Pop Goes the Culture

I was going to dedicate my now weekly blog to a consideration of the final quarter of the Major League Baseball schedule, but I was distracted for part of this day by a few items of such utter insignificance that they made my Fantasy League quagmire seem of historic importance. It's lovely, actually, to wallow for a while in the utterly inane as a temporary refuge from the several paths to Armageddon that have been laid out in front of me this year.

Anyhoo, the first item that struck me in the newspapaer was that a suspect had actually been located in the murder of Jon-Benet Ramsey, the little dress-up human slain a decade ago and largely forgotten until a renewed reminder came in the final scenes of "Little Miss Sunshine," in which similarly preeening toddlers get to strut their stuff in an erzatz junior beauty contest at a Costa Mesa motel. Gee willikers, it turns out that Jon-Benet was not accidentally offed by her parents--which we all cruelly assumed--but by a teacher who looks like a poster child for sex offenders everywhere. That's cold comfort for her Dad, and colder for her Mom, who's dead too. But it does take useful copy space away from those depressing accounts of Middle East warfare and illusory truces and terrorist investigations. What next? Will they find Nicole Simpson's real killer? Oh, oh yeah, I forgot...

Then there was a bizarre press release that Johnny Depp has signed on to star as "Sweeney Todd," in a cinema version of Sondheim's Grand Guignol opera/musical. The director is slated to be Depp's regular collaborator, Tim Burton. Now Burton has a flair for style but he has never taken on as curious a project as this one, whose virtues--like with most of Sondheim's works--are clearly stagebound. I'm still trying to digest this. Depp can probably sing all right, but his register seems too high for the baritone Sweeney Todd, and his facial contours, however mangled they could have been for the Pirate movie, are too delicate. I applaud him for attempting so different a role, but I can't imagine this as a success. I'm also concerned about whom Burton will cast as Mrs. Lovett, his consort in murder/cannibalism. Jennifer Lopez? Keira Knightley? Oy vey.

It's conceivable that the story itself, gory and gothic, could make an interesting period piece--but its operatic elements will likely undo its horror and lay flat on the screen, as in the "Phantom of the Opera" white elephant. This is a shame, because Sondheim's score is magnificent and can't possibly be serviced properly on film. It is an effort doomed to failure, like another Sondheim musical, "A Little Night Music," which was faithful to the stage play but terribly stodgy and not one of Elizabeth Taylor's finer moments. Burton will certainly cut a lot of the musical numbers (apostasy!), as was done in the semi-successful version of Sondheim's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," but the score was not the glory of that romp. A more interesting project would be to film "Follies," whose musical numbers are largely phantasmagorical anyway, like the successfully rendered score of "Chicago."

Finally there was a question greeting me on the Welcome screen when I logged onto AOL this morning: "Who Is the Most Overrated Celebrity Ever?" Immediately I replied to my screen, "It's gotta be Paris Hilton," and after clicking on the link I discovered that I was in sync with the rest of the AOL population. That fact alone could unnerve me, but, hey, Paris Hilton? That was easy. Here's a bimbo who has nothing better to do with her money than try to find a fiance with the same first name. She makes Tori Spelling seem like Marie Curie. And where would this ditz be without all her money? Why, they ought to make a TV show about that. Oh--oh yeah, I forgot.