Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Tim Burton's Sick and Twisted Musical and You Can't Have it Both Ways

Man, we watched Sweeney Todd Sunday night and I think Tim summed it up perfectly when afterwards he said, "I really wish I'd never seen that." It was not poorly done. It was a well-made movie with great actors and really good singing, but it was just disgustingly depressing. I mean, it just totally put a damper on our Sunday night. I expected it to be dark (I did know what it was about), but not THAT dark! I guess it did a good job of showing that revenge doesn't pay, but man, I sure was tired of watching fake blood geyser all over the place. The tone seemed all off. By the time the gore of the throat slitting was supposed to shock us, we were numb to it, couldn't stand to see one more gullet get razored, as it had already been set to music in a montage where about 20 poor souls lost their lives. I did love Helena Bonham Carter though. She was a beautiful mess. Although she could have mumbled a little more. I think I caught three of her words without conferring with Tim what she had said. Johnny Depp was in the Javier Bardem role, a pretty thankless one, so I don't feel like I can say whether he was good or not. He looked sort of hot, like a gone-to-seed Robert Smith, and he did slit the throats with glee. I guess that's all that his role called for. But man, was that a downer of a movie. I hated it.

So I mowed the front lawn Sunday afternoon when we returned from visiting my parents at their ranch in Evant (more on that later). Man that was HARD work! We apparently have a push mower, no "self-propelled" action here, and I had to push with all my might to get the thing going up the teeny weeny hill (that I didn't know we had), in our front yard. It was mightily embarassing. But when we moved into this house, I had to promise to either help with the yard work or we had to hire someone to do it because Tim hates yard work. And we bought a house on 3/4 of an acre. And I am afraid to even get an estimate for having the yard done, it is HUGE. Tim was outside with Stella the whole time pulling weeds, and I thought perhaps his manliness would be shamed by passerbys seeing his wife struggle with the lawnmower while he stood by. I posed this question to him and he said, "is your womanliness threated when I help with the childcare, and cook, and help clean?" Oh, snap! So, yes, I married an incredibly 21st century man, but I was hoping he'd go caveman when it came to yardwork! But in all it only took 35 minutes to mow the front lawn, and I can endure anything for 35 minutes. Besides, it's a workout, which I really need since I haven't really been exercising lately. Of course, last night he asked me if I was mowing the back lawn this weekend. That is a WHOLE different story! I don't even think I could get the mower up the hill back there. So perhaps we can compromise and the front yard can be my domain. We'll see...

4 comments:

Kate said...

I haven't seen the Sweeney Todd movie. I have seen a recording of Mandy Patinkin and Angela Lansbury, I think. It's been a thousand years. It was gory enough that way.

I hear you about enjoying the 21st century man, but then wanting the caveman when it comes to things like yardwork. And my yard is so, so tiny. I use a weed-whacker and I'm still too lazy to do it very often.

My advice is to get some estimates. It might be less than you thought. If it turns out to be too expensive, maybe you can think of mowing as a health club that you don't have to leave the house to visit? =)

mamashine said...

I think I'll delete it out of my queue then, because I'm a wuss and it doesn't sound like something I'll like.

We totally hire out the yard. He refuses to do it, and is fine with me doing it if I want to, but I don't. So we pay people to do it. Maybe I'll make the kids do it when they get big enough. :)

yer mama said...

I think mowing the yard should be required for all teenagers.

Marsha said...

I have heard that the Sweeny Todd movie takes all the dry/black comedy out of it. It is supposed to have a measure of amusing-though-sick quality to it - at least the stage show does. I have not seen the movie because I was told all that is gone and it is just a downer.