While on the set filming Sweeney Todd in the UK, Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the Demon Barber's cohort in crime, Mrs. Lovett, spoke with the Independent about the role she'd waited a lifetime to play. It wasn't a role that was simply handed to her, either, despite her relationship with the film's director, Tim Burton. It was only when the show's composer, Stephen Sondheim, gave her the OK that Bonham Carter's place was secured, and the couple could "burst into tears" of joy.

'Tis the season for Sweeney Todd. With the Tim Burton-directed film in theaters across the country now and the national tour of the John Doyle-directed stage version making its way through the States, Broadway World's Beau Higgins writes: "I have come to the conclusion that Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is certainly one of the greatest musicals ever created."

With the Oscar polls set to close at the end of the week, the New York Times film critics have weighed in on the list of nominees they'd like to see. A.O. Scott, Manohla Dargis, and Stephen Holden all agree that There Will Be Blood should be nominated for Best Director, Paul Thomas Anderson; Best Actor, Daniel Day-Lewis; and Best Adapted Screenplay. Holden and Dargis also think it should be on the list for Best Picture. Holden is joined by Scott in suggesting the film's Paul Dano for Best Supporting Actor. Scott also hopes Sweeney Todd will be recognized by Academy voters. He thinks it should be on the list both for Best Picture and for Johnny Depp as Best Actor.

"Spellbinding" says CBS Sunday Morning's film critic David Edelstein of Tim Burton's film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. "Sondheim, our greatest living theatrical composer and lyricist," Edelstein says, "has never been so deliciously served."

Tim Burton, in adapting Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd for the big screen, has done so "with a bravura visual style thrillingly in touch with the timelessly depraved delights of Grand Guignol," says the Washington Post. Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd will prove to be "the brilliant singing splatterfest that finally gives [Sondheim] a stab at cinematic immortality."

The joining of director Tim Burton with Stephen Sondheim's songs and lyrics in the new film adaptation of Sweeney Todd is "the perfect marriage of maker and material," says the perfect-ten PopMatters review. They have come together to create "the best film of 2007. It is an outright masterpiece, a work of bravura craftsmanship by a man whose been preparing for this creative moment all his directorial life."

Jonny Greenwood’s score for There Will Be Blood and the Sweeney Todd film soundtrack have both made the list of the Allmusic’s favorite soundtracks from 2007. "Greenwood’s tense, coiled score mirrors the eerie emotional undercurrent to the film, pulling suppressed feelings to the surface, often with an almost operatic sense of drama," says Allmusic. "This is magnificently unsettling music, whether it's used within the film or heard on its own terms—either way, it's impossible to forget after it's been heard."

The Baltimore Sun calls Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd "ineluctably involving," pointing to the lead actors, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, for their ability to "bring superhuman intensity to the fallible creatures in a gory fable." The Sun gives the film an A- and credits Depp for filling Sweeney with "a spectral intensity from the outset. And when he clicks with Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett as a potential mate ... an aberrant electricity leaps out between them."

The new soundtrack to the film Sweeney Todd earns five out of five on BroadwayWorld.com's holiday roundup list of the year's best CDs. "This recording is a 'must-have!'" raves the review. It "is just glorious," writes Naomi Plume. "The performances grab you in a whole different way than you would expect," she says. "I am also happy to report that [orchestrator] Jonathan Tunick and [conductor] Paul Gemignani deliver up their usual 'magic'!"