And So it Begins...Again

The Hot Blog's David Poland, one of the chief proponents of the Dreamgirls overhype, has come out with similar things to say about Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street...

I believe now that Johnny Depp is a 95% bet to be nominated for Best Actor as the title character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in a very, very crowded field of 2007 male movie performances… and an 80% chance to win.

Uh oh. I'm getting a feeling of deja vu here. Johnny Depp is a very talented performer and deserves an Oscar eventually. Please don't ruin it for him by starting the hype now! You see how it worked out for Dreamgirls!

Just for the fun of it, let's go back to November and see what I had to say about the Dreamgirls hype before the film was even released.

It still surprises me how people keep insisting that Dreamgirls is the one to beat in this year's Best Picture race. No one has seen it yet. And let us not forget that in 2004, before anyone had seen it, Alexander was the Best Pic frontrunner, and The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, and The Producers were all expected to be contenders. Sure, Dreamgirls looks good, and the pedigree is top notch (starring Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy, directed by Bill Condon). But all of these breathless exclamations that it is THE movie of the year, when it hasn't even been seen yet, may be a bit pre-mature. Hopefully it will be as wonderful as hoped, I'm just saying that expectations shouldn't be so high, when that happens you're liable to get disappointed.

And...they ended up NOT being the one to beat. Too much hype can kill a film. And as we all know, the Academy does NOT like to be told what to vote for. Too much chatter now about Johnny Depp winning for Sweeny Todd could turn it into this year's Dreamgirls.