Sweeney Todd steals my heart

*****

It's true - Johnny Depp has successfully managed to steal my affection yet again, much in the style that he did in Edward Scissorhands.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is an amazing musical gothic drama about love, lust and revenge. A mysterious man by the name of Sweeney Todd (Depp) makes his way to London with the hopes of seeking revenge against Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), the man who wrongly accused him of a crime and stole his wife and child in a time when Todd was a barber named Benjamin Barker. Todd returns to Mrs. Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) Bakery, where Mrs. Lovett recognizes him as Barker, tells him his wife is dead and helps him concoct a plan to retrieve his daughter by killing the judge. However, when the judge is not so easy to get to, Todd and Lovett decide to practice on other less-than-innocent clients until the time comes that he can exact his revenge. But what to do with the bodies? Well, Mrs. Lovett knows just what to do, and she won't have to kill stray cats for her meat pies any longer.

Johnny Depp can model, act, steal my heart and sing. Very well, in fact; his voice was actually surprising. Helena Bonham Carter has a talent for music as well, which I already knew from Corpse Bride.

This is a great movie, one which I wish I had seen in theaters (but as of late I've been low on movie theater funds so I've been watching them free online!). I would recommend that anyone who loves Depp, Carter or Tim Burton films see this one - I'll definitely be buying it when it hits stores on DVD.

Another great Will Smith performance

*****

I didn't even bother trying to see I Am Legend in theaters because there was so much hype built up for it that tickets were sold out for days. I finally found it to watch on http://www.movieforumz.com/ - in great quality, I might add.

Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a scientist in the Army who helps discover a cure for cancer when the vaccine begins having side effects similar to those of rabies. Minutes after boarding his wife and daughter on a helicopter to evacuate Manhattan, a recognizance copter collides with theirs and kills them. Three years later, Neville is the only man alive on Earth - or at least, he is the only man free from infection. He and his German Shepard, Samantha, spend their days collecting food, returning DVDs to the local rental store and flirting with attractive mannequins, which Neville is actually nervous to do; needless to say, he lost a few of his marbles, what with being seemingly the only person on Earth. He meets up with two other survivors, Anna and Ethan, as he struggles to find a cure for the disease to fix what he helped create.

The movie, overall, is very well animated and interesting from start to finish. Smith performs so well that you actually believe he knows what it feels like to be the last man on Earth. At one point he begs a mannequin to say "Hello." It was actually very sad.

A few questions in the plot are left unanswered, however. For instance: how did the cure for cancer go so awry? How did it spread (besides being airborn)? Why was Smith's character immune to the disease? There are others, but I can't remember them all at the moment. I did enjoy the movie, though, and I found myself yelling at my computer monitor repeatedly during the scenes that scared me.

It would be neat to see this movie on the big screen with the sound all around you. Since I already saw it, though, I won't pay $10+ to see it again.