Hi ho there, neighbor – I have declared the next five days TOP TEN WEEK. You shall get five different lists of ten things that are the best ever, according to the Fink. It’s harder to do than you might guess. Try coming up with ten of your favorite anything. It’s difficult to put them in order (in fact, it’s difficult to choose just ten). I imagine the bottom five could be rearranged or even replaced by some others. Anyway, this is the list as of today.

Top Ten Movies, According to Me

10. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – I bawl every single time.

9. The Deer Hunter (1978) – I couldn’t sleep that night. I was sickened, horrified, sad…it was my first film that confronted the realities of what Viet Nam did to young men. I’ve never been the same.

8. Somewhere in Time (1980) – A sweeping romance with one of the shortest, but most beautiful scores I’ve ever heard (the soundtrack features just 27 minutes of music – but what’s there is amazing).

7. Don Juan DeMarco (1995) – One of Johnny’s all-time best.

6. A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – The Beatles as themselves, which is what everyone wanted to see. [Sorry, Help! was a huge stinker. Not funny; not even remotely endearing. They were all mad, sunburned, grumpy and high anyway.]

5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) – I know, it’s silly. But I love it. “Knights of the Round Table” is my favorite scene.

4. Amadeus (1984) – Never get tired of it. A delightful story, and undoubtedly Tom Hulce’s best role (until Amadeus, I had only seen him in Animal House).

3. Immortal Beloved (1994) – “My angel, my all, my very self…only a few words today and that in pencil…” I wasn’t a Gary Oldman fan until this movie.

2. The Godfather trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990) – for me, the most dramatic, disturbing and beautiful trilogy ever made. Props to the Lord of the Rings and original Star Wars – I love those too – but this one makes my list as the greatest threesome of all time.

1. Sweeney Todd – the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) – this also makes another list coming up this week, but I couldn’t leave it off this one. Amazing. Disturbing. Mesmerizing.

Stay tuned, mes amis. Tomorrow – Top Ten Albums, According to Me

I watched Sweeney Todd for the 4th time last night. Awesome.

I never really liked the Broadway version. I’d heard it a few times, but was basically unimpressed with all the warbling opera singer voices. [I like opera; just not in that setting.] But there’s something very different about this movie.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a Depp-o-maniac. It’s not just Johnny’s presence that made it a great movie to me, although his presence definitely didn’t hurt. It’s the music; more specifically, the singing. Although every voice in the film could be categorized as “untrained,” I think that’s what sealed the deal for me, musically.

Depp’s voice is striking and full of character. Helena Bonham Carter sings the extremely difficult Mrs. Lovett role with light, straight-tone simplicity, making Patti LuPone’s Broadway rendition even more unappealing. [That girl shouts. I don’t like it.]

The role of the evil Judge Turpin is played by Alan Rickman – best known as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies – and he does quite nicely. One doesn’t hear true bass in musicals very often.

Everything seems so easily sung in the movie, but non-music people need to know that none of these roles were spared any vocal work by genius Stephen Sondheim.

Perhaps the most impressive singing is done by then-14-year-old Ed Sanders, who played Toby, the street urchin “adopted” by Mrs. Lovett. The role is usually played by an adult in the stage version, and the music is intensely difficult. Too bad the kid’s voice has changed by now.

Even Sacha Baron Cohen did a convincing job on his singular feature song. I’d actually like to hear him do some serious stuff to see what he’s made of (“Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir” was a character piece).

Best songs from the movie: “Epiphany” and “A Little Priest.”

The only disappointment – and for me it was huge – was the voice of Jayne Wisener, who played Johanna, Benjamin Barker’s daughter. Ugh. Gorgeous opening tone on the difficult “Green Finch and Linnet Bird,” but then it was all ruined by sloppy, wobbly, uncontrolled vibrato. This from a 20-year-old beautiful girl…she sounded like an aging church choir soprano.

Outside of that one drawback, the film is deliciously dark and disturbing. Ok, I admit I always close my eyes at the throat-slashing, but I can use my imagination.

A friend is coming over Thursday night to watch what will be my 5th viewing of it – should be fun. You need to watch it again, too. Right now. I’ll wait here.

Yep – every 40-something out there is going, “Hey, that sounds familiar.” It should – especially if you were an HBO subscriber back in the eighties.

Remember Not Necessarily the News? It made a college campus circuit star out of comedian Rich Hall. It’s also where Conan O’Brien cut his writing teeth – it was his first professional job. Stuart Pankin and Mitchell Laurence also got their comedy starts on NNTN.

It posed as a news show – a format that’s been copied over and over since the earliest days of Saturday Night Live. The only bad part was that you had to have a subscription to HBO to see it. Anyway, the part I always looked forward to was Rich Hall’s segment on “Sniglets,” which featured totally made-up words that had hilarious meanings.

The guy’s a literary wizard – or at least one amazing wordsmith. I was jealous of his talent to think up words out of the air. Here are a few:

Cinemuck – The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which covers the floors of movie theaters.

Begathon – A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so you won’t have to watch commercials.

Glackett – The noisy ball inside a spray-paint can.

Cheedle – The residue left on one’s fingertips after consuming a bag of Cheetos.

Intaxication – Feeling of euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Prestofrigeration – The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have materialized.

There are hundreds of them – more can be found here.

Interesting aside about Rich Hall. He was the model for the character “Moe” on the inane and consummately stupid piece of tripe, The Simpsons.

Hey, yall have a good day, now. I’m off to the school house.

RF

NEWS FLASH:

Oliver Stone is making a movie about a controversial president. *Clutch the pearls!* His new, high-budget, likely bloated epic, W, is due to hit theaters in January 2009, before George Bush leaves office.

I wonder what prompted him to choose Josh Brolin to play Bush…he must’ve had a fabulous audition. USA Today has an interactive page dedicated to the remaining casting issues, where readers can select who they think should play the as-yet-uncast roles of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and the Bush twins.

And who’s playing Laura Bush? Elizabeth Banks. My guess is that Stone will be going waaaaaay back into the early days of George and Laura, followed by some major make-up magic.

USA Today didn’t select my pick to play Dick Cheney: David Huddleston. What’s the matter with them, recommending slackers like Clint Eastwood, Michael Caine and Jack Nicholson? Didn’t they love Huddleston’s work in Blazing Saddles? Tell you what. People just don’t recognize quality theater anymore.

In other news: my show opens tonight. Yikes.

I thought this would be appropriate to post this week. I love to watch young people tap dance (I wonder if you already knew that). This video is of Fayard and Harold Nicholas, wildly popular dancers from the 1930s. They performed with Bob Hope, Fanny Brice, and on Broadway. This clip shows Fayard, only 15, and Harold, 21, singing and dancing a song called “Lucky Numbers.” Check out their vocal style – the kids could sing.

Off to school, and ready for the last 2 rehearsals before we open.I think I’m going to barf.