In Coffee Spoons

Waiter: Would you like some coffee?
Woman: Yes, please.
Waiter: Just say when. (Starts to pour.)
Woman: There. (He keeps pouring.) That’s fine. (He pours.) Stop! (She grabs the pot; there is coffee everywhere.)
Waiter: Yes, ma’am.
Woman: Well, why didn’t you stop pouring?
Waiter: Oh, I wasn’t sure you meant it.
Woman: Look, of course I meant it! I have coffee all over my lap! You nearly burned me!
Waiter: Forgive me, ma’am, but you certainly looked thirsty. I thought you wanted more.
Woman: But -
Waiter: And you must admit, you did let me start to pour.

(From Until Someone Wakes Up, a play written by Carolyn Levy and a group of Macalester College students)

@ Feminist Law Professors, thank you Smeg for the link.

Check out Erin's journal first for her very, very short and very, very perfect review of the Burton adaptation.

If you'd like to learn more, or just have an appetite for incoherently expressed anger and excessive profanity, by all means read on.

Okay, I did enjoy some parts of this movie. Burton continues to rock his gothic mis-en-scene to good effect. Sacha Baron Cohen was a bit of really inspired lunatic casting. Singing ability aside, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were great together and great with their characters. If they could sing, they'd have been perfect choices. Ditto Alan Rickman.

If they could sing. I basically could have forgiven this movie almost all of its sins if anyone in it could sing.

Burton, we all know you and Johnny Depp are BFF. Totally BFF. But one of the lessons in Directing 101 is "Your friend needs more qualifications for the part than being your friend".

This also relates to the very first lesson of Directing Musicals 101: "Musicals have music in them. Your cast should be able to sing the music that makes it a musical".

Johnny Depp would be great for his role, except that he cannot fucking sing. He sounds like he has something unpleasant and possibly alive caught in his throat.

Helena Bonham Carter would be great for her role, except that she cannot fucking sing. Her performance is basically a cracked, strangled series of failed high notes.

Alan Rickman would be great for his role, except that he cannot fucking sing. (He does manage the best of anyone despite this, since Judge Turpin has a very narrow range of notes.)

Congratulations on your wonderful cast that can't fucking sing!

Anthony Stewart Head, who has a gorgeous voice, has a one-line spoken cameo, and the best vocal performance comes from a small boy playing a role intended for an adult man. That's fantastic.

That is my main complaint and the one that really kills this movie. I am now going under a cut with my other various complaints, mostly pertaining to the theatre-to-film slaughter. Expecting one, maybe two people to bother reading it, either out of a similar film/theatre obsession or a similar terminal amount of free time.

( A funland of vitriol and spoilers! )

If you haven't seen the movie yet, please do yourself the favor of listening to a Broadway version at some point. The 2005 revival is a great one.