Tim Burton’s latest film is due in theaters on December 21st. Sweeney Todd stars Johnny Depp as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The trailer (at the website and posted below) looks like it will be devilish fun! You can find out more about the movie with a visit Sweeney Todd on MySpace and a visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site.

Depp HAS to be one of the best actors of our generation. He is so versatile and you actually forget that he’s Johnny Depp in the movie, but start seeing him as the character he is playing. That’s not something I can say about most actors. Sometimes their public persona overwhelms the character. I don’t find that to be true of Johnny Depp. He turns into whatever character he is playing and does it so exquisitely that he doesn’t appear to be acting.

Of course, unless he’s playing Captain Jack Sparrow, which is MADE for vamping! I don’t think Johnny Depp and Captain Jack Sparrow can be separated. Can you imagine anyone else playing that role?!? No. It would be blasphemous! Anyone who ever reads my writing knows that I’m secretly in love with Capt. Jack Sparrow, but that’s beside the point. There are so many special moments throughout the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I love the first part where you see Captain Jack Sparrow standing majestically on the bow of the unseen ship beneath him. As the camera pulls out and you can see more of his surroundings you see that his ship in sinking and he’s barely got a plant to stand on. Still, he stands with dignity and pride as he barely limps into port. Perfection!

How can you not love a pirate with this kind of honest openness ….

Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid.

Depp has teamed up with Tim Burton quite a few times and generally plays off-beat characters. In The Astronauts Wife he played an astronaut turned alien who had everyone fooled except his long suffering wife who suspected he was not who he was when he left on his last mission. His devious portrayal is almost convincing to the audience even though you know that has to be what happened, until at a moment when his wife is trying to get information to a scientist and as she comes up out of the subways station her astronaut/alien husband is there. He doesn’t look at her, but he stops her and you know that he knows she’s there. With just the expression on his face you know that evil lies just beneath the surface regardless of the pleasant and charming expression on his face.

All in all, I still have to say that my favorite Johnny Depp moment is the opening scene of the first of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Its just so hard to say. There are so many good moments that stand out in his films.

Now we have another one to look forward to and in just a couple of weeks. It’ll be great fun to see another Johnny Depp character in Sweeney Todd over the Christmas holidays!