03.28.08 5:00 AM CDT
• TV & DVDs
• Robert DeSalvo
If you usually steer clear of musicals like you do fresh roadkill, don’t let that scare you away from Tim Burton’s bloody good Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a re-imagining of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning Broadway hit. Starring Johnny Depp as the throat-slashing titular barber out for revenge, and Helena Bonham Carter as the inventive London shop owner who recycles his victims for her meat pies, the Oscar-winning Sweeney Todd sings a different tune altogether. Not only is it morbidly funny, violent and gleefully Gothic, the film features two lead actors who have never sung on film before, yet do so brilliantly. Rounding out the impressive cast are Timothy Spall, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen, who steals scenes as Sweeney’s rival barber and proves that he’s no one-trick pony with Borat.
The two-disc special collector’s edition DVD of Sweeney Todd is dripping with interesting extras for history buffs and fans of the macabre. Highlights include “Sweeney Todd is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber,” which attempts to sort out the real-life roots of the character from folklore; “Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition,” a nice retrospective of the ghoulish French theater; as well as featurettes on “Sweeney’s London” and a look at the Broadway play. Sweeney Todd is available on DVD (sadly, no Blu-ray…yet) on April 1 from Paramount Home Entertainment in both a two-disc and a stripped-down edition. Both will rip your preconceptions about musicals to shreds.
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