First let me say, I enjoy Johnny Depp. I have enjoyed him since he made Edward Scissorhands, and even though I don’t usually get into pirates, excepting Pete, we are all about the POTC around here. The kids like Will, and I’m all over the Cap’n and there we are. Did I date myself when I mentioned Edward Scissorhands? Well, my tagline does say 40 something, LOL. And did you know…it’s true. I am indeed forty, and I was a fairly young adult in 1990 when Depp starred in Edward Scissorhands.

I had that movie on VHS, and we just about wore it out. It was a very rough time in my life, and I so connected with the outcast Edward, and his outward ugliness and the pain he sometimes caused those he loved combined with that inner artistic beauty. How he could create both beauty and pain with those non-hands…it makes an interesting metaphor for the power of the human tongue, doesn’t it? I should get it on DVD and share it with my kids. That whole scene in the end where he’s carving and it’s snowing, it’s magical still. And I just opened several mental worm cans that I’d rather not exam tonight, so let’s move right along to my next favorite Depp movie, which is What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

It was my oldest daughter who introduced me to this Depp film. It was released in 93, but I was totally unaware of it until she asked for it while she was here. I have not talked about her much here, and I won’t do it just now, either, but…watching this movie with her was incredibly poignant, and when Johnny Depp as Gilbert Grape walked out of his mother’s house and burned it down behind him, it was all I could do to keep from sobbing like a small and wounded child, because in the end, he loved his mother enough to burn his past, just to preserve what shred of dignity she had left. It was…it felt like…a gift, to watch this with my daughter. I guess of the two this would be my favorite scene because of the emotional associations I have with it.

So, now, Depp has a new film out, and you can visit Sweeney Todd on MySpace or you can visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site and catch the trailer. As I watched it tonight, I glimpsed Edward and Gilbert both in there, and of course, that led me down memory lane. There was also something else that I wasn’t quite able to pin down, so I am curious to see the movie. And also?? He sings in this movie. And he’s pretty good at it. Mmm-hmm. That’s hott, ya’ll.