=d56zFwleZ ... re=related

Problem is that most people don't wanna admit they were wrong after they've seen it and stick with backing it anyways to save face. Not that this is gonna happen with Sweeney Todd since I am convinced it'll be a good movie, just saying I hate it.

I got off the American Gangster train the moment I saw it, and I tend to think that's often the case. Hmm, I'll keep an eye out for this stubborn bullshit.

And King Kong was tremendously flawed. No matter how much anyone was enchanted by the effects, it's impossible to deny that it's overindulgent. We really didn't need to know so much about each member of the crew, nor spend an hour on the boat waiting for them to get to the island. On repeat viewings it's not completely unwatchable from start to finish, but it's pretty damn close.

As a member of the working press, I saw tonight's screening under embargo, so I can't say anything specific about Sweeney Todd until it opens in selected cities on December 21. (It opens wide on January 11.) What I can say is that it is--without exception, and by a considerable margin--the best film ever to have been made from a Broadway musical. The only other one to which it can possibly be compared is Bob Fosse's 1972 screen version of Cabaret, and Sweeney is, aside from everything else, a better show. (It is, in my opinion, the best musical to have opened on Broadway since the end of World War II.) I also think it might actually do well at the box office, not to mention the next Oscar night.

The studios are unleashing some heavy hitters in the next few weeks, from Will Smith's "I Am Legend" to Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts' "Charlie Wilson's War" to Daniel-Day Lewis' "There Will Be Blood." But they will be hard pressed to top "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street." I caught a press screening of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton's latest collaboration a few nights ago, and it was sensational.

Oh, and any doubt you may have about whether Depp can handle the complicated Stephen Sondheim songs will be gone before the first number is done. Helena Bonham Carter is a real hoot too as pie-maker Mrs. Lovett, who figures out a sick way to cash in on Todd's recipe for revenge. Alan Rickman just oozes badness as the evil judge who is the target of Todd's vengeance. Sacha Baron Cohen provides a brief but memorable supporting turn as a rival barber of Sweeney's.

As with any Burton movie, it's a gorgeous-looking production, from the set designs to the crisp photography. The musical score too, helps drive the film. It's loud and bombastic. I can't compare it to the Broadway production since I've never seen the show. But I thought Burton turned out a wonderfully twisted piece of musical theater.

A word of warning: It's a bloodbath (I mean, it is about a killer barber, after all) so find a babysitter and leave the kids at home for this one. Burton earned his R rating here. He's also created a true theatrical experience. I just wonder if Oscar voters will have the stomach to reward the film for its daring.

What's the obsession with pie-makers these days btw? Waitress, Pushing Daisies, Sweeney Todd...

It's kind of Departed-ish, isn't it? People weren't expecting that to be an Oscar contender, but then the "omg" reactions started pouring in and it got all the passion in the world. Also, violent, and Burton is due like Scorsese. But even with that, I'm more supporting ST than actually predicting it wins. Unfortunatley Atonement still has the whip, I'd say.

Dark, haunting, and unified in theme and style, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Tim Burton horror-musical movie of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece creation, is a brilliant work of art. Coherent and uncompromising, this smooth rendition should satisfy the purists and fans of the 1979 Tony award-winning Broadway show-—despite a number of substantial narrative and musical changes, some of which for the better.

As far as movie musicals are concerned, "Sweeney Todd" is superior to last year's "Dreamgirls" and to this year's "Hairspray"--it's the most impressive Hollywood musical to be seen since Luhrrmann's "Moulin Rouge," in 2001, also a visionary work, and before that, "Cabaret," by Bob Fosse, in 1972.

"Sweeny Todd" achieves a number of records. First, it's the most satisfying film of any Sondheim work transferred to the big screen, including the joyous but artistically mediocre "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," and the vastly disappointing "A Little Night Music," a movie that with the exception of one or two actors was miscast, movies that failed to convey the magic of their respective theatrical productions.

Though nominally it's is Tim Burton's first foray into the musical genre, "Sweeney Todd" is arguably the auteur's best film in over a decade, easily since the stylized black-and-white biopic-tribute, "Ed Wood," in 1994, starring Johnny Depp as the notoriously inept director.

Roger Friedman has Sweeney Todd as his #1 film of 2007

He's an entertainment journalist, like you. Just famous and less German.

And the Oscar goes to...

These reviews are doing a great thing by distancing Sweeney from Dreamgirls, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge!, all great musicals in their own right. But pardon the pun, they were all razzle dazzle and staging (and not a bad thing necessarily).