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Slight spoilers if you know absolutely nothing about Sweeney Todd. I don't think there's anything here that isn't in the trailer.

Quick note: For those who don't know, Sweeney Todd, coming to theatres Dec. 21, is a movie version of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning Broadway musical. Sweeney is the Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- a man wronged who wants revenge on those who wronged him.

So I was playing around on the Sweeney Todd Web site. I've been waiting for the movie for a long time now, really looking forward to it. But it's also been tinged with nervous anticipation -- will they be able to pull it off? I love Johnny Depp, and I didn't want him to screw this up.

Well, thank goodness, he hasn't. At least not from what I've heard. If you go to this link and click "Enter site", another window will open. In the top right corner is something called Audio -- click on it, and you can listen to parts of some of the different songs. I'm pleasantly surprised with Depp -- he's not bad. It's a hard role to sing, and what little I've heard impresses me.

However. Helena Bonham-Carter.

It's unfortunate that her and Burton are a thing because she's going to be hearing a lot of director's couch comments. She's awful -- she can't sing -- it's more of a fast talking, and there's no power at all behind it. Not to mention she sounds like she is trying to hurry through the lyrics as fast as she can so she can stop singing -- she doesn't seem to believe she should be singing, either.

She just annoyed me in "Bit of Priest" and "Worst Pies in London". And I'm even trying to cut her a break -- Angela Lansbury defined that role, and she's who I hear in my head when I listen, but I was willing to give someone else a chance. When I first heard Carter's name, I thought it could be a bit of inspired casting -- provided she could sing. Yeah, well, I will now be going to the movie dreading her moments.

All I can hope is that she can bring something to the role besides her singing. Except that I really feel like Mrs. Lovett is almost a sweet woman who's a bit demented -- she clearly loves the boy and has a thing for Sweeney, and thinks they can all be a happy family of sorts, with a few murders thrown in here and there -- not a demented woman who's scary, which is how I think Carter will play it -- Bellatrix does Mrs. Lovett.

On the other hand, listening to Alan Rickman in "Pretty Woman" didn't upset me. Does he sound like an actor singing? Yes. But it doesn't annoy me. He sounds like Snape singing, which turns me into a giddy fan girl inside.

Of course, you can listen to "Green Finch" if you wish to torture yourself. I hated it in the production I saw, and I hate it here, too. And I have no idea who the girl is who sings it, only that she is slightly better than the soprano who sang it on my soundtrack.

So now I'll still see it opening weekend, but some of the air has been let out of the balloon for me. What do you guys think? Am I being too hard on her? Anyone agree with me?

Caught the premiere of Tin Man last night on the Sci-Fi channel.

The big budget sci-fi retelling of L Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a dark, steampunk-esque epic featuring robots, fierce monsters, magic, interdimensional travel, shape-shifting and drugs. Most of those things feature in some way in either the original book or the classic MGM movie -- so they shouldn't come as such a shock. But it's a thoroughly modern vision of the story with quite a few important changes:

* OZ is now "The O.Z" or "Outer Zone," a different dimension that was once a paradise until the rise to power of the evil witch Azkadellia (played by a sexy-as-she-is-scary Kathleen Robertson).

* Dorothy Gale is now "D.G." (Zooey Deschanel), a rebellious waitress who rides a motorcycle rather than a bicycle with a handle-bar basket.

* The Scarecrow is now "Glitch," (Alan Cumming) a once brilliant scientist who was tortured in one of Askadellia's prisons and had half his brain stolen and a zipper attached to his skull.

* The Tin Man (Neal McDonough) is now an ex-cop whose badge (and being sealed in a metal suit while watching a hologram of his family being tortured) gives him his name. He's out to kill those who took his family from him and took over the O.Z.

* The Cowardly Lion is now "Raw" (Raul Trujillo), a psychic man/wolverine who can heal wounds with a touch.

* The Wizard is now a drug addled nightclub performer who mixes philosophy and...well, incoherence...while trying to help D.G.

Can't tell you much more than that without revealing some of the show's many secrets -- some of which are only beginning to unravel. Overall I enjoyed the first installment very much - enough to make me anxious for the next.

Who else saw it? What'd you think?

If you missed it, you can watch all of part one here.

From Reason.tv:

In his latest video for Reason.tv, Drew Carey goes all in to report how Dallas cops carried out a paramilitary-style raid on a poker game at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1837, which has now been forced to close its doors.

Tonight. 8 p.m. ABC.

A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Be there.

With The Daily Show on hiatus during the writer's strike, it seems the politicians are picking up the slack.

If you haven't yet seen the ACTUAL POLITICAL AD Mike Huckabee filmed with Chuck Norris, you must watch it right now.

Miss Tin Man on the Sci-Fi channel last night?

Shame on you.

Glitch doesn't even want to look at you until you've caught up.

Lucky for you part one of the three night mini-series re-airs tonight at 7 p.m., leading right into part two at 9 p.m.

The more I see of Heath Ledger as The Joker, the more I like it.

But the design of the Bat suit is worrying me a bit. Do you see how much extra crap seems to have turned up on his torso -- etchings and contrasting colors and articulation. The shape of the cowl seems to have changed and become more teched-out as well.

To my mind Batman should always look dark, simple and deadly. He's not effing Iron Man. It's not important for us to see how much gadgetry we can jam into the suit to sell variant versions of the action figure later on. That's how you get to the George Clooney era Bat Suit. That way lies doom.

We went three Indiana Jones movies without much noticeable change in Indy's get-up -- and people didn't find that boring, they found it iconic.

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers chooses the top ten DVD releases of the year in the latest Rolling Stone.

Coming in at #1: The Blade Runner: The Final Cut DVD

Go check out (and groan at, and whine about) the others here.

Great place for Christmas present ideas, at the very least.

Back: The Breeders. (To the delight of nerds with Kim Deal crushes the world over)

Gone: Bauhaus. (To the -- further -- despair of goths the world over.

Still Not Racist: Morrissey. (To the consternation of those who've called him so for decades).

Led Zeppelin: Reunited for one show, but not headlining Bonnaroo.

Pimp C: Released from prison in 2005, dead in 2007

Garth Brooks: Still pudgy and awkward, but also still selling out five nights in an L.A. stadium.

Do you realize that of the Top Ten singles on Billboard's Hot 100 right now, four feature T-Pain?

I didn't.

It's Web Junkie Wednesday again and I want to talk about something very close to my heart: comics.

Well, I've had my colon scraped and my blood filtered since my last Fast Food Friday -- and it's time to jump back into the frying pan. Or, you know, whatever they're cooking the McRib in.

Ah, the McRib. McDonald's teases us with this curious boneless pork monstrosity, bringing it back for another "Farewell Tour" just when we thought we'd seen the last of it -- like KISS or Fleetwood Mac, but with less indigestion.

Since the sandwich is now on one of its periodic returns, I decided to roll up my sleeves, take off my tie and get my fingers coated in barbecue sauce. Hold the onions, please...

McDonald's McRib promotional shot:

Actual McRib sandwich:

The McRib has its share of acolytes -- and more than its share of enemies.

While writing tonight I was suddenly struck by what a terrific little pop song is "When My Love Open The Door," from Pete Townsend's 1980 solo album, Empty Glass.

I'm told there's a version of the song in Dan In Real Life, which I've been meaning to see. That may be why it's on my mind.

Humming it to myself, screwing up the words, just totally in love with this silly little song tonight.

Here's the original version:

And an excellent cover by Rilo Kiley:

I'd feel strange about having a sort of nostalgia for the 90s if it didn't happen to everyone at some point. We all eventually develop an affection for the decade in which we came into our own.

And, as Chris Rock says, the music that was playing when you first got laid -- you're going to love that music for the rest of your life.

Led Zeppelin reunited.

Footage from last night's one-off show here.

Are they touring? No definitive word yet. But apparently they've still got the rock in them.

Turner was a seminal figure in rock and roll -- but, perhaps properly, the stories on his death are leading with and dominated by his reputation as a mean tempered, wife-beating drug addict.

We have to talk about both things, I think -- and feel sad that a guy who could have been remembered simply as one of the greats so tarnished his legacy.

I have the Iowa debate on in the background as I write right now and they just asked Barack Obama how, as president, he'll make the break with the past he's been suggesting when he has so many former Clinton administration officials advising him.

Hillary Clinton, in maybe the least dignified possible move, began cackling madly at this question and said into her microphone: "I'd like to hear the answer to that one!"

Obama calmly looked over at her and said: "Don't worry, Hillary - I'm looking forward to having you advise me, too."

You do not want to play the dozens with Obama, Hillary.

All right - I've got to admit, this video of Burger King customers freaking out over the fake discontinuation of the Whopper is pretty funny.

I could see maybe a few old guys getting upset - but it seems like people across the spectrum are very attached to the Whopper.

No way around it -- it is a delicious sandwich. But I'm not sure I'd ask to talk to the manager if I was told I couldn't get one anymore.

To even further punk people, they gave people Wendy's and McDonald's burgers instead of Whoppers by accident. Their reactions were not pretty.

It's possible people feel as strongly about the Big Mac -- but it's sort of hard to imagine.

I have so many problems with this Rolling Stone list of the year's top 100 songs, that I'm not even sure where to begin.

What's your vote for this year's #1?

Soft rock star Dan Fogelberg died yesterday at the age of 56.

Fogelberg has become something of a cultural punchline since his heyday in the 70s and early 80s -- shorthand for immasculine soft rock. But even if you have no idea who he was, chances are you danced to his song "Longer" at a wedding somewhere along the way.

The trailer for the next Batman movie is intriguing, but they're being a bit stingy with shots of Heath Ledger's Joker.

I guess you don't show the whole shark doing it's thing in the Jaws trailer...

Hard to find good bootleg copies of the IMAX prologue that was shown with I Am Legend, but they're out there.

If the original Star Trek taught us nothing else about space, it taught us this: we are not alone. There is life out there, beyond the stars. And, more often than not, it is incredibly hot.

Check out this Flickr collection of hot Star Trek babes, from gorgeous alien queens to the tight bloused, mini-skirted women whose primary job on the Enterprise seems to have been to get attacked by villains, flirt when encountering sexually hypnotic planets and creatures and be gently sexually harassed by the male crew members.

In the future, it seems there is no sensitivity training.

Britney Spears' sister Jamie-Lynn, the 16-year-old star of a popular Nickelodeon TV show, is pregnant.

More proof that the universe is a strange place. When I was in high school almost everyone I knew was having sex -- but I didn't know anyone who got pregnant. Because between condoms and birth control pills, they cannily avoided it. And they were none of them millionaires.

This could be the beginnings of a good argument that money does actually make you stupid. When you have as much money as Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan but you drive drunk rather than have a driver take you around town in one of any number of luxury cars or limousines at your disposal, when you're crafty enough to be an essential cog in an adolescent television and marketing juggernaut but can't summon the sexual intelligence of the average small town teen who says to her doctor: "Is procreation right for me...?" --- then I think there are serious cash/IQ questions to be asked.

Kicker: Jamie and her babydaddy met...wait for it...at church.

Call everybody in the non-abstinence-only sex ed class I had godless heathens, but we all learned how to use a condom.

UPDATE:
"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," Jamie Lynn told OK!, according to the Associated Press. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."

Somebody sit these kids down for a birds and bees talk...

I thought that was Jack White playing Elvis in the trailer for Walk Hard.

Full trailer here:

Check out this totally sweet Iron Man made of LEGOs.

Here's a link to a whole LEGO gallery.

I forgot to mention that I did a feature on cool (and most available and affordable) tech gifts for the holidays.

Here's the list, with links.

All right - not really.

But they could be in the new year.

An editor just sent me this link to the Best Blogs of 2007 That You (Maybe) Aren't Reading.

And only one of them is on my Bloglines, so I've got some reading to do.

Looks like good stuff.

Last night, my husband and I and my cousin and her husband went to see Daughtry at War Memorial Auditorium. It was a blast -- while I loved the concert outdoors near Natty Greene's in March, this was a smaller venue, so it was a nice, more intimate concert.

The two opening bands weren't my favorites -- the first one (You Are I Am) was kind of meh and the second one (Midway State), while entertaining in spastic, overly earnest sort of way, I could have done without as well. The audience kind of sat there as well, unless they were getting up to go smoke, get beer or buy T-shirts.

As soon as Daughtry went on, everyone stood and remained standing the whole time, singing along and swaying or jumping, depending on the song. I'm pretty sure they did everything from the album, which made me happy, although I'm surprised they didn't end with "Home," given the location.

They also did a new one that Chris said he wrote while in Amsterdam, called "Back to Me." I really liked it, especially as he sang it while alone, in front of a scrim, with just a few lights shining on him.

They also did a long bit from "Paradise City," which I loved and everyone sang along to. They threw in some Johnny Cash and Motley Crue, too -- I suppose once they release a second album they won't need to throw in covers. I still really liked them, and I was a bit disappointed they didn't do some of the covers they did at the March concert -- I think that's why I liked Chris on Idol so much, that he threw his own spin on some classics.

There were some fun moments with the crowd, like when he jokingly told people to stop coming by his house and to stay off his lawn. At one point, he was throwing water bottles into the audience and he sidearmed one right into the auditorium wall accidentally, splashing water everywhere. A bunch of people left with towels and guitar picks as well.

There were some really cute young girls around us, maybe 10 or 11 years old, who were hardcore rocking out and singing the words to every song. (I remember being that passionate at my first concert when I was 11. New Kids on the Block. Don't laugh.)

Not so cute were the people two rows behind me who got into a loud argument I could hear over the song about who was shoving who, or the couple in my row who kept leaving during the concert. I didn't mind so much during the opening acts, but they left and came back during Daughtry, promising on their way in that it was the last time. So, what happens a couple songs later? They leave again. I must have shown my consternation pretty blatantly, as they waited for the song to end when they came back before crossing in front of us again. I don't go to a lot of concerts -- but if there isn't a concert etiquette, there should be, and leaving and returning to your seats in the middle of the row a bunch should be a concert foul.

Other concert fouls:
-- The person sitting next to my cousin who smelled strongly of beer and stale cigarettes and was loudly drunk.
-- The people we saw removed from the second or third row after it was clear they belonged much further back and had taken another couple's seats.
-- The $7 parking fee we had to pay to park in the Coliseum parking lot. It irritates me to no end that I have to pay a handling fee and convenience fee and whatever else, then a parking fee on top of all that. Our two tickets, billed as $30 each ($60 a pair), ended up costing us $94 and change, plus the $7 at the concert. (And trust me -- I know that $30 is a bargain compared to a lot of entertainers!)

Except for those incidents, overall it was a great night -- I love Daughtry, and I love Daughtry even more in concert. And if I were about 10 years younger, less tired and not as cold, I probably would have stuck around outside near his tour bus with the others -- I hope it was worth the wait and they got to see him!

P.S. Joey Barnes, why did you look like a Chippendale dancer, wearing nothing but a bow tie and a hat behind your drums?

I knew there was a reason I love Tori Amos. At her concert the other night in San Diego, a couple of girls in the front row kept getting up and walking in and out. So Tori does what anyone should do -- she tells them to "get the f--- out."

While playing "Code Red", Tori stopped and told them, "Get the f--- out of my show! It's a privilege to sit in the front row and I reserve those seats for people who appreciate music, get the f--- out!"

Fast forward to about 2:26.

Also, this is definitely one of the concert fouls I was talking about in my last post.

A new deal has David Letterman and Craig Ferguson coming back to Late Night with their writers.

Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be coming back without theirs.

You know what's strange? I'd rather watch Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert without writers than David Letterman with.

I'm not saying they're going to be great shows -- Conan has predicted it could be a train wreck and I agree -- but Letterman's show has been on autopilot for some time. The last time he was really hilariously funny was the mid 90s.

I do think Craig Ferguson is pretty funny.

But given the option, I'd still go with the comedy central guys sans-writers.

People keep laughing at me when I tell them I may make my next car a Smart car.

But I test drove one a few months back for the paper and actually liked it. GQ gave it a spin this month and came away impressed as well.

The fact that they get an estimated 40/city and 45/highway is a huge draw -- but they're also attractive (and attractively priced -- the convertible model is $16K), comfortable (believe it or not) and fun to drive.

I got mine up to 60 mph on the test drive -- but the GQ writer got on the highway and went up to 80 for over an hour. I don't remember the last time I needed to go faster than 90 mph, which is the Smart's top speed -- so I'm not sure what the downside of owning one of these would be.

And here I thought it couldn't get any stranger than House of M or Infinite Crisis.

The United Nations has teamed with Marvel Comics to produce a comic in which the heroes and the U.N. join together to solve conflicts and fight disease worldwide.

The move's supposed to help the U.N. rehabilitate its somewhat tarnished image -- but I'm not sure that saying: "Hey, if we had some super-powered underwear perverts working with us, we could actually get this stuff done." is the best possible message.

Blimey!

It looks like British mod rockers The Kinks might be reuniting for a tour in the new year!

According to The Daily Mail the band's original lineup is set to tour together for the first time in 40 years.

Just about everyone will know the Kinks for "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" (and "Picture Book" from that great commercial -- oh, and "Nothin' In The World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl" from the Rushmore soundtrack). Hardcore music snobs will try to deny the gloriousness of those tracks and tell you that you've really got to listen to The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society.

It's all good stuff.

I'm glad to hear the Davies Brothers (who were feuding before Oasis' Gallagher Brothers were drinking sour mash whiskey out of sippy cups) seem to be pulling it together to perform again.

Let's hope their reunion is more Led Zeppelin (who by all accounts rocked earlier this month for the first time in decades) than The Police (who by all accounts sort of forgot how to do their thing until the very of their top-grossing tour).

Yes, Knight Rider.

That's Will Arnett (Arrested Development, 30 Rock) as the voice of KITT, the super car.