Holiday Excitement Thy Name is Burton

Opening night of Tim Burton's adaptation of Steven Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has come and gone and this sci-fi/horror blogger wishes to take this opportunity to say - IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE!! Burton has once again succeeded in elevating my cinema experience to include awe and amazement. Considering my one biggest complaint was that Anthony Stewart Head (better known as Rupert Giles to all you Buffyphiles out there) said one sentence fragment and didn't sing (Behind Blue Eyes, anyone?), I'd say all in all it was a good night at the picture show.

I was a little concerned, going into it, because there were rumors that it had been dumbed down to cater to Captain Jack's drooling teenaged groupies but that worry was sufficiently quelled with the effective, albeit rather unconventional application of a teapot to Sascha Baron Cohen's cranium. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were superbly terrifying in their completely aloof decision that Sweeney would slaughter and Mrs. Lovett, creator of meat pies, would ....ahem....dispose of the bodies. Alan Rickman's performance, however, was a trifle understated, when compared to those of Professor Snape and the Sheriff of Nottingham to Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, but still impressive.

In short, run, don't walk, to your local movie house and indulge in the blood shed that is Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.

But that was not the end of my wonder and bemusement. Upon returning to the warmth of my home, I was greeted with the news that he has confirmed work on two new projects - a stop motion remake of Frankenwenie (gleeeeeeeeee) which will follow, hold on to your seats, Burton fans, a live-action/motion capture adaptation of Alice in Wonderland! Unfortunately, as of press time, neither the IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes has much to say about it. The IMDb has it slated for release in 2010 and Rotten Tomatoes hasn't even caught wind of it's existence. But he has publicly confirmed that he is working on both projects with Disney's assistance.