"I find this film morally dubious" - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) - The Heavenly Mandate

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everybody, This is Justin the Hoary Urchin, and before
we start our show, i'd like to remind you to
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
Or will Erica ever find love?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Email us at the Heavenly Mandate all one word, the
Heavenly Mandate at gmail dot com. That's the Heavenly Mandate
at gmail dot com. And maybe you can be that
special someone Eric has been looking for. Without further ado,
onto the show, it's.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Bad news, it's travel news.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
Watch up a group of men.

Speaker 6 (00:45):
That's fine, you saved me. I have nothing to welcome to.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
You to.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Welcome to the Welcome to the Heavily Mandate. Welcome to
the Heavily Mandates. We have descended from our melon abode,
momentarily forsaking our Kung fu studies to bestow our unique
film perspective on the beleaguered and wretched people of the Earth.

(01:19):
I am just In the Harry Urchin. The Wharry Urchin
going hard, going hard in the paint and bounding to
myself with zero point five seconds left on the clock,
shooting threes to win. And I am joined today by
the drunken master himself. Callen, how are you doing? Man?

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Well, it's funny you should ask. I don't have an answer.
Please move on.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Josh, the deadliest venoms is here. How are you doing? Man?
What's popping?

Speaker 7 (01:53):
A little destended on meat pies right now? True? Mm hmm?

Speaker 4 (02:01):
And Eric I remembered, I remembered.

Speaker 7 (02:03):
I remember now, Oh.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
How I'm doing? If I had but one meat pie? No,
never mind, I lost it.

Speaker 6 (02:19):
That was weird.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Erica Lyddy Dusteb, the blackest the widows is here. She's
maxing and relaxing. She's all bricked up behind the Novae
Mall and Novae Michigan. How are you doing it?

Speaker 4 (02:33):
No?

Speaker 7 (02:34):
By my latest he's been behind the novie.

Speaker 6 (02:39):
My my latest housemate has been calling it nob so
we should just go from there.

Speaker 7 (02:45):
But Erica slitting throats behind the Novi.

Speaker 6 (02:48):
Mall, I mean, don't. I mean, it's it happens sometimes.
I mean, you got to entertain yourself doing winter somehow?

Speaker 3 (02:58):
So are you doing uh, today, I.

Speaker 7 (03:07):
Probably had a meat pie with every meal.

Speaker 6 (03:11):
Do so I have a but like we probably talk
about what we're doing, but justin how are you today?

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'm doing wonderful, I said. I said, I was going
hard in the paint. I was imbounding my myself.

Speaker 7 (03:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Today we are reviewing two thousand and sevens Tweeny Todd
the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by its favorite movie. Yes,
it was directed by Tim Burton, so you can guess
where this is going. And it features Johnny Depp, Helena Bottom, Carter,

(03:49):
Alan Rickman, Tim and thry S fall I, and Sasha
Baron Cohen. Without further ado, let me pass the heavily
mic over to wise man Kellen and he'll lead us
deep the heart of comedy musical darkness as we talk
into our nibbles.

Speaker 6 (04:05):
So can I just like say one thing real quick?
So when I was trying to watch this movie today,
I was like, Okay, where is Sweeney Todd streaming for free?
And it shows up and it's like Pluto TV. Pluto TV. Yeah,
I appreciate the free TV experience movie experience, but it
comes at a cost, and it's not just ads. So
I go when and I click the button to watch

(04:27):
Sweeney Todd that has a picture of Johnny Depp on
it and held a bottom carter, and all of a sudden,
I'm watching this intro and I'm like, I don't recognize this, okay,
And then I see this like bigger looking dude, and
then someone refers to him as Sweeny Todd, and I
was like, whoa, that's not Johnny Depp. And so I

(04:48):
pause and I'm like, what is this?

Speaker 7 (04:51):
And so it was playing.

Speaker 6 (04:53):
No, no, no, it was playing Yeah, it was not seventies.
There's another one. It was playing Johnny Depp, but not
Johnny Depp laying Sweeney Todd. But it was a different version.
It was just called Sweeney Todd. It didn't have the
dam and Barbara fleet Street, and it was confusing. I
had to go back and forth the whole bunch because
it was like Pluto Amazon Prime and it had the
picture of Johnny Depp, and I would hit the button

(05:15):
for Pluto and it would take me to this other version,
and then I was like, okay, I'll do the other
expence and then so I go to the other Pluto
and this happens all the time. It's in Spanish, and
I'm like, Pluto, I'm never going to watch this in Spanish.
So then I had Then I figured it out. I
had to go all the way back to the Pluto
specific app and then I found it the correct one there.

(05:36):
But it was like fifteen minutes at least to figure
out how to make this work. And this is not
the I've spent many of time fighting with Pluto TV,
mostly about the language issues. I don't know why I
want to speak Spanish.

Speaker 7 (05:48):
But you know you could have done as I did.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Wait what and I get up everything I need?

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, it's like Russian dark web ship. Oh, you can
find bodies on it.

Speaker 7 (06:10):
They just want us there. It's it's uh, you know,
it's in a way it's socialists now because they want
us to be able to enjoy these films for free.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
May I the masses?

Speaker 3 (06:22):
May I say that one of the elite motifs of
this season has been an undercurrent of cannibalism.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, the movies?

Speaker 6 (06:32):
Wait, I need a reminder.

Speaker 7 (06:37):
Of the movies we did?

Speaker 6 (06:39):
Oh I blocked that one out? What other movies?

Speaker 7 (06:48):
The musical Oklahoma? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:50):
How does it was?

Speaker 7 (06:52):
It is highly implied.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
It was applied cannibalism of dreams.

Speaker 7 (06:58):
I think, okay, confused, but you remember you don't remember?

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Remember they're all dancing around that chili bowl and like
the Grandma, I like is implied that they.

Speaker 7 (07:14):
Had the chili con.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Alright when I getting south Park back into this Actually
that is a kind of gentle yes reference to this season.

Speaker 6 (07:27):
Okay, now I feel like a liar. I'm searching Sweeney
Todd film and it's just taking It's like Johnny Depp
only and I'm like, I'm not crazy. There's another one.

Speaker 7 (07:36):
There is, Yes, there is, Yeah, Yeah, it's not though.

Speaker 6 (07:42):
Oh it's like from two thousand and six. It's two
thousand and six.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
No, yes, this one is from two thousand and seven,
so I doubt.

Speaker 6 (07:49):
No, no, no, no, call it. I found it. I'm
telling you the one that I found. It's a it's
just called Sweeney Todd without the second part the demon
Barbara fleet Street. But it was a TV movie.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
And it had how would you justify.

Speaker 6 (08:05):
Ray Winstone, sc Davis, David Tom Hardy, it's a BBC.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Whoa hold on? These are big names. This is actually worthwhile.

Speaker 6 (08:18):
It actually didn't look bad. I just was the right one.
This was it looks like it was a BBC one.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
No, that's the best BBC by definition one BBC one.

Speaker 6 (08:30):
No, I didn't mean never mind, so that's why.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah, I all right, Well there's another version we can
all see cow if we choose to.

Speaker 6 (08:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, David Bradley is uh is filtered? Oh yeah.
Let's play the game of how many Harry Potter characters
were in these movies.

Speaker 4 (08:54):
In this particular.

Speaker 6 (08:57):
I mean, once you have a bunch of famous British actors,
there's only so much to work with, you.

Speaker 7 (09:01):
Know, they basically all have to be in everything the
same movies.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, yeah, and one.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, exactly guaranteed.

Speaker 6 (09:15):
Okay, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
So if I had a sausage for every vendetta I
could not fulfill, I wouldn't need a banger. Someone said
that was it you? It was just me? Yeah, But
so Sweeney Todd two thousand and seven, starring and directed

(09:39):
by all the people that Justin has already said. So
after some nifty opening credits, screw you, Justin on your
opinion about that. We open on the misty River Thames.
A vessel is putting in with Anthony Hope and Sweeney
Todd aboard two men who take rather different views of
London's charms. The you full former learns about a Dumasian

(10:02):
tragedy in which a young barber was falsely convicted and
transported to Australia by a lecherous judge Turpin so that
he could seduce the barber, Benjamin Barker's wife. Unsurprisingly, Todd
is revealed to be the Barker returned for revenge when
he visits his old premises premise I can never say

(10:24):
that right above missus Lovett's pie shop. They enter into
a plan to lure the judge into the shop for
a shape so close It's fatal love it mostly due
to a rapid infatuation with Barker. Young Anthony goes on
to discover Todd's daughter is award and prisoner of Turpin,
whilst Todd and Lovett run into numerous old acquaintances of

(10:47):
Todd to varying ends. But when the moment comes for
Todd to exact revenge on the unwitting Turpin in the
barber's chair, he misses it. And first half.

Speaker 7 (11:00):
Isn't it straight up?

Speaker 6 (11:04):
Okay? Okay?

Speaker 7 (11:06):
So what.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Well? The original play is set in about eighteen seventy No,
I'm sorry, seventeen seventy five, and the new show is
set in about eighteen eighty ish.

Speaker 6 (11:19):
I think, wait, wait, I don't know if that's right.
I was gonna say, let's talk about the origin of
the musical because it's really interesting. So Sweeney Todd is, Yeah,
it was originally a Penny Dreadful, which from the eighteen
hundreds in like you know, Victorian England, which was a
like a weekly kind of like a newspaper that had

(11:41):
these like serial stories that were usually like gothic stories
like dark. Yeah. Yeah, And are we not giving I mean,
I feel like everyone knows what Sweeney Todd's about. Are
we going to say what actually ends up happening for later?

Speaker 7 (11:54):
Yeah? You can go ahead, I mean, okay, well we'll
just go ahead.

Speaker 6 (11:59):
Just okay. It sounds like from what I was reading
is that the basic stories we have this evil barber, okay,
that and his weird business partner. Will leave it at that.
But the backstory, the stuff that's all about Judge Turpin
and his wife and his daughter, that was part. So

(12:20):
what happened was this was a Penny Dreadful that turned
into a play, and I think it got turned into
multiple plays and I believe, yeah, and I believe is
it Christopher Bond did make that up?

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Yes, he was one of the seventh of the seventies version.

Speaker 6 (12:36):
Yes, yeah, he was the one that made like a
much more complex story that had the backstory or it
wasn't just an evil Barber was like, how do you
have a cereal that's like every week of you know
what I mean? But it makes sense because you had
just one concept and he's just doing bad things. But
in the play is where you get the story that
we have now. And then from there it was Stephen Sondheim,

(12:59):
the hooser, who added music to it a little bit,
you know a few years later, and that is how
the musical came about.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
And now, yeah, I was in the.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
Seventy nine or.

Speaker 6 (13:13):
Which probably make sure.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
And now we get to see Tim Burton make the
most Tim Burton film ever.

Speaker 7 (13:19):
No, he's so much more Timber I mean.

Speaker 6 (13:23):
But yeah, what I understand is that like, yeah, the
Penny Dreadfuls came out and like the I don't know,
mid or to late eighteen hundreds I think, but they
were set in the late seventeen hundreds.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
Yeah, it's set a century beforehand for that, like fairy
tale horror. I'm pretty sure this is one of those
things where someone writing Penny Dreadfuls in London in the
eighteen eighties wanted to harken back to like Grim Brothers,
Like you want a fucking fairy tale for the big city,

(13:59):
here's one. Here's an ogre and an ogress who slaughter
people and put them into pies and make people eat them.
It's a very old like fairy tale kind of motif.

Speaker 7 (14:11):
Spoiler.

Speaker 6 (14:13):
Well, okay, so I looked it up. So so Sweeney Todd.
It was first appeared in It was called The String
of Pearls. It was a serialized story. He was a
character in that story and it was published between eighteen
forty six and eighteen forty seven.

Speaker 4 (14:27):
Oh so that's the Edwardian era anyways, So technically this
movie updates it to Victorian.

Speaker 6 (14:34):
But isn't it set.

Speaker 7 (14:35):
I mean, I don't know when it's That would have
been Victorian eighteen forties.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
No, eighteen forties, is said Wardian.

Speaker 6 (14:43):
Oh wait, I'm talking about when it came out, not
when it's set. Those are different things.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
Oh yeah, okay, true, Okay, So the setting was original, well,
the setting was originally like Jacobean.

Speaker 6 (14:55):
I was gonna say it was in the seventeen hundred,
That's what I'm saying. It was like it came out
in like the mid eighteen you know, but it was.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Written in the Victorian era, and then this movie set
in between them in the Edwardian era. I think, I
think I.

Speaker 6 (15:09):
Gotta say I'm not good at differentiating all that.

Speaker 7 (15:11):
I just Victorian.

Speaker 6 (15:13):
It's all old technique Victorian.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
To all of us, it's old school English. I think.

Speaker 7 (15:19):
I think the the year that this is supposed to
be said in is about ten years before an era
that that literally it was called like the Year of
the Great Stink.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Oh yeah, and it was overflowed.

Speaker 7 (15:38):
Yeah, it was a stink so bad that people hundreds
of years later are talking about it.

Speaker 6 (15:46):
Oh wow.

Speaker 7 (15:47):
London was Yeah.

Speaker 6 (15:50):
I mean, honestly, like the first movie they started watching
an accident really hits home how gross London is at
that time.

Speaker 7 (15:57):
London was like industrial revelation time.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, every major city is a suspect, but it's an
old suspect.

Speaker 6 (16:05):
So yeah, and I know we kind of brush through
the first part of it, but just to clarify the
backstory because there is a lot to work with. As
you mentioned, you know, Benjamin Barker had, you know, he
had a wife. He was he was like the best
barber in town. He had a wife, beautiful wife he
was in love with, and a baby girl. And then
this creepy judge Turpin decides he wants his wife, and

(16:28):
so he lures Benjamin Barker's wife to a masked ball
and he rapes her and she like goes crazy, and
at the same time or you know, she doesn't take
it well and at the same time she as one
when that came out wrong, he gets sent you know,
he he gets sent away, right, and so we're meeting him,

(16:48):
you know what, fifteen years later, and he doesn't know
what happened to his wife and daughter. And when he
gets back, he is totally different. He is, you know, demented,
and he's you know, set on revenge because he said,
fifteen years to think about how this one person ruined
his life. And when he gets back, as you mentioned,
he goes he goes to his old his where he

(17:09):
had his old barbershop because he was his famous great barber,
and he meets missus Lovett who owns the pie shop downstairs,
and she fills them in and she goes, look, your
wife didn't do well. She poisoned herself. She took arsenic
and the and the judge took your daughter as his wards.
So like the judge raised his daughter. Yeah, I know,
we'll get back to that. And and she happened to

(17:32):
save his really fancy blades and.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
So I mean that is great.

Speaker 6 (17:38):
But yeah, and his whole But yeah, he is back
for one reason, and that is to read vengeance.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
I let go of the past. That's at a certain point, though.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 6 (17:47):
If only you were there to give him that advice,
I would totally.

Speaker 7 (17:51):
Interesting factoid barber is and surgeons used to be the yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Also want to put that is that Is that a joke?

Speaker 6 (18:01):
I don't know if you're no.

Speaker 7 (18:03):
Barbers used to do surgery, like before they want to
kind of surgery like if you needed appendicitis or something.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 7 (18:15):
Cut off? Yeah, barber they did.

Speaker 6 (18:20):
Those are different skill sets taking hair off.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
It's called which originally the business is called a barber surgery,
and it is because they come here and also other things.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
It's that like the barber the modern Barbara got the
real short end of the stick, like a ton of money,
where it's just like what happened we.

Speaker 6 (18:41):
Were like Honestly, with that logic, I would think that
a butcher would be of all the much Yeah they know.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
What Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
As Actually, as I had a friend Gangs of New York,
a butcher knows a lot more about a human body
should be cut apart, then what else.

Speaker 7 (19:03):
Does I have? I had a friend from Australia who
said that like that even kind of like continues to
the present day, where surgeons in Australia are not.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Referred to as doctors.

Speaker 7 (19:14):
They're referred to as mister or like missus. What oh wow,
because because because they used to be because they used
to be like barbers, they weren't like in the medical profession, so.

Speaker 6 (19:25):
That forever again.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
You're just mister. But yeah, oh no, you're right, you're right,
You're right. I forgot. I just watched I'm watching a
lot of Australian channels lately and someone pointed out, like
the difference in the way you title people. Mm hmmm,
that is weird.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Souple questions. Sure, yeah, why did the film employ a
kung fu filled limp? Think technique in the singing wasn't
me because often it didn't seem as if the singing
and the transfer.

Speaker 7 (20:07):
Yeah, no, I think that I didn't know that was
my transfer or that is that is part of it?

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Okay, why I don't know? I was like, why is
everything now weird?

Speaker 4 (20:17):
I think the lack of lip sync.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, there's no lip sync. It goes wildly off mouth.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
I only saw that during like the flashback to the
beginning of Sweeney's story. That was the the place I
observed that.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
You have to watch it again. It's very disconcerting. It
looks like, yeah, tis.

Speaker 6 (20:45):
Like, okay, so this is, you know, a musical. So
what do you guys think of What do you guys
think of the music?

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Boring as hell?

Speaker 7 (20:56):
Okay, I disagree like I thought I thought it was.
I like that it wasn't like it was just kind
of like flowed with the story rather than generally being
like separate musical numbers. You know.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, it felt like like it did.

Speaker 7 (21:14):
It didn't. It didn't feel as intrusive because it just
like it wasn't kind of like went along.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
It felt almost diegetic, even though it wasn't always part
of the story. It felt like it was progressing the
story read than being a hey aside, let's sing about
it and then we'll come back.

Speaker 6 (21:34):
Well, I mean a good musical like the songs should
you know, convey the characters emotional about you should move it. Yeah.
But so here's the thing with Sondheim, right, Stephen Sondheim
has a very distinct style, and he's very much known
as like a lyricist. You know that I think is
his what he's the words are really what he's known for.

(21:55):
But I feel like, I mean, we know a lot
of musical theater person because I talk about it all
the damn time, and I.

Speaker 7 (22:01):
Think I can't.

Speaker 6 (22:03):
Yeah, I know, I kind of feel like Sondheim is
acquired taste because like the first time, the first one
I ever saw was when we did Into the Woods
in high school that Josh was in. I got cut
from it, but I just remember, I remember the yeah,
and I didn't like the music. I really didn't like it.

(22:24):
And and then with when I saw Swanny Toddy. When
I saw this movie the first time, I didn't like it,
Like I will say in general, like I wasn't into Sondheim,
but he's really grown on me. I see, and then
people who are into Soundheim like they look at him
as like this genius American musical theater composer, and and
now like I really I'm into it, and I really

(22:45):
appreciate it a lot more. And here's the thing too,
here's where my frustration comes in. I'm a firm believer
that films that are musicals should cast people who are singers,
who are like trained professional singers. I will die in
this hill. And let's talk about how none of these
actors are that. Like they I guess they're on pitched,

(23:07):
you know, baar min mom. You know they're they're laying,
they're leaning into their cockney more than anything. But none
of them are you know, You've got Johnny Depp and
Helen A. Bottom, Carter, Alan Rickman, Sasha Baron Cohen, like,
none of them are real singers. And this is what
gets me is like uh, Sweeney Todd is considered an operetta.

(23:28):
It is commonly performed by but but it's it is
commonly performed by opera companies in addition to like musical
theater performers. It gets a crossover because the style of
singing is very operatic. In fact, the opera company that
I used to work for did Sweeney Todd when I
was there, so I it was really interesting. That's when

(23:49):
I think I really started to appreciate Sweeney because I
was living in it for that time. We had it
doing the promotions and getting to meet the singers, and
I saw every performance that we did because I really
liked it. And and I mean, so it's like when
you sing this, it's like this is supposed to be
like classical level training and singing, and I you know,

(24:10):
I mean, I do think Johnny Depp as an actor.
You know, Johnny Depp and Helen A. Bottom Carter do
weird and dark really well. But like I feel like
Hollywood is too competitive to not be able to find
someone who's at least a double threat.

Speaker 7 (24:25):
They all do that. Yeah, I agree with you, but
like they all do that.

Speaker 6 (24:30):
I mean, I will die in the hill that Emma
would never have been bell ever.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Ever, Fine, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Tomheim doesn't have any bars. Number one. Like, I was
very bored by the singing, and I watched this twice.

Speaker 6 (24:46):
Now why did you watch it twice? I thought you
liked it in the beginning, I did it.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
Oh, yeah, that's fucked up. The first feeling, I was like, Okay,
this isn't bad, Like I get well, I know it's up,
it's it's fun. But the second I'm around, I really
lost a lot of my enthusiasm for it. And one
of the things I was going to say is that
I don't know remember any of the the lyrics. I

(25:11):
couldn't tell you a song, I couldn't tell you anything
about the singing and this, but I can tell you Spedoinkle,
you know, I know.

Speaker 7 (25:19):
I think I know you're not because so like I
was like the snow Man.

Speaker 6 (25:25):
Yeah, but I think that's that's why he's different though,
because with all those other songs, you think they're very catchy,
simple lyrics, right, and his lyrics are complicated, they're long, like,
they're way more complex, so they're not something that you're
going to remember right away.

Speaker 7 (25:42):
The songs in this are more like the dialogue. It's
not exact supposed to be.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yeah, it's well, it's mostly narrative though. It's not like.

Speaker 7 (25:55):
There are a couple there are a couple of numbers
that are like feel like separate songs, but like a
lot of the singing is just like feels like it's
just they're singing a dialogue.

Speaker 6 (26:04):
And that and that's what makes it operatic. That that
is what it is.

Speaker 7 (26:08):
Yeah, exactly, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah, because.

Speaker 6 (26:12):
People I think have the misconception that operas are completely
sung through and musical and Broadway isn't and that's not true.
Hamilton is completely sung through, you know what I mean.
Hamilton is not there's not a clear line, which is
why you know things can cross over.

Speaker 7 (26:30):
Is pretty much entirely sung through. But it's not an
opera exactly exactly, which is funny.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
But yeah, so this this movie is.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Wait for it, boring little bit, we're boring now still in.

Speaker 4 (26:48):
English, that's what this is.

Speaker 7 (26:50):
This movie is.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Lem is Monte crist still but in English, that's crazy.
That's that's basically what this is, which is not a
by no means knock on it, but that's pretty much.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, I agree. Every song made me stop and think,
I wonder what's happening late in le Mis right now?

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Because watching that, guess what.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Happens that I am enjoyed.

Speaker 7 (27:19):
I don't I like le Mis.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
I'll tolerate that. Watch that again is not a bad.

Speaker 7 (27:26):
I love. I guess that's that's a glowing review for Music.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
I find this film also morally dubious. I don't really
get behind the central core message of this film.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
Okay, well that's fair, We're gonna get there, that's so.

Speaker 6 (27:43):
And then I think I'm just trying to think that
the plot. Other important things that we need to keep
in mind is, you know, you meet a lot of characters.
You know, you mean, like, you know Anthony and the
ship obviously means title character. You also meet this really
weird homeless woman who's like obviously not totally there and bagging. Okay,
don't have any spoilers yet, but she is always asking for,

(28:07):
you know, from alms. She thinks she knows everybody. She goes, oh,
don't I know you? And he was like, your gross
get away from me. And then are we going to
talk about the other thing that happens in this act
about what's his name, Corelli or whatever, the Italian barber.

Speaker 7 (28:26):
He was the founder of the tire company.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
Yeah, the tire company Picarelli.

Speaker 6 (28:36):
I thought I thought it was You're right, Prell. I
was making I just want to see if you're putting attention.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
I'm sorry now I'm the ignorant. One is a tire company.

Speaker 6 (28:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand the joke.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
M I don't get tell me the fucking joke.

Speaker 6 (28:56):
No one's laughing, Josh, no one's laughing.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
There's a moment and when there's fucking sing on this,
there's a moment when they're fucking singing where like they
just start humming and whistling and I'm like why.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Because this imagine the sound.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
But like, what's crazy about this is that, like the
worst things that I hate about musicals is like I
have a hard time suspending the sing talking aspect of it.
And this went all in on that weird sing talking shit,
and like it really like made it hard to really
let I tolerated the first time because I was expecting,

(29:37):
like what pro probed me through the first one was like, Oh,
there's gonna be an awesome musical song with it. I'm
going to remember because it's going to be fun and catchy.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
This is the power, right, And like, I.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Don't know, you're sing talking. A lot of this plot
could have been resolved if you just didn't sing and
fucking talk, just talk and just get it done. Why
are you wasting so much time?

Speaker 6 (29:59):
That's the a part of it. You know operas have
the arias and the recit doesn't never say it right,
but like that's stressed the nature of it. But I
was gonna say, what did you say?

Speaker 3 (30:18):
It gives us the worst ship all the time, and
everyone just lets it happen.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
Carrying on.

Speaker 6 (30:27):
I totally I feel like there was one other things.
So are we going to talk about meeting PERELLI? Yeah,
hold on in the story, when he misses the opportunity
that you lead up to, has his first instance already happened, Yes,

(30:48):
the first time.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
That by the time Sweeney, uh, Sweeney could have murdered
the judge, he has already decided to murder a certain
not telling you and guy.

Speaker 6 (31:01):
Okay, so we should probably talk about that guy.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Yeah, let's talk a little bit. Yeah, a little bit
about that scene.

Speaker 6 (31:06):
Sure, talk about her or do you want to talk
about it?

Speaker 4 (31:12):
I'd love for you to talk about it, and I'll
chime in and interrupt you all the time.

Speaker 6 (31:16):
Well, I so you know, he rives and missus Lovett,
and we learned Missus Lovet's always known who he was
and has like a crush on him. She's a widow
and and I think you know, and she saved his
knives for him. I think he does it because he
needs some initial startup money. But she says, here, I'm
going to take you to this guy who's like the best,
supposedly the best barber we have now. And his name,

(31:37):
he says, he's this Italian guy. His name is mister Perelli,
and he is hawking this miracle elixir that's supposed to
make her hair grow. And he's got the little boy
whose name is Toby. Toby, yep, just check it if
I'm just paying attention. And he's got this cute little
blonde kid with this like massive head of hair that
he's like peddling this and and uh and then Sweeney

(32:01):
is like, it is funny. This is funny when Sweeney
and missus Lovett are like just roasting this postion.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
I love. I love. That's the kind of live theater
I like to see when they're doing.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
That thing, like it's just pissed and ink, you know,
and so and then he essentially challenges him too, like
a a h.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
And and and so you have.

Speaker 6 (32:29):
And the other character we should mention too is so
we've we've mentioned, like Missus Lovet wound and the judge
and his family now Pirellian little Boy. There's also the Beetle.
The Beatle is like Beetle is like Judge Turpin's bitch,
Like he just does the bidding. And he is another
Harry Potter. He is worm he has worm tail and yes,

(32:56):
oh my god, I didn't even let Yeah, like he's
he's the same there, yeah, and he's the same character.
So he's there and he's like, I'll be the judge
of this competition. And so they both go and they
and so uh and Sweeney says, I'll weiger five pounds on.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
This, you know, and if I'm just pretty fucking large,
that's like a gentleman's bed at this era. To wager
five a lot in like the eighteen eighties, that's like saying,
here's five hundred dollars on my shaving ability. Fuck yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:31):
And and lo and behold Sweeney. Todd wins and he
gets the money.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
Four he does four strokes of the razor and he's done. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
I mean that's definitive.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
It's pretty definitive.

Speaker 6 (33:44):
It's a good skill set to have. And so he
wins and then gets his money and and then he's
kind of put on the mat because then Beetle. Like
you know, he officially meets Beetle with his new name.
He's no longer Benjamin Barker, He's Sweeney Todd. And now
all of a sudden, Beatle's like, Okay, I'm gonna come
by and I'm going to get a shave, and I'm
going to bring the judge to come by, and he's
going to get a shave. And that's what he wants

(34:04):
to happen, is he wants to give the judge a
very close shave. That is the entire goal of sweet,
most fatal.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
You've ever had.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
And then when you're doing it, he takes thirty minutes
and then misses his chance because he's singing.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
That's not but he does regret it.

Speaker 6 (34:23):
But he does regret it as soon as I mean,
justin they do have a like a like a really
tender moment singing about how they like to creep over
pretty girls.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
Yeah, you know, I mean that's creepy too.

Speaker 7 (34:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
It's also apparently never daylight in London, no matter what,
which I've been in London a few times, it's definitely
daylight at least sometimes.

Speaker 6 (34:47):
Yeah, but like it's also more than just black and white.

Speaker 7 (34:49):
Also you know, it's like these are Tim Burton's preferred hughes,
So yeah, they are. That's what it's going to look like.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, Helena bottom Car he is always weirdly sexy.

Speaker 7 (35:03):
She's despite being like kind of gross.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
I would probably catch wait to consumption from her if
I had to, you know what I mean, I.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
Will take this the opposite way of what you're saying,
because I thought it was weird that, despite the context
of all this, this is the first time that I
thought she was hot. The other time, like, I don't
really get any attraction to her particularly, but you know.

Speaker 7 (35:33):
Why, it's because covered with saliva in Planet of the Apes.

Speaker 6 (35:38):
The reason that you think she's hot is because every
girl in this is wearing a really tight boosty and
her boobs are half.

Speaker 7 (35:47):
That's part of it, I mean, a little bit gesus
with a sheen of like gross.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
I like, I'm scumming, So I'm okay with that.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
I don't like that any of that normally.

Speaker 8 (36:01):
So this is weird for Mettle A little day gone. Fine,
do you guys, like, yeah, choose something on.

Speaker 6 (36:19):
I was gonna say, like before we move forward with
the story for the next part, don't don't you like
her opening song, the Worst Pies in London. You don't
remember that. Okay, we meet missus love it because she
has so front she's making meat pies and she's literally
singing that she has no customers because she's really bad
at making meat pies and this dust because it is

(36:43):
important though, because you learn. You learn with her is
that times are rough for her and the cost of
meat is really expensive, so that is part of the problem,
is that she can't afford the ingredients and no one
wants to buy her. And then she talks about how
her competitor, you know, uses the She's insinuating that all
the disappearing cats are perhaps feeding the cat yeah, which.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
Makes no sense because everyone knows that cats taste like ship,
so there's no way you would surprize with that.

Speaker 6 (37:16):
Does everyone know them?

Speaker 4 (37:19):
I will refer you to the place of our mutual upbringing.
Go along the back roads and watch how long a
fearless domesticus gets run over a car and just sits
on the road with not a coyote, apossum, a raccoon
or a crow ever eating it. Cats taste like garbage.

Speaker 6 (37:42):
Okay, you don't mean like literally like shit. You just
mean they taste bad.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
They taste horrible. Yes, they're a bad tasting meat.

Speaker 6 (37:52):
These are things I don't pay attention to. I thought
there's just people that the podcasts.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
Like because meat doesn't like to eat meat, it doesn't
taste good. After that, vegetables, I.

Speaker 7 (38:06):
Mean to be like, we we very little carnivore like,
not only we eat non carnivorah.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Of course, not we eat herbivores of course.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
But anyways, that leads me into a question that I
don't know if I ask an hour later.

Speaker 7 (38:22):
But I'll just delete the human human delicious.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
If we.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
Hold off to the second part.

Speaker 6 (38:31):
Okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, hold off on that there, okay,
So then continuing with our story. So that whole incident
has happened. So now he's got his five dollars, he
has made a name for himself publicly under his new name.
No one knows who he is yet. And as you say,
he is preparing, he's impatiently waiting for the judge. He's

(38:51):
with missus Lovett and he is just like, where is it?
He said, the judge is going to be here this week,
it's Tuesday, you know, But instead he gets a visit
from Peril and they talk in private, and we find
out that Perelli is not Italian. In fact, he is
Barker's old assistant, and he recognizes Sweeney Todd and then

(39:12):
he blackmails him, right like is that.

Speaker 7 (39:15):
The way I look?

Speaker 4 (39:16):
Yeah, he threatens to.

Speaker 7 (39:19):
Extortion.

Speaker 6 (39:19):
Yeah, yeah, I get them mixed.

Speaker 7 (39:24):
Well.

Speaker 6 (39:24):
Basically he says like, I'm gonna reveal who you are
and unless you give me fifty percent of your income
for the rest of your life. And and meanwhile, Toby's
sweet little Toby is bonding with Missus Lovett downstairs and
you know he likes her pies. Is the beginning of like,
you know, both of them are lonely. You know, he
grew up in a workhouse and he in Pirelli treats

(39:45):
him really badly. He picked him from the workhouse to
make him, you know, work the streets. You find out
that the kids wearing a wig the whole time, Like
you know, Perelli is a real pus and Sweeney whose
whole like you know mo O is vengeance and not
putting up people's bullshit ever again is like, yeah, bro,
this is not gonna happen. And do you want to

(40:07):
happens calendar. Don't we just to go for it?

Speaker 5 (40:09):
No, go for it, go for it.

Speaker 6 (40:11):
And he takes his razor and he slits his throat
and that is his first kill.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
No, no, he doesn't't.

Speaker 6 (40:18):
Sorry, he bashed his fucking.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
Skull in with a kettle, which is a little bit
more metal. Yeah, it makes it seem like it's a
good I don't know if that's in keeping with the
original musical or the original play, but I don't remember.
In that case, it feels a little bit more like
a genuine crime of passion of he's now I was

(40:41):
afraid of being revealed. So his immediate move is just
to pull whatever blunt object is near him and be like, nope,
shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
You don't know me, because I have a plan and
I don't need you in my way.

Speaker 6 (40:55):
But I think I think the kettle just knocks him out.
I think he slits his to.

Speaker 7 (41:00):
He does later finish him off, Yeah, with a razor,
But that's kind.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
Of his inspiration to keep going.

Speaker 6 (41:06):
It plants the seed, so then it plants the seed,
and so then all of a sudden, you have this
like you know you you know the missus Lovett's kind
of like, oh, okay, well now we're doing well.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
Yeah, she's a very conciliatory person now.

Speaker 6 (41:27):
Now separately, the other thing that happens is, as we
mentioned that his daughter, whose name is Joanna, is a
word of Judge Turpin, and she's grown now probably eighteen
or something, and so she's sort of been raised by
his daughter.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
She's like fifteen at this point.

Speaker 6 (41:44):
She's she's a teenager, we think. And so it turns
out his buddy Anthony, the ship buddy, who's like also
young by chance, stumbles upon the Judge's house and he
sees her in the window and she it's very much
like a rapun's kind of story where she very Yeah,
she sings a song called oh like a I don't know,

(42:08):
it was like black a little finch, No, no, I can't.
But she's essentially singing about like how she's locked up
like a bird and a bird cage and how does
how do the birds sing because she can't sing because
she's the.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
Cage bird sing? I mean, yeah, Burden's a little bit
on the nose at this point.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, It's like it's like, what are you complaining about?
People are pouring themselves to survive, and you're over here
being like, oh, I got free re roomin board.

Speaker 6 (42:34):
I mean, come on, well justin As we know later on,
it's not quite free right, like you're you know what
I mean, but you He sees her through the window
and because she's pretty, she falls in love immediately but instantaneous.
But then the judge catches on and we meet Alan

(42:56):
Rickman as the judge and he's real creepy, like right away,
and he invites him into the house, where he then
says creepy things like, oh, you know, you've traveled the world,
so you've seen the Geishas of Japan and the Harlots
in India, and like you know, it's just rattling off
all these names of whrrores throughout the different world. And
he's like, I've got pictures of all of them, and

(43:17):
he starts looking at these books. He's like, do you
want to see the pictures? And it's very very if
it's very uncomfortable, and it's like he's like, bro, He's like,
I think we have a misunderstanding. Okay, I just need
to know how to get to Hyde Park. That's why
I'm looking out your window outside and he's like, no,
you want my daughter. He's like, you're a ganderer? Is

(43:38):
that the way? Yeah, And then essentially he gets the
Beatle to like kick him out and bash him on
the head with a stick, and that is, uh, that's
what happens.

Speaker 5 (43:51):
So that.

Speaker 6 (43:54):
First sight, I think I'm too jaded to be honest
with you. I mean, I'm open to.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
It because she's an attractive lady, like in the nineteenth
century British context, but I don't know if it's love
at first sight attractive, you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (44:12):
There's only so much time in like a two hour show,
so you don't allow time to establish a relationship, so
you just go with to cut some corners.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah, it seems too skinny for what the nineteenth century required.

Speaker 6 (44:29):
So anyway, this leads us to where we left off.
Is Sweety Tad is impatiently waiting for Judge Turpin, and
finally Judge Turpin shows up and they are having a
they're like kind of bonding. They're both singing about how
they like to you know, they like they like pretty women.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
The sexual tension is off the charts. It is ridiculous.
I thought Johnny dev was going to mount him.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Oh my god, well, I mean.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
With a knife tremendous backshuts.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
But yes, as justin added to before, he can, you know,
like fulfill his revenge. He's got to give this guy
a clean shae first. I mean he's a professional, and
they got to finish their song and so literally he's
about to make that fatal cut and Anthony, who we
just saw this happened to storms and says, nope, I
met your daughter. I'm taking her out tonight. We're gonna Elope.

(45:29):
And of course the judge is like, oh, hell no
you're not. And I'm never coming back here again. So
which is you know, I was not happy about that. Yeah,
I can see why the.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Dad wants to meet the daughter. But that random ass sailor, though,
is creepy. Is as creepy as the judge to me,
because like, like, why are you so quick? You're lurking,
you're singing windows, taking advantage of a naive young woman,
and you're gonna Elope with her.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Fairy tale prince. He's still a fairy tale prince.

Speaker 7 (46:03):
Yeah. Here's the thing.

Speaker 6 (46:04):
When you're lacking a tower by like a much older person,
like anything is better than what you got.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
You know what it worked out for Jane Air, right
or then as a plot point in Jane Air wasn't
locked away in a tower in Jane.

Speaker 6 (46:15):
Eyre, Well, there's his wife, the mad Woman.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
In the Mad Woman, you had a sweet deal. He's
just being mad and attic, No big deal.

Speaker 6 (46:24):
Yeah, I mean that's probably my not being mad at.

Speaker 7 (46:30):
I think you totally revolutionized the interpretation of that book.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
Of Mendel Giants over here.

Speaker 6 (46:50):
Anyways, you need to write, Callen, here's the funny thing
with this, with just those random but like I obviously
a woman, I don't shave my face, I will admit
to and but like every time Ember when I first
learned about like the whole concept of like a straight

(47:10):
like face shave, and obviously not the only one that
thought that, right, if this is back from the eighteen hundreds,
is I'm like, Oh, it's you're you're so vulnerable you
could just leut someone's throat and like that. That's what
I mean. I don't know if that ever happened in
real life, like on accident, but I mean this must
have been something that people have been thinking about forever,
because there's a whole story on this.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
You know. Yeah, I mean I will say one one
key factor to this whole movie, the whole thing is unsettling,
because it turns out a lot of this is a
lot more hair based than I thought. I didn't think
that was based like the hair like like literally literally

(47:52):
hair based. I didn't think that much of it would
the plot would hinge on it, but a lot of
it did. And guess as not a direct result, but
ancillary result is that many scenes in this to me
felt a little bit unsettling or like uncomfortable because of
how many times a blade was just so close to
someone's neck constantly. I'm like, all right, I thought there'd

(48:16):
be a little more break between these, but it's like
half the scenes.

Speaker 7 (48:20):
Someone diddling the next with the with the.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
Next just exactly just diddling the next with very blades,
And like, I do feel uncomfortable genuinely with the way
a lot of this is going. And I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 6 (48:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's supposed to be.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
It's not. It's it's achieving.

Speaker 7 (48:38):
You grow a beard. That's the only way to protect yourself.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
Right, There's a reason that a lot of guys are
like now beards. It's good, yeah, all.

Speaker 6 (48:46):
Right, kell, And you want to take us through act too.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Now, Yeah, all right, So moving on. In the aftermath
of the misst window of opportunity, Todd and love It
are forced to come up with a plan to dispose
of the murdered Perelli's body and bide some time at
race shared psychological break. They obviously opt for covert cannibalism

(49:09):
by proxy. Her business flourishes as Todd remains bent solely
on his vendetta but reminiscing on his lost daughter Joanna Slaughtering.
All the while missus Lovett vainly dreams of a future
with Todd as their own accidental adopted son. Toby becomes
very suspicious of the goings on in the shop. These

(49:32):
are stoked by a random apparently vagrants rantings. All these
threads neatly begin to coincide, and one inevitable conclusion results.

Speaker 6 (49:45):
Yeah, okay, one thing I don't remember at the top
of my head. But why, I'll admit I forgot how
gory this movie was. I did not see much. Yeah, yeah,
I know, right, but like I can't remember. At one point,
as he's like, you know, the big fish to catch
is the judge, But I don't remember why he decided

(50:08):
anyone that comes up. He's just I don't he doesn't
kill everybody. That's the He doesn't kill everybody he I
think he picks. The people he slaughters are the people
that aren't going to be that don't have families, like
the Loners or you know, they are going to come looking.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
For I mean he has a psychological break during that song. Yeah,
but when when him and him in love it are singing. Actually,
that was one of the things that Sondheim specifically pointed
out that in the original play there is no distinct
break where his psychology changes. But he was like, there
needs to be this point in the story where Sweeney

(50:42):
is like, well, fuck it, I didn't get the guy
I want. Now who else will fulfill this need for
me for a while as long as they are degenerates, downbeat,
something disreputable, fuck them, and then the slaughter begins.

Speaker 6 (50:59):
And that you're I read that too, where it was
like in the actual play, the transition to him like
going from Okay, I killed this guy who was going
to come after me, and I haven't able to kill
the guy I'm early after you know, what is the
transition to having you just kill almost Well, I guess
it's not indiscriminately, and it's like, you're right, like he
biding his time and he's pissed at the world. You know,

(51:20):
he's punishing everyone, and missus love it gets the meat
there and it turns out. Yeah, but it's like she's
a businesswoman. You know, she's a businesswoman, and people apparently
like to eat their own kind. But here's the thing.
So justin the some yeah, well okay, so Kellen mentions

(51:41):
the song right, and like this is a song.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
The lyrics and that song are the best in the
whole fucking show, and I.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
Pulled them up for you.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
Oh please.

Speaker 6 (51:52):
Oh yeah. So this song is called a Little Priest,
and it's pretty hilarious. This is the transition to like
them going to madness, and it's talk about how the
different kinds of people that you slaughter and kill taste differently. Okay,
so let's see, let me see if I can pick
up some of these gems. So the lawyers are like,

(52:12):
you know, here, we are half from the oven.

Speaker 7 (52:14):
What does it?

Speaker 6 (52:15):
It's priest, have a little Priest? And okay, so then
she goes, he goes, just have a little Priest, sir.
It's too good at least. Then again, they don't commit
sins of the flesh, so it's pretty fresh, awful lot
of fat, only where it's set. Haven't you got poet
or something like that?

Speaker 7 (52:34):
No, you see.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
The trouble with poet is, how do you know it's
de ceased? Try the priest? Then heavenly, not as heavenly
as bishop perhaps, but then not as bland as curate either,
and good for business always leaves you wanting more. Trouble
is we only get it on Sundays, lawyers. Rather nice
if it's for a price. Order something else, though to follow,

(52:58):
since no one should swallow it twice anything that's lean.
I mean, this is like it just goes on and
on about.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
No, it's like a good ongoing cipher. Oh there's a
little more. Let's go a little bit more and a
little bit more. Yeah, this is fantastically just a.

Speaker 6 (53:17):
Little bit more so Okay, well then, but if you're
British and loyal you might enjoy Royal Marine anyway. It's clean,
though of course it tastes of wherever it's been. Is
that squire on the fire mercy? No, sir, look closer,
you'll notice it's grosser. Looks thicker, more like thicker. No,
it has to be grosser. It's green. The history of

(53:37):
the world, my love, you know. So it's just it's great,
Like it's hilarious. And then they talk about they've got
tailors and potters and butlers and locksmiths and like so
it's it's a fabulously.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Damn it's a joke that's kind of stretched away thin.

Speaker 7 (54:00):
I write in my.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Notes, Yeah, I get it eating people. Give me a
fin give me.

Speaker 6 (54:06):
This is where Kellan draws, like how where Justin draws
the line He's like, no, that's gross.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
It's just like you made the same joke thirty times
in a row. Come on, man, And.

Speaker 7 (54:17):
How dare they eat these people after they're dead and cooked?

Speaker 3 (54:20):
You're supposed to be Yeah, if the Washingtonians taught us anything,
they're virgin.

Speaker 6 (54:28):
We have a theme to this whole podcast. It's cannibalism.

Speaker 7 (54:31):
We keep coming back to this.

Speaker 6 (54:33):
So Justin, I feel like you had a question you
wanted to say for this moment, I guess the real
question I had.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
And we have a medical professional with a prestigious background
and a wealth.

Speaker 7 (54:44):
Of knowledge.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Staff, is there any long term consequences of eating human flesh.
I mean like, what is there is there a metal
like is I know that there's a cultural taboo, but
is there like an actual physical biological table you.

Speaker 7 (55:04):
Can you can concentrate the prevalence of population.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
Yea quitz Figger The Jokers is.

Speaker 7 (55:16):
Like mad cow disease. They're like degenerative dementias that are
they can be passed through. Yeah, it's not preferable, but
you know, if you're in a survival situation, yeah, yeah, have.

Speaker 6 (55:29):
You guys read have you guys read Project til Mary?

Speaker 4 (55:34):
No?

Speaker 6 (55:36):
Okay. The concept is that you've got this like scientist
who gets like lost on a mission and out of
space and he has him needed to so trying to
figure out why he's there, and he's really smart and
he's always having to survive because nothing happened how it's
opposed to. But not to give too many spoilers away,
but a way that he ends up surviving without ever
being able to get the nutrients he needs on Earth

(55:58):
again is he finds a way. He calls them he
makes me burger, an m E burger where he takes
his own flesh and based on those like cells, was
able to grow you know, a ver like flesh that
he the nutrients that he Yeah, he's not like eating
his arm. He's like using his own body is the basis.

Speaker 5 (56:19):
His own.

Speaker 6 (56:21):
Because he can't get any of his own food at
the planet he lands on. So according to Andy, where
it's possible. I mean, this whole time, missus love it
is going with everything that Sweeney wants to do. And
he just doesn't give a ship like it's a partnership.
But but she, you know, the relationship with her and
Toby is very sweet. She's like the son. He's like

(56:43):
the son she never had. She's like the mother he
never had. And this song that Justice so casually is
glossing over it is my favorite Sondheim song ever, ever,
And and the song is called no One's Gonna Harm You.
The song is called not Sorry. The song is called
not while I'm Around, and it's it's a song about

(57:05):
protecting the person that you love. And it's beautiful and
he just and the lyrics are literally, no One's gonna
harm you, not while I'm around, and that's the crux
of it. And he sings it to her and she
just dismisses him because like he's you know, she doesn't
think she knows what she's signing up for, and then
she you know, and then as she starts to sing
the song again, she realizes now that the secret's out.

(57:25):
Now they have to take care of this kid. They
figure out what to do with the song. Is so beautiful,
like I feel like this would beautiful, like such a
beautiful like love song, even though it's not like a
relationship like kind of love song. It's probably weird for
given the context for a wedding, but beautiful, it's beautiful.

Speaker 7 (57:41):
I love it. An odd choice for a wedding, I agree.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
I mean, this entire this entire production is kind of
like a weird so theopathic love song.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
I guess. Do we ever talk about how fucking emo
Sweeny Toad is?

Speaker 4 (57:58):
Oh he's Oh, yeah we didn't, but yeah he is.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
Okay, I want to make sure that we know.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
The aesthetic of the whole thing is obviously there, no
matter what.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
I feel like most of the emo bands of the
like of this period took their aesthetic from this film.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
Well wait, hold on, hold on. First, well, first of all,
we have to establish justin what do you think is
the emo aesthetic and which bands do you think that is?

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Sweete tied. Probably good, Charlotte, I don't know. I'm just
saying it looks like an era. It looks like people
dressed up like that and they had that weird hair
and that like black vibe and like my chemical romance.
I'm thinking, also, is that that's a band.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
That's that That's a little bit closer. I would say, yeah.

Speaker 7 (58:46):
Either way, there was an Emo era though, yeah, I
feel like there was.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
But I feel like anyone who wasn't part of it
or didn't look at it doesn't know what it was.
Like this this is a hot topic vibe. It was
adopted after the fact, yeah topic. And yes, this is
very over the top because that was a Tim Burton esthetic,

(59:11):
but that was not originally what like Emo meant. But yes,
I mean this, this film has a very distinct aesthetic.
That is I would say, actually, let's see what time
period it's okay, so this is post Sleepy Hollow, which

(59:34):
is probably my favorite overall Tim Burton Johnny Depp movie.

Speaker 6 (59:38):
Yeah, I agree, that's a good one.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
Like two thousand and two, two thousand and three, this
has the same general paint palette and overall cinematic aesthetic
with a little bit well a lot more blood but
kind of the same idea, but this one is probably
like the apogee of those of that idea, which was

(01:00:05):
it would take until the fantasy scenes of this movie
with Missus Lovett being on the beach where it goes.
Now we're Tim Burton as fuck you know where we're at.

Speaker 7 (01:00:18):
This is him? Yeah, yeah, he does that very well
and like the blue purple, huge gothic yeah stuff, but
he's a very it's very dicomic, dichotomous. It's like fantasy
hotels or it's like that gothic look.

Speaker 5 (01:00:34):
Well.

Speaker 6 (01:00:35):
I think the reason that works though, is because especially
with like Sweeney Todd and Sleepy Hollow, which are like
proper horror stories, you know, when you have everything else
is muted black and white. When the blood shows up,
the blood stands, it shows it. Yeah, we forgot like
another important plot point of the story to this point,
which we've alluded to. We haven't fleshed it out, so

(01:00:58):
we talk about gotten. Okay, well we need to bring.

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Up yes, thank you, yes, I literally.

Speaker 6 (01:01:08):
Who wrote this Yeah. So okay, So basically we learn
right from the beginning, right that Judge Turpin, you know,
he lusted after uh Sweeney Todd's wife and then he
raped her and she went crazy. Then he took her
daughter to raise her. And originally you think it's like
a father to her, but when she is older, he's
like raised the lamb to slaughter, you know what I mean.

(01:01:28):
Now he wants her for himself. And that's why, and
that's why he hates Anthony so much, because Anthony is
trying to take away you know, his his uh hope
pencil wife. And one thing here and here's what they
don't put in the movie. So because I remember watching
this where when she first meets Anthony and she ables,
she's able to escape, like she goes he's trying to

(01:01:51):
marry me, Like this is gross, Like I, you know,
I will run off on a lope with you because
I don't want like you know what I mean. She's
actually runn away from him. But you don't see that scene, right.
But there's a song that's in the one of the music.
It's not in all the musicals, but it's it's in
the original uh or that you can people selectively choose
if they want to include it, but it's it's dark.

(01:02:11):
It's called Maya Colpa and he is uhh Yeah, so
he's on stage and at least it gives him a
little bit more of a complexity because he is struggling
with his feelings for her, So he's not just blatantly
being like, it's totally I'm totally okay with backup lusting
over my daughter or pseudo daughter. Like, so she's in

(01:02:32):
the corner, and I think I can't remember exactly, but
I feel like in the show you actually see him
like propose to her and she's like not into it.
And then separately he literally has one of those old
school like flagellation whips, and so it goes back and
forth between him singing how much she loves her, and
then the music totally changes and it gets dark, and
like he's like, no, no, what is he singing? But yeah,

(01:02:55):
he's singing maa colpa. Yeah, well that's what yeah, right,
But like he is, and it's it's you sent his
inner turmoil because he's lusting after her. And then he
catches himself and then he beats himself but it's not working,
and then as we know, he decides to to you know,
dig into his devils. However, he says to me, ahead, well,

(01:03:18):
and the thing is what we didn't mention, is that
when he finds out that Anthony's gonna elope with his daughter,
his you know, you know, fake daughter or whatever. Yeah,
he goes her and says, fine, you don't want to
marry me, I will go and off, I'll find you
other lodgings. You know, you'll be taken care of. And
he takes her to like in a Victorian era or

(01:03:39):
Industrial Revolution era, a satan asylum, insane asylum where they
just you know, lock you up in a dirty room altogether.
And he just kind of like, well if stay there
until you're ready to marry me kind of situation. And
so that's where we're kind of at at this point,
is like there's different plot points, right, You've got Sweeney
Todd who's trying to get vengeance after the judge but
also trying to reconnected with this daughter. But then Anthony

(01:04:01):
is trying to you know, get with the daughter and
save her. And so where we're at in the story is,
you know, these these are not uh, these are all
connected to each other. And so Sweeney has a plan
and he says, here's what we're gonna do. He's a barber,
he knows how things work. You know, surgery is one
of them, but also wig making is another. And he goes,
apparently old school wigs come from crazy people, and so

(01:04:24):
he says, here's what's gonna happen. And you're going to
go to the bedlam and you're going to tell them
that you're an apprentice wig maker and you're looking for
a certain shade and they will take you to this
room and you get to cut whosever you want, and
then you will.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Weird as well.

Speaker 6 (01:04:39):
And so, yeah, he needs a specific shade of yellow
he needed. Oh he's got a whole song, was it
in this I remember from the musical that there's a
whole song about different kinds of yellow, that there's flaxen
and blonde and all this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
I don't think so, but just the whole wigs awesome.
Good plan. Is such a crazy way to propel a
plot so quickly.

Speaker 7 (01:04:57):
It was just like it is real.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Apropos and nothing, Okay, whatever, let's go do it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
It's just so weird, but it does, but it makes
sense in the context of what this is about.

Speaker 7 (01:05:08):
This is all about hair, but now but now separated
by hair color in the asylum, which.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
Is probably not true.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
That was pretty funny.

Speaker 7 (01:05:18):
Yeah, this is the Red Room.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
So at this point this joke at least they didn't
make an Irish joke.

Speaker 7 (01:05:27):
That got cut.

Speaker 6 (01:05:30):
But now okay, at this point, like the plot starts
to thicken, so you have not.

Speaker 4 (01:05:36):
Thickened a while ago, but all right, yeah, well.

Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
Now we're getting to the climax of everything, which is
pretty spectacular, right, So all these things are happening. So basically,
he's got a plan with Anthony. He's like, go rescue.
He doesn't know Anthony doesn't know that this is Sweeney
Todd's daughter, but he's like, go pretend you're a wig
maker and you know, so he goes and he the
minute he goes in there, he pulls out a gun.

(01:06:00):
And I don't think it's how this is how it
is in the musical, but essentially he pulls Joanna out
and he locks in the creepy asylum person and lets
the other ones destroy him like the other girls in there,
you know.

Speaker 7 (01:06:15):
And so that's happening, Robert.

Speaker 6 (01:06:19):
So so that's happening. And then at the other time,
you know, Toby has figured out what's going on, and
so what missus Lovett does and she says, you know
what Toby after he sings the song and she realizes
that he's he's learning. She goes, you want to learn
how to make the pies?

Speaker 5 (01:06:33):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:06:34):
You always say that? Let me show you. So she
takes him down to the basement where where the sausage
is literally ground and this place is creepy. There's a
huge furnace, you know, the right above the sewers, and
it's this movie is gross. I'm not gonna lie like
And so she sits and she shows him the oven

(01:06:55):
and she's like, here, this is how you grind the meat.
And he has her grind meat and she's like, know,
why don't you sit down here for a little bit.
I gotta go take and he goes, and he goes,
do you She's like, do you mind if I eat
some pies while I wait? She's like, no, have all
the pies you want. And then she locks him in there.
And and the other thing we didn't mention is that

(01:07:19):
once they started this business proposition with the dead, you know,
splitting throats and making them into meat pies, he made it.
He got this that's really cool barber chair contraption.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
Where Kevin McAllister.

Speaker 6 (01:07:33):
Yeah, he wear the chair like once he sets their throat,
the chair like extends and it goes into like a
laundry shoot and it goes directly underground where the oven
is and where the meat grinder is and where Toby
is and in the show. Okay, so when we did
this show, we had an original Broadway set that that
we presented and I got I was like when they

(01:07:54):
were rehearsal and they had the chair out right, because
it was like the chair you know, was in like
how do I explain? I had like a trapdoor right,
so you know, the actor on the stage they pull
it and he goes in, and I was like, can
I try it? So I got a video of me.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
Yourself.

Speaker 7 (01:08:14):
You gotta send this to us.

Speaker 6 (01:08:15):
Oh yeah, like like I'm in the chair and I
had someone video me. Yeah. And here's the funny thing.
I didn't even realize it. Like it's really fast and
luckily I bent my knees in time, because like I
would have slammed my knees ballet. I have a bad
need too, so like I could have gone very bad
if I didn't catch myself. But it was pretty like

(01:08:35):
fast and pretty intense. But what I didn't realize they're
all laughing at me afterward because I plugged my nose
when I went down the sus.

Speaker 4 (01:08:48):
Were you going underwater?

Speaker 5 (01:08:50):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:08:50):
No, no, I wasn't. In my mind, I apparently thought.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
I was because I was like, all right, we need
this video.

Speaker 6 (01:09:00):
But yes, and he's got this contraption. So what's happening
now is all these pieces are coming together. Is Toby
is in the is in the underground with the oven
and everything, and Anthony has rescued Joanna. In the meantime,
he's like cut her hair so she looks like a boy,
like a sailor and can't.

Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
Yeah, but a pretty boy.

Speaker 6 (01:09:19):
Yeah, so she you know, so she's disguised. And in
the meantime, you know, missus Love is trying to like
warn him, and and then I think the Beatles shows up.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
Is that what happens?

Speaker 7 (01:09:29):
The Beatles shows up first, he apparently does. He does
Osha inspections basically.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Yes, that's what it is.

Speaker 4 (01:09:37):
England has the same inspection for everybody. Everyone is inspected
by the same guy. Health inspector, safety inspector, code inspector.
It's the same dude. It's Timothy's spall by the way,
Timothy's spall worm tail eating this fucking roll up. He
fucking loves this. He looks so leaf every time he

(01:10:01):
is doing anything, he's like, I mean he.

Speaker 7 (01:10:06):
Is a samurai.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
Also, yeah, with Tom Cruise, we know, yeah Timothy Swell,
great actor.

Speaker 6 (01:10:15):
Well, so yeah, yeah, that's right, that's what happened.

Speaker 7 (01:10:17):
And if Tom Cruise is fucking an alien, Timothy's will
be right there helping him out there helping him out.

Speaker 6 (01:10:26):
So yeah, the downside with their business model is that
the only downside with their business model is that even
though the Pires are very popular, they have a terrible stench,
and you still have the crazy homeless woman who is
like kind of the Ironically, she's kind of the one
who's picking up what's going on, you know what I mean.

(01:10:48):
She's like that something's not right.

Speaker 4 (01:10:52):
Swaming to the heavens.

Speaker 6 (01:10:55):
And so that's what brings Beetle there, and he goes, look,
you know where the smell is getting complaints. I have
to check this out. And that's when they're like, yeah,
this isn't gonna happen, and so he's like so sweet.
He's like, you know what, sure, no problem, but while
you're here, why don't we just give you like a
free shave, you know, and not at all. Yeah, and

(01:11:15):
that's fine and so yeah, so Beetle finally gets what's
coming to him, and Toby right beforehand is enjoying himself
a meat pie and discovers the tip of a finger
and then finds the remnants like CAFC. Yeah right, and.

Speaker 7 (01:11:38):
You know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:11:40):
Yeah, like nineties No, that was a nineties urban legend.

Speaker 7 (01:11:44):
It didn't happen, don't, No, I did. It did happen,
but the person who was trying to sue them put
it in there anyway, Toby realizing the full gravity of
the situation. But this was pretty funny and a very
grisly type of way.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Yeah, you have to be so like disoriented because the
lady that you're like, hey, I'll protect you locked you
in a murder basement. Like it has to focus your
head a little bit.

Speaker 6 (01:12:12):
I mean, it feels like eating a whole bunch of
human meat pies would also do the trick.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
Like there needs to be a conversation with some sort
of psychiatrist after that kid's gonna grow up to.

Speaker 4 (01:12:23):
Be if that gets lucky, he grows up to see
Sigmund Freud when he's forty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
Crazy.

Speaker 6 (01:12:34):
He's like, I have a story for you, like you
might not believe it. So then okay, so this is
kind of where we're at. And then what happens is
the judge. I don't even know why the judge shows up,
but the judge actually does come back because he wrote a.

Speaker 7 (01:12:52):
Letter to him to meet him at the barbershop. Because
he did his adopted daughter was going to be there.

Speaker 6 (01:13:00):
It's right, because he tells that that's what his plan was.
He tells Anthony to go rescue his daughter and then
he like double you know, plays him and he goes
he's over.

Speaker 4 (01:13:09):
He's he's crossing his plans so that his daughter escapes
at the same time he gets his revenge, right.

Speaker 6 (01:13:17):
So he uses you know, yeah, he uses the opportunity
to let to lure the judge in and while there's like, hey,
you know what girls like, they like a close shape
while you're here, we're waiting, let's just take care of this,
and this time he doesn't miss the opportunity, but I
feel so he slits his throat, right. But this is

(01:13:38):
where I think the movie is different. Either that or
I might have tuned out because it was gross. But
in the mood in the musical. Joanna, who now looks
like a boy as a sailor, is like hidden and
she sees him do this and he doesn't know it's her,
and so he almost slits her throat.

Speaker 5 (01:13:57):
But then.

Speaker 6 (01:14:00):
Is how it happened. I did tune out a little
bit because I didn't like that part.

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
In the same trunk that the Italian hut hid in
he does it, and then he finds her there and.

Speaker 6 (01:14:10):
He's about to slit her throat, not knowing it's his daughter,
and he hears missus Lovetts scream in the basement and
he goes down and apparently Alan Rickman isn't fully dead,
but like she's taking care of it. But yeah, oh wait, no, no, no, wait,
we missed the homeless woman. When does he kill her?

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
Oh yeah, she shows up before, right before that, right
before that. It is the only point that I went,
oh shit, I feel like an idiot. Obviously that's his wife, because.

Speaker 6 (01:14:37):
Yet we didn't even get there. That's not how you
give away the situation. Yeah, it's old spoiler like you,
but but we're like, we've been building this up. So
the homeless lady comes in judging him, which is a
little rude for like his actions. He's like, you know what, bitch,

(01:14:59):
have had enough, have you? I've asked you to lead
politely several times, and I'm not doing this anymore.

Speaker 7 (01:15:04):
And he slits her.

Speaker 6 (01:15:04):
Throw yeah, and he slits her throat, and off to
the basement she goes. But when he goes to the basement,
when hears missus Lovett, I mean she's ready to put
all these dead bodies in the incinerator or whatever. And
he gets a closer look of the dead homeless lady,
and in the light with her hat removed, he recognizes
his wife, who, even though she did poison herself, she

(01:15:27):
didn't die. She went crazy. Yeah, and missus Lovett knew this.
And so when he's like, what the hell you know
what I mean, like, why didn't you tell me this?
And she goes this whole thing about how oh I didn't.
I was trying to protect you. I could be a
way better wife than she was, and blah blah blah
blah blah, and Sweeney's just about had it. He's like, okay,

(01:15:48):
and so he plays her and he goes, you know what,
that's fine, as justin says, leave the past in the past,
leave the dead and the dead. I'm fine, Like, let's
just move on from this. So they sing this really
like dark song about their happy life together, and he's
getting darker and darker and more like crazy, and they're
dancing around this open flame you know, where they bake everything,
and then not surprising to anyone is he shoves her

(01:16:10):
in the oven and closes it. And it's really dramatic.
You know, she's hell on a bottom corner for someone
who's on fire, like really like her acting is pretty
good and so okay. At this point, pretty much everyone's
dead except for Anthony and Joanna. And but who's still
in the picture. Who's not dead yet is Toby. And

(01:16:32):
Toby has gone full on that. At this point we
touched upon this is all just this kid's seen a
lot of shit at a young age, but now this
is like even too much for him. And I feel
like in the show, if it's not in the musical again,
I didn't watch it with both eyes open. But like,
he's his hair is like white. He's like full on
nuts at this point. And yeah, and at this point

(01:16:54):
he you know, uh, they're surrounded by dead bodies and
he sneaks up behind Sweeney Todd. But Sweeny also knows
what's going on, and he is fulfilled.

Speaker 4 (01:17:03):
He accepts it. He totally accepts it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:05):
Yeah, he's like, he's you know, seeked his vengeance. He
feels awful and he just killed the love of his
life and his daughter's free and so he essentially lets
Toby slippers throat and that's the end of the story.

Speaker 7 (01:17:17):
Yeah, very kung.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Fu all a totally all around waldardash. But on a
finer point, Erica, would you ever missus loved somehow for
a man?

Speaker 6 (01:17:28):
When you say that, do you want to like I
would lie about her, say that she's actually still alive.
I don't think I'm that good of a liar, But
not on principle or anything. I don't think I feel
great about that choice.

Speaker 7 (01:17:46):
Yeah. Well, you guys realized that Toby uh grew up
to become Jack the Ripper. Actually I know, Ray, Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
Mean that would make sense if that timeline up. Hm. Well,
I mean, do you realize that Johnny Depp go on
would go on from here to investigate Jack the Ripper
in the Frank from Hell.

Speaker 6 (01:18:16):
He's like reincarnated.

Speaker 7 (01:18:21):
That's it gets very complicated. Yeah, I love.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
How the plot went from dreary to dreary to dreary
to jury, which I thought was really good rage.

Speaker 7 (01:18:31):
And there were occasional moments of laughter.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):
Oh, I had plenty of moments of laughter throughout this.

Speaker 6 (01:18:42):
I mean, there's that whole song that Missus Levit sings
about their fantasy beach life together.

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
That was pretty fucking funny, actually, I thought, especially because
Toby is just there as like an extraneous appendage. He'll
be there because we adopted him, so he'll be there over.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
And over and over, drinking gin.

Speaker 6 (01:19:03):
Yeah, and even in her fantasy, he's like not that
into it, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
Like, no, well not Toby isn't and nor is Todd.
Both of them are like whatever, Yeah, I guess I delusions.

Speaker 6 (01:19:23):
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, Missus
Loven was just like lonely. She was a widow, She
didn't have any your own kids, you know, she was
looking for love and all places.

Speaker 3 (01:19:39):
Now on the Heavenly Mandate jazz handscale, invented and used
by high school theater everywhere, in which the best films
received ten handfuls of jazz and the worst films receive
only one handful of jazz. How many jazz do you
hand jazz out? Did you like my Loanes?

Speaker 5 (01:20:03):
All right?

Speaker 7 (01:20:03):
Justin?

Speaker 4 (01:20:04):
Yeah, you know that ten slices.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
I you know, I think all art is good art
because our humanity comes from the act of creation. There
are no bad movies. However, some films do take advantage
of that situation, as we've.

Speaker 6 (01:20:26):
Never said that before.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
Internally, Yes, maybe, as alluded to, I don't like musicals
one out of ten what.

Speaker 6 (01:20:38):
A blanket? One out of every music?

Speaker 7 (01:20:41):
I have a wife. We need to combine. We need
to combine your love of musicals and Erica's love.

Speaker 6 (01:20:47):
Yeah, then we might have I think we did that
is what Sweete Todd is.

Speaker 7 (01:20:56):
Erica is next.

Speaker 6 (01:20:57):
You know, I don't know if I'm ready, but just
us elaborate. You can't just say I don't like musical,
so therefore it's one like why don't you like it?
And you liked it enough to watch it twice?

Speaker 3 (01:21:06):
I watch it everything twice, though you like it enough
to own it. I do own it because I do
feel unfortunate enough to have owned that film.

Speaker 6 (01:21:16):
I think it's really interesting that Justin didn't like this
musical because it wasn't like happy enough. It wasn't peppy enough,
like he is like the one that like case cheesy, cheesy,
heavy music, one that should be the most aligned with
his values.

Speaker 4 (01:21:33):
It's like no Rest too.

Speaker 7 (01:21:35):
Dark for me.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
So the other musical that I kind of I kept
thinking about and in conjunction with this was like Miss,
which is endlessly dreary in its own way. It's a
grim Yeah, it's a grim thing, but like at that
it felt at least it wasn't so endlessly bleak. And
I wonder if it's also the director. I don't know

(01:21:58):
if timber and who would go to to direct a musical.
I don't think he has that style. So maybe some
other director with more versatility might do a better job
and just make it less So I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:22:10):
I mean lay Miss does end then a hopeful note. Yeah,
I mean, I mean technically, you know, the couple survives
this too, you know what I mean, both the young
couple survive, but they do like there's more. There's only
like two good people, two or three good people in
Swingy Todd. There's a lot more good people, and lay
Miss it's a lot more hopeful.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
It's kind of down, are you though? I do like
this less than Cats. I watch Cats again. Before i'd
watched this.

Speaker 6 (01:22:41):
Really, I don't think anyone's ever said that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Funny.

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
Well okay, yeah, okay, it is funnier.

Speaker 7 (01:22:52):
Don't taste good, though.

Speaker 6 (01:22:54):
But I am curious, just like, have you seen you've
seen other Sonheim? Like have you you've seen in the Woods?
You like Into the Woods?

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):
I have not seen that.

Speaker 6 (01:23:04):
Oh okay, I mean obviously it's if you didn't like this,
I don't think. I don't know. Like I said, I
think sometimes acquired. I didn't like him in the beginning either,
and now I'm into it. But anyway, he's different, He's
very he's very distinct in his style.

Speaker 4 (01:23:22):
A unique taste.

Speaker 7 (01:23:24):
Yeah. Uh so you're not ready, Erica.

Speaker 6 (01:23:30):
I mean I can, Yeah, no, I'll go. I yeah,
it's funny because, like I mentioned before, I did not
like Steven sun Hid in the beginning. I don't think
I fully understood him or appreciated him. But and the
first time I saw this movie, which is the first
time I'd seen twenty Tide in any capacity, I did
not like it. And it wasn't just because it was gory.
I really didn't like the music either, you know, you're right,

(01:23:51):
there's nothing really initially very catchy, but now I knew no,
I do know the words. But but then when I
did see, you know, the opera company I worked for,
you know, I really started to appreciate it more and
I get really into it, you know, And and it
does have like one of my favorite Broadway songs ever,
my favorite Sondheim but in general, which is you know,

(01:24:16):
not while I'm around, it's it's so beautiful always, and
I think I like that it's dark. The music really
makes it. It's creepy, you know, it's a weird story,
but it's a creepy story. But I think it's it's compelling,
So I give it eight.

Speaker 4 (01:24:34):
Right. Cool.

Speaker 7 (01:24:36):
But at the same time, Sweety.

Speaker 6 (01:24:38):
Todd isn't in my top twenty favorite musicals either, so
I recognize it is, like it's good for what it is.
It might be my favorite sound time, it's definitely the
top two or three, but it's not generally one of
my favorites. So all right, you're trying.

Speaker 7 (01:24:57):
Yeah, I thought this was a fun one. Stylistically, it
was it was pretty cool, so I'll say it's you know,
it's an it was a fun musical, but I don't
really have a deep desire to watch this one again,
So it was like a good you know, I'll try
a human meat pie once, but I don't want to

(01:25:18):
do it again.

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
Us once in a while. Long pork, by the way,
is the term in Central Africa for a human.

Speaker 7 (01:25:29):
I'm gonna give this one. I'll give this one seven
seven Jazz hands.

Speaker 4 (01:25:37):
The poem into the furnace.

Speaker 7 (01:25:40):
But yeah, yeah, I have a poem called the Ballad
of Swingey Todd, and I can't tell who the author
of this. But it's not generated by AI.

Speaker 4 (01:25:52):
Is it? Is it?

Speaker 6 (01:25:53):
Sometimes? There is literally the Ballad of Sweny Todd, which
is a song on the show.

Speaker 7 (01:25:58):
Oh, you're actually right it probably it's.

Speaker 3 (01:26:11):
Please how Josh.

Speaker 7 (01:26:18):
The Tale of Sweeney Todd. His skin was pale and
his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen,
never thereafter we heard of again. He tried a path
that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd, the demon barber
of Fleet Street. He kept the shop in London, town
of fancy clients and good renown. And what if none

(01:26:39):
of their souls were saved? They went to their maker,
impeccably shaved by sweetye shaved by Sweetye Todd Fleet.

Speaker 6 (01:26:50):
Okay, here's more trivia for you, and the recent Sweeney
Todd revival on Broadway. Who plays Sweeney Todd?

Speaker 7 (01:26:59):
I have no idea very old.

Speaker 4 (01:27:02):
Wait is this?

Speaker 7 (01:27:04):
Wait?

Speaker 6 (01:27:05):
Yes, all right, I'll give you a hints. He shares.
He shares the same name as the person who just
discovered this Sunheim song today, the same first name. And
he's a favorite of your wife, favorite singer of yes.

Speaker 7 (01:27:23):
Are you serious? Yeah? Oh they're doing that.

Speaker 6 (01:27:29):
No, they not anymore. That was like in twenty twenty three.

Speaker 7 (01:27:32):
I think, Oh, okay, I was gonna say, oh my.

Speaker 4 (01:27:35):
God, almost two years ago.

Speaker 7 (01:27:38):
Mm hmm. Yeah. Josh Groban is my wife's favorite Josh.

Speaker 4 (01:27:45):
Oh, she likes he likes his girls to pop, asked
the Philly bro.

Speaker 6 (01:27:51):
I hope, I hope you tell sweet I hope you
tell tweet that I remembered that that I remember that
she like she's got like three Josh is that she's
really into.

Speaker 7 (01:27:59):
I think your number two get some uh yeah, you
get some some brownie points there.

Speaker 6 (01:28:03):
And like, who's the other one, like a violinist or something?

Speaker 7 (01:28:07):
Oh, Joshua Bell, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
Jamie Reil, he's a dancer. He does ballet.

Speaker 3 (01:28:14):
Josh, what scored did you give the film?

Speaker 7 (01:28:17):
I gave it seven jazz hands.

Speaker 3 (01:28:19):
Nice, seven jazz Handskellen.

Speaker 7 (01:28:22):
Seven hands of jazz or whatever however you wanted to
find it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:26):
Seven handfuls of.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
Jazz. Slimy, gelatinous jay weirdos.

Speaker 7 (01:28:37):
All right, Kellen's just such a weird word.

Speaker 4 (01:28:43):
But it's part of jizz. As Justin taught us, same thing,
same thing, okay, So all right, all right.

Speaker 7 (01:28:51):
I chose this.

Speaker 4 (01:28:52):
I chose this fucking musical because I wanted us to
go out on some sort of bang, and on basic instinct,
I was like, this might be cool.

Speaker 6 (01:29:06):
Had you seen it before?

Speaker 4 (01:29:08):
No, I had never seen this, so I chose this
kind of blonde. I saw a number, another opportunity to
make Justin squirm. So no, really, I just chose this

(01:29:28):
a bit randomly, but I knew it was fairly well regarded,
and also I liked the idea of like Gothic or Victorian,
whichever version you want to say, of London, and I
had I had a good I had a good fucking
notion of it. So watching it, yeah, like many musicals,

(01:29:50):
it's a bit long, but it's two hours long. But
but that said, I thought movies that were an Howard
and twenty any minutes long we've done felt way longer
than this. So I was a bit captured by this.
I think if there was any crew of directors, producers,

(01:30:14):
actors you could have pulled together to make this into
a movie. This is probably as close as you could
get to being the ideal trifecta of that, Like from
an acting did you from all the perspectives? I mean,
if you told me this is the first time Tim
Burton directed a musical film and I didn't know better,

(01:30:37):
I would have said fuck you, like there's no way
this is the first time someone has directed a musical film.
But Tim Burton, who I have a lot of reservations about,
was like, now I'm going to do it correctly. This
felt good. This felt good the whole way through. I

(01:30:57):
mean I did okay, well, yeah, some pelts, some parts
felt rushed, some parts felt drug out a bit. But
as far as a cinematic version of a musical that
was already a play, this felt stagy in the right ways,
cinematic in also the right ways. So like, I don't

(01:31:20):
know how to judge a film that is a musical specifically.
But this felt like the right way to do a
musical film.

Speaker 6 (01:31:31):
I guess at the end of the day, if when
you watch it on the screen, if it gives you,
if it makes you feel things right, I mean any
musical but if like you know, if you're connecting with
the story this did, this is Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:31:45):
This married those ideas very well for me. So I
would still say it's hard for me to judge straight
film versus musical film. But as far as bridging the two,
this does an almost perfect job of it. So it's
an eight out of ten. It's eight out of ten.
This was I felt things, I thought things. It did

(01:32:09):
way more. I didn't tune out at any point.

Speaker 3 (01:32:13):
Everyone's wrong with me, that's crazy.

Speaker 7 (01:32:15):
I'm just gonna say, justin, you were the big loser
this time.

Speaker 6 (01:32:21):
Wait, so, ke Kellen, have you seen others sun time?

Speaker 5 (01:32:27):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
No, this is without any other than Josh doing Into
the Woods, which also I liked.

Speaker 3 (01:32:34):
But Kellen, you have that poster of Merrily We Roll
Along behind you.

Speaker 7 (01:32:39):
It has kind of a dark.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
Because one was one of his musicals. The average score
of this film has been six. The media is seven
point five, and the Mode is eight.

Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
Wait, who taught you how to do numbers?

Speaker 7 (01:33:03):
Historian?

Speaker 5 (01:33:05):
Shut up, shut up, you're a fucking historian, one, two,

(01:33:32):
three of its palms.

Speaker 7 (01:33:34):
It's dank, straight up

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"I find this film morally dubious" - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}"I find this film morally dubious" - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)