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'!"

In his recommendation of Sweeney Todd, NPR film critic Bob Mondello says that director Tim Burton has created a "splendid adaption" of the Stephen Sondheim original. On the acting front, Johnny Depp's "snarling, vengeance-crazed Sweeney Todd is a wonder." As expected, Mondello reports, both Depp and his co-star, Helena Bonham Carter "nail the roles emotionally" and, perhaps less expectedly, can sing. All in all, Mondello says, Sweeney Todd is "spectacularly stylized ...  persuasively sung, and imaginatively adapted for the screen."

David Edelstein, the film critic for NPR's Fresh Air and New York magazine, has placed Sweeney Todd and There WIll Be Blood on his list of the year's best films. Talking with Terry Gross about the films on Fresh Air, he compliments director Tim Burton for creating a "very intimate" version of what Gross refers to as the "absolutely brilliant, truly wonderful Stephen Sondheim musical." She asks Edelstein for his recommendation of the one movie audiences should see this holiday season. His answer: Sweeney Todd—"Great music, great photography, great performances, amazing arterial spray."

The Star-News out of North Carolina says Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd  "deserves a wide audience." The Star-News review praises Burton for making "easily the best movie musical of 2007" and creating for it a concept that "works brilliantly." In the end, it's Sondheim's score that proves to be "the real hero of the show." In the film, "the music is powerful ... but what strikes you is how lyrical it is" and "far more complex and interesting" than your standard musical-theatre fare.

The LAist calls Tim Burton's film version of Sweeney Todd a "wonderful, hilarious, inspired" work. "[L]et there be no doubt that Tim Burton has crafted a true piece of musical cinema from Stephen Sondheim's bloody masterpiece." In the title role, Johnny Depp is "magnificent," his performance "so powerful as Todd that you eventually begin to relish his countless murders." Ultimately, "Sweeney Todd joins Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands as Burton's finest work."

In the Nonesuch Journal's final episode from Stephen Sondheim's discussion of Sweeney Todd, the composer expresses a preference for singing actors (over acting singers) and has high praise for all of the actors in the film, beginning with Johnny Depp's "extraordinary" performance in the title role.

In its review of the new big-screen version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Rolling Stone calls the film "a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling ... This Sweeney is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score." The review exclaims that the "brilliantly conceived and executed film moves from one highlight to another."

In the second installment of the Stephen Sondheim interview on the making of Sweeney Todd, the composer discusses some of the major inspirations behind the musical (think film) and puts to rest one longstanding misconception about the work. In the end, though, it could all be summed up in one very basic principle; says Sondheim: "All I wanted to do was scare an audience."

Sweeney Todd prop master David Balfour explains in vivid detail for the Los Angeles Times how he created the all-important "chaste silver" set of razors for Johnny Depp to wield on screen as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The article includes up-close shots of six of the blades designed for the film, each with an eerie engraving well-suited to its murderous task. 

Nominations for the 2008 Golden Globe Awards have just been announced, and among the nominees for Best Picture are There Will Be Blood (Drama) and Sweeney Todd (Comedy or Musical). Sweeney received three other nominations as well: Tim Burton for Best Director and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter for Best Actor and Actress, Comedy or Musical. Also nominated in the performance category was Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor, Drama, for his starring role in There Will Be Blood.

Stephen Sondheim sat down for an interview to discuss the forthcoming film version of his musical masterpiece Sweeney Todd. Over the next few days, leading up to the December 18 release of the film's soundtrack, the Nonesuch Journal will bring you exclusive video footage of the composer's candid take on Tim Burton's adaptation of his beloved work. In this first segment, Sondheim comments on the ins and outs of putting this "slasher musical" on screen. "Unlike all other movies of stage musicals that I know," he says, "this really is an attempt to take the material of the stage musical and completely transform it into a movie."

Tune in to the Playbill Radio show Playbill Presents tonight at 7 PM ET to hear Sweeney Todd producers John Logan (also the film's screenwriter) and Richard Zanuck (both pictured at right) weigh in on working with Stephen Sondheim in adapting the composer's classic musical for the Tim Burton–directed film.