John Logan, the co-producer and writer of Tim Burton's film version of Sweeney Todd, recently spoke with TheaterMania about adapting the much-loved Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical for the big screen. As he tells TheaterMania's Brian Scott Lipton, Logan lobbied hard for the job that would ultimately take him five years to bring to fruition. But as soon as he heard that a film version was in the works, he knew he had to be involved, given how much the Sondheim work meant to him: "I saw the original Broadway production and it changed my life. I think one of the reasons I'm a writer today is because of that night."

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has announced the winners for its 2007 awards, and topping the list is Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood with four awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, and Best Production Design from Jack Fisk. The film was a runner-up for Anderson in the screenplay category, Robert Elswit for cinematography, and Jonny Greenwood for music. New York Film Critics Online awarded the film for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Day-Lewis), Best Cinematography (Elswit), and Best Score (Greenwood).

The national touring company of the recent Broadway production of Sweeney Todd has been playing to audiences north of border in Toronto for the past month. The show now moves back to the States for a few days in Columbus, Ohio, beginning tomorrow night at the Palace Theatre. The Columbus Dispatch sat down for an in-depth interview with the tour's scene-stealing Mrs. Lovett, Judy Kaye, whom director John Doyle lauds for her "terrific singing voice and immaculate comedy timing," essential attributes in this role as the murderous barber's partner in crime.

Tim Burton's film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd scores a perfect 100 on the Rotten Tomatoes rating meter, which averages all the critics' reviews from across the country.

BroadwayWorld.com and Broadway Beat have released the first of three episodes exploring the journey of Sweeney Todd from Broadway sensation by Stephen Sondheim to Tim Burton–directed big-screen blockbuster starring Johnny Depp. Hosted by Richie Ridge, Broadway Beat is a half-hour show, now in its 16th year, covering the best in New York theater. 

Just in time for the holidays, famed jazz photographer Jimmy Katz has published Jazz Katz: Jazz in NY, a collection of black-and-white photos that All About Jazz calls "a feast for the eyes." The book featuring jazz luminaries, including Brad Mehldau and Bill Frisell, on stage and behind the scenes.

The Berlin International Film Festival has announced that There Will Be Blood will be making its international premiere as one of the first eight films to be selected for the festival's prestigious Competition program. The festival, the 58th running of which will be held February 7–17, 2008, awarded Anderson's Magnolia its top prize in 2000. 

Wilco's band loft is situated on Chicago's North Side, and that's where writer Bret Gladstone begins his thorough and thoughtful "trip through Jeff Tweedy's world" for the Associated Press. "On the surface, he is—should be—a simple American guy ... who grew up in a blue-collar town made of breweries, foundries, and strip mines," Gladstone writes. "But he‘s also complicated and quite possibly a near-genius. If you can grasp that dichotomy, you've essentially grasped Wilco's music."

Three weeks before There Will Be Blood first hits select screens in the US, the Paul Thomas Anderson film is already one of the most talked-about films of the year, not least for its haunting score by Jonny Greenwood. Today the Nonesuch Journal brings you an exclusive interview with the composer, in which he discusses everything from his musical influences—from Penderecki to the Pixies—to his use of the ondes martenot, an early electronic instrument found in such seminal 20th-century works as Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Nonesuch will release the complete There Will Be Blood soundtrack December 18.

With the Sweeney Todd soundtrack out in just over a week, it's no wonder the Chicago Tribune is saying that "the highly anticipated holiday movie season brings with it not just some of the best movies of the year but some of the most distinctive score soundtracks as well." Writes Richard Knight Jr.: "This is a great finale to what has been a signature year for soundtrack lovers," not least "an intimate, seductive Sweeney Todd."

World Music/CRASHarts presents Youssou N'Dour and the Super Étoile band this Monday, December 10, at the Somerville Theatre. Today's Boston Globe previews the next phase of the organization's winter and spring schedule, which includes a broad range of artists from around the world, from Toumani Diabaté's pan-African Symmetric Orchestra, also at the Somerville, on February 2, to Laurie Anderson, who will bring her new piece, Homeland, to the Boston Opera House on March 29.

Among the many roles Youssou N'Dour has come to play, he has come to be known "as one of the planet's true superstars and a beacon of African pride," says the Chicago Tribune. At Wednesday's Chicago House of Blues show, N'Dour's singing was "as strong and rich as it's ever been," and his band, Super Étoile de Dakar proved itself "the rare band entirely deserving of the 'super,' perfectly composed to push ahead but constantly poised for stop-on-a-dime shifts."