Johnny Depp

There are several Johnny stories floating around these days, so I thought I’d take a break from Sweeney Todd stuff, tantalizing as it is, to talk about just Johnny. There’s a story going around that Johnny is househunting in England. Apparently, he’s been looking around Fressingfield, near the Suffolk/Norfolk county boundary.

A property expert in the area, Nigel Steele, said “I have sold several houses to musicians, pop stars, actors and other very well-known people. They come here because it is one of the most unspoilt parts of the country. This is one of the least densely populated areas and they can go for long walks in beautiful countryside without being bothered.

So it wouldn’t be inconceivable for Johnny to be househunting in the area. The really surprising part of this story is that Johnny was turned away from a pub in the area, for not having a reservation!

Seems that, while he was scouting for a home in the area, Johnny went into the popular Fox and Goose Inn. But he didn’t have a reservation, and all the tables in the 18th-century inn were already taken.

Of course, I’m no pub, club, or restaurant owner, but I can’t imagine turning away Johnny Depp! Other celebrities, sure-but Johnny! I wouldn’t throw anyone out, but I’d certainly pull in another table, and put it anywhere I could!

In some older Johnny news (which, again, I’ve neglected in favor of Sweeney Todd), seems actress Eva Mendes regrets not prolonging her kissing scene with Johnny in “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.” In the 2003 Robert Rodriguez film, Mendes, as Ajedrez, has a kissing scene with Johnny’s Agent Sands.

Mendes, 33, says she has regretted, ever since, not prolonging the kiss with Johnny, who was one of her childhood idols. She says, “All of my screen kisses were the best, though I regret not kissing Johnny for longer… It was the first time I had worked with an actor who I had a crush on as a little girl.”

So, how many of you out there could see yourself in her shoes? With a chance to kiss Johnny, and regretting not prolonging it? I’m not sure I could be in her place, because I think they might have had to pry me away, I’d have prolonged it so long!

For more news on great actors see Tom Cruise Watch and Brad Pitt Watch.

Some lucky fans have finally gotten to see a sneak peek of Sweeney Todd! Here’s an excerpt from a review by Steve Biodrowsky over at Cinefantastique.

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Got a sneak peak at SWEENEY TODD on Tuesday, and it is absolutely fantastic - one of the best things Tim Burton has ever directed! The movie is pretty much your dream of what it would be, when you first heard that Burton and Johnny Depp would be turning the Stephen Sondheim musical into a movie: it’s a dark, brooding horror-musical-comedy that hits all the right notes.

Depp casts aside the over-the-top antics of Jack Sparrow for a much more self-contained performance as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which the emotions (primarily a lust for revenge) ooze up to the surface in controlled bursts; without ever blunting the character’s razor-sharp edge, the actor demands that we sympathize and root for Sweeney as he slashes his way through half the throats in London. Alan Rickman is wonderful as the hypocritical Judge Turpin, whose machinations drove Sweeney to madness. Sacha Baron Cohen shines in a small role - you don’t have to be a Borat fan to enjoy his work here. A special mention must go out for Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, Turpin’s right-hand man - a perfectly wrought performance of a slimy character who mistakenly believes himself to be slick and smart. Hopefully, the Oscar academy will not overlook him next year even though his role is not of the showy, melodramatic kind that usually draws attention.

If there is a flaw in the movie, it is that the cinematic storytelling occasionally short circuits the musical nature of the source material. The acting performances, through close-up camera angles and cutting, convey the point of some scenes long before the songs wrap up, as when Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) first lays eyes on and falls in love with Sweeney’s daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener), who is kept a virtual prisoner in Turpin’s mansion. Judging from the reaction and comments after the screening, fans of the musical will be pleased that the film is faithful to Sondheim, but SWEENEY TODD might have been even better if it had jettisoned more of the stage version, which on a few occasions feels like dead weight slowing the movie down.

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I don’t know about you, but it’s nice to finally have my impressions of the movie confirmed by someone who has actually seen it! I can hardly wait for December! I’ll share more reviews as I find them.

More movie news at Movie Review Report

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Here’s the second trailer for Sweeney Todd! The more I see about this movie, the more excited I am to see it!

There’s none of Johnny’s singing in this trailer. The blogosphere is really buzzing about Johnny’s singing (or lack thereof) in these trailers. Does it mean he can’t sing? Is his voice awful? Can’t he carry a tune? There’s been a lot of pointing out that his singing was dubbed in John Waters’ film, Crybaby. And also a lot of pointing out that Waters had his reasons for not letting Johnny sing that had nothing to do with his voice.

Tom O’Neil over at theL.A. Times is comparing Depp and Sweeney to Rex Harrison in the 1964 George Cukor film My Fair Lady. He quotes Julie Andrews, Harrison’s stage co-star with saying He couldn’t sing, but he had an innate musicality which enabled him to kind of do a sing-speak sound, which was great and exactly right because it blended straight out of dialogue into song.”

He then goes on to say that, even if Johnny can’t sing, he may be able to pull of the same “sing-speak” thing that Rex Harrison did. But then, O’Neil is not known to be a fan of Johnny Depp. Personally, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.

Not only because this is Johnny Depp we’re talking about, but because composer Stephen Sondheim had final say over the stars. Both Johnny and Helena Bonham Carter had to audition for him. Also, Sondheim has seen the film and he says it’s great. And Sondheim is not known for being diplomatic if he has issues!

In a recent interview, Sondheim said of the movie, “It’s not the Broadway show. It’s only an hour and 45 minutes. A lot of the score has been cut. They’ve made it its own thing. You have to go in knowing that. But what they’ve done is great.” If the composer thinks it’s great, what else can you say?

Personally, I’m going on the belief that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton together can do no wrong!

For more on upcoming movies, see Cinema Hype.

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With Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street set for limited release in December and wide release in January, I thought I’d take the opportunity to give you some more information on Johnny’s favorite director and friend, Tim Burton.

There’s a lot of great sites on Johnny Depp around the web. Today, I want to point you in the direction of some of those sites, and tell you about just a few of the things they have to offer.

Johnny Depp Web-They have a great page called fan central, where they list members from all around the world! You can make friends with other Johnny fans from 155 different countries. They choose a “Fan of the Month” each month and also offer fan art.

Depp Impact is one of the Johnny sites which has been around the longest. It has tons to offer-including photo galleries of every one of Johnny’s movies (as well as other photos), a great news section with all the up-to-the-minute Johnny news, and a great schedule of Johnny appearances on TV. It also does some charity work and, at the moment, is helping collect donations to save families’ homes from foreclosure. Check out this site!

Deep Into Depp has a great live chat room, a TV schedule, good article archives, and lots more on Johnny. But this site is worth looking at just for the artwork and writing by Johnny that it features.

Johnny Depp Links is just what it sounds like-a huge page of nothing but links to sites featuring Johnny! There’s links to movie sites, chat rooms, fan pages, forums, clubs-just about anything you could want to look at concerning Johnny. If you’re looking for something in particular about Johnny, try this first.

Depptation and Depprived are two of the many forums dedicated to Johnny. You can discuss his movie roles, various characters, share fan art and fanfiction with others and, essentially talk about anything Johnny-related.

These are just a few of the MANY great sites on Johnny Depp that are out there. Try some of them out, and share your obsession!

For other celeb news, go to
Watching New Celebs

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Finally!!! Here’s our first look at Johnny as Sweeney Todd (other than still photos and movie posters)! It’s the 2:29 trailer of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and it was worth the wait!

The first seconds of the trailer show us Benjaming Barker (the man who became Sweeney Todd), happy with his wife and daughter, then immediately cut to a courtroom scene, where Judge Turpin (played by the always wonderful Alan Rickman) is solemnly and evilly pronouncing, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

From there we are treated to scenes of Benjamin Barker’s transformation to Sweeney Todd, with scenes featuring Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen. Along with our first few seconds of Johnny singing! It’s not enough to gauge his entire performance, but he sounds as though, vocally, he’s handling it well. Of course, I would expect no less of him. Johnny’s the type of actor who would not take on a role if he didn’t think he was up to the challenge.

There’s some interesting background to Johnny and Helena’s roles. Seems composer Stephen Sondheim retained veto power over casting the lead roles. Both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter had to personally audition for Sondheim, and he almost rejected Johnny, considering his vocals “too rock oriented.” Now, that would have been a shame!

As far as acting, well-do we really even need to bring that up? Johnny’s always stellar in that arena. He embodies a character to perfection, and makes it look so easy. I can always actually forget that I’m watching Johnny Depp! Once again, I can’t wait for this movie!

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The trailer for Sweeney Todd will be available for viewing this weekend, at the movie, Heartbreak Kid. Josh Tyler over at Cinema Blend has gotten a sneak preview. Here’s his take on the trailer:

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The first trailer for Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s next movie Sweeney Todd is due to hit theaters for the first time this weekend attached to prints of The Heartbreak Kid. No word on when it will be online, but I saw it tonight at a Heartbreak Kid press screening. It’s good. Weird, but good.

When you’re talking Sweeney Todd you expect weird, after all this is a movie about a barber who murders his customers and has them baked into pies while singing about it. Musicals are by definition weird, and Sweeney Todd is weirder than most. And the trailer is good, really good. Or it is until Johnny Depp gets singing. Then it gets even weirder than you’d expect. It’s not that his voice is bad, it’s just that watching Johnny Depp belting out a tune in Tim Burtin’s typically dark, dank, world simply feels incredibly wrong.

The trailer, which runs a bit more than two minutes, seems to be trying to de-emphasize the musical aspect of the film. That may be why Depp’s singing scene seems odd, since so little of the trailer is devoted to advertising the film as a musical. Or it could be that getting used to Depp doing the singing thing is simply going to take some getting used to. Either way, you’re in for a treat this weekend when the first trailer for Sweeney Todd debuts.
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I’ll be seeing it myself later this weekend. Can’t wait!

For more good movie news visit:
Cinema Hype

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