Sweeney Todd: The Anthony Rant

Okay, so I've finally gotten with the times and I saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (film version, recently directed by Tim Burton). And I have to say, after hearing people sing its praise for weeks I was a bit disappointed....mainly because of ANTHONY.

Sure, visually it was great to look at. The contrast of the dull and drabness of 1800's London next to the vivid red of blood (which there was plenty of) was great and captured your attention.

But...

I found that the songs were lacking. I found that they were sub-par, most of them being only words put to violin music. Also, I thought that most of the time, there wasn't even a purpose for singing, they could have just spoke to each other!! There were about two or three songs that were actually songs and they worked well. Other than that, I found that sure, the score was great, the vocals were okay and over all it was just fine.

There was also the characters. Almost every character that I wanted to beat over the head with a blunt object got to live (though you never found out what actually happens to them) and the characters that I did enjoy died. Sure, I saw most of the deaths coming, but still. The sad thing is that I predicted how the movie would end about 15 minutes before it was actually finished, I felt no remorse what so ever for Sweeney...and then there's the matter of Anthony.

This little prick of a kid goes to London with Sweeney, and while walking glimpses a beautiful girl with a falsetto voice through a window, and promises to steal her away so he can marry her. Problem?

You haven't even said two words to this chick and you're already planning your future. Love at first sight isn't real, life doesn't work that way. I hate when this happens in books, movies, etc because, sure, you do have to suspend your disbelief and sometimes just go with it, but 'love at first sight' has been used as an excuse so many times its a cliche that has lost all relevant meaning. So already I had it out for Anthony.

Also, this character was used time and time again to stop the most interesting parts of the movie!! When ever something interesting was about to go down (aka when I starting to actually enjoy the movie) Anthony would come bursting in running his mouth off about something or another (aka his plan to save miss falsetto) and ruin everything. Anthony was an excuse that was used time and time again to prevent a real story from happening. Yes, this can happen once as an odd coincidence, but this situation is used THREE TIMES!! Also, he can't sing to save his life (I fast forwarded through all his songs to save myself the pain) and as a character, he's not really needed, he's not all that relevant to the plot, he's used as an excuse time and time again and he's written so that he is just plain STUPID (its called KNOCKING.)

Oh, and he gets to live in the end.....bugger.

So I hate to be one of those people whose movie experience is completely ruined because of one character, but I am today! There were also a few other things that bugged me about the movie, such as the cheap ending, etc but I won't get into that. All in all Sweeney Todd is okay...and Anthony deserves to die. If anyone wants to help me devise an alternative ending where Anthony gets the sh*t kicked out of him......call me.

Cyber-Bully (not, its not another video game)

So we being the over-aggressive bunch of adolescents that we are were made to sit through a presentation all about bullying. The new twist on this old and much hated tradition was that the 'play' (I use this in the lowest sense of the word, seeing as Shakespeare is turning in his grave right now) mainly focused on cyber-bullying (aka using technology to bully others).
From the get-go it was obvious that it had be written by either an elderly person, a parent, or some one else that screams when ever they see a laptop, and thinks that technology is new and scary and will one day destroy humanity.
References made to Youtube and Facebook were used so many times and so loudly, that the words YOUTUBE and FACEBOOK must have been bolded and capitalized in the script itself.
Despite the use of contrived 'teen-lingo', the 5 dollar set, the bad acting, the many, many out of place references to modern technology, the use of 'popular' music, the cheesy tagline and the excruciatingly drawn out discussion about the show itself afterwards....I'm sure that the skit had a good point to make.

There's only one problem.

The same point ( that you shouldn't bully, its bad, etc etc) has been shoved down our throats since day one. Everyone from parents to teachers to over-zealous class mates preached about how bullying was wrong, and now the fact of the matter is that its become (what ever campaign dreads of becoming) A CLICHE.

This argument has been made against bullying so many times that it has lost its impact, its meaning. It no longer speaks to us and makes us want to help. Basic Phsycology: Tell someone not to do something, and they will do it. Force feed hundreds of messages against bullying others to people, and suddenly no one gives a sh*t anymore.

So in case you're an administrator that's wandered across this blog by accident, I pray you: Book another act for periods 3 - 4 and save yourself the suicides that will follow if you perform yet another Anti-Bullying Campaign on your school stage.