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LA Times: 'Sweeney' Blood Fest To Test Oscars
Dec. 4, 2007 -- Los Angeles Times critic Tom O’Neil calls R-rated Sweeney Todd is a masterpiece, but the Tim Burton-directed film starring Johnny Depp is so bloody that it risks being passed over for Oscar recognition. “Viewers were either utterly spellbound by this film or else struck dumb and numb in shock,” the article says of the audience at a press screening. It notes that The Departed won last year’s Best Picture Oscar despite graphic gangster violence and The Silence of the Lamb broke a taboo that horror films couldn’t win the top Academy Award. The 5,800 Oscar voters, whose face is high brow actors, is in fact dominated “the cinematographers, sound mixers, visual effects guys — not the actors' branch. The tech guys far outnumber everyone else and they're a testosterone-driven gang who, I suspect, might really delight in Burton's gorefest,” concludes O’Neil. The DreamWorks film opens Dec. 21 via Paramount Pictures.
