Tim Burton

[beamish14]

I actually have grown to love Dark Shadows over the last decade, to the point where it's become an October Halloween marathon perennial. The plot is a mess, but it's gorgeously gloomy, wonderfully deadpan, and boasts a killer soundtrack (both the obligatory Danny Elfman score and the groovy selection of 70's tunes). It's easily his most satisfying film since Sweeney Todd.

Then again, with the exception of Alice In Wonderland, there isn't a Burton movie I consider a complete waste of time.

It's insanity that Alice was his last major hit. It did so well that it inspired the now-endless slew of regurgitated Disney animated films (which, while billed as live action, utilize so many visual effects shots that you can argue they fall within the medium of animation as well).

[cdnchris]

My kids discovered The Addams Family through the Sonnenfeld films and fell in love with the characters. I hadn't seen them in years. The second one is pretty brilliant and it seems to have gotten better with time as well, and I've grown to like the first more (I was indifferent to it originally because of the Fester plot). I still prefer the second one, which has some great deadpan lines ("All that I can forgive, but Debbie... Pastels?") and the camp stuff is surreal. Joan Cusack is top form, too.

They begged us to take them to the animated one when it was advertised. There was potential, and Wednesday was fun in it, but it was obnoxious, as though it was trying to copy something more along the lines of the Minions stuff. They still liked it, so...

Wednesday's their favourite, so they're excited for this. When I told them the guy behind Beetlejuice and Scissorhands (films they liked) was behind it their expectations grew.

It warms my heart to know that bonkers stuff like this still appeals to new generations.

[hearthesilence]

It's insanity that Alice was his last major hit. It did so well that it inspired the now-endless slew of regurgitated Disney animated films (which, while billed as live action, utilize so many visual effects shots that you can argue they fall within the medium of animation as well).

Crazy how that was twelve years ago, or to put it in perspective, the same time spanning from Beetlejuice all the way to Sleepy Hollow. His remake of Frankenweenie wasn't bad - and it was profitable on a modest budget - but it's the only thing he's done since Sweeney Todd that I've liked, and I still prefer his original short.

[hearthesilence]

It warms my heart to know that bonkers stuff like this still appeals to new generations.

It's kind of a nice antidote to some of the sickly sweet stuff that gets marketed to kids, or at least that I can remember. Something like Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers got it right - I had no complaints about either and neither felt gooey when I was a kid - but Jesus, Barney and Full House re-runs were the pits, even as a child they seemed nauseating and ridiculously phony (not literally, I mean emotionally and philosophically, even if I wasn't thinking in those exact terms). Something sharper, darker and irreverent like everything you just mentioned was a much needed tonic.

[RIP Film]

Pretty interesting look into why Burton’s third Batman never materialized: https://youtu.be/GA9ii3k2tfQ.

Definitely one of those great what ifs. I had no idea Returns was ostracized for being too dark, it seemed to fall victim to the ‘think of the children’ attitudes of the early 90s. The same that waged wars against blood in Mortal Kombat. Pretty ironic given today’s standards.

[hearthesilence]

I tried watching Wednesday, which apparently is doing well, so at least it may reverse Burton's commercial fortunes, but I couldn't get through the first episode - while Burton's work is visible, it also feels straight-jacketed by the demands and conventions of television. Yes, these New Yorker cartoon characters were at one time part of an actual network television show, but that was nearly 60 years ago.

Everything needs to be spelled out in big letters, anything to do with plot or characters leans toward easy and literal, and somehow even though they're trying to expand the Addams Family story with this whole Harry Potter school rip-off, they end up shrinking its endlessly strange world to an enormous degree. The show feels like it's following the same tracks already well-worn by any number of supernatural teen shows once associated with the WB network of the '00s.

[beamish14]

Beetlejuice 2 begins shooting tomorrow

I’m curious to see if it has any traces of Jonathan Gems’ script from over 30 years ago. Gems did touch-up work on many of his films from the 90’s, wrote many projects of his that never got produced, and is the sole credited writer on Mars Attacks!

[Yakushima]

I watched Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice today, and although I came in with expectations set very low, it still managed to disappoint. It is a supremely talentless work on Burton's part. It is poorly directed and lazily written. There is not a shred of excitement, inventiveness, humor, good chemistry or suspense in the whole picture. Keaton is doing a good enough job, but Burton (or his scriptwriters) does not seem to know what to do with the character. I felt bad for Ortega and others whose talent was wasted in this.
My favorite character was Beetlejuice's sidekick, Bob, the animatronic shrunken head, who outshined the majority of the cast by delivering a most disciplined, understated, and ultimately tragic performance.
I came out of the theater thinking (as I often did in the last 30 years) that Burton's career should have ended with Mars Attacks. But I did pay for a ticket to watch this, so I guess the joke is on me, and the Hollywood bigwigs know well what they are doing.

[beamish14]

I watched Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice today, and although I came in with expectations set very low, it still managed to disappoint. It is a supremely talentless work on Burton's part. It is poorly directed and lazily written. There is not a shred of excitement, inventiveness, humor, good chemistry or suspense in the whole picture. Keaton is doing a good enough job, but Burton (or his scriptwriters) does not seem to know what to do with the character. I felt bad for Ortega and others whose talent was wasted in this.
My favorite character was Beetlejuice's sidekick, Bob, the animatronic shrunken head, who outshined the majority of the cast by delivering a most disciplined, understated, and ultimately tragic performance.
I came out of the theater thinking (as I often did in the last 30 years) that Burton's career should have ended with Mars Attacks. But I did pay for a ticket to watch this, so I guess the joke is on me, and the Hollywood bigwigs know well what they are doing.

I truly wish he’d bowed out with Sleepy Hollow, which has script issues, but isn’t absolutely atrocious like Dark Shadows or the unwatchable Wednesday

It pains me to see what happened to him. Hell, I have two paintings of his that I got from the great
Van Eaton Galleries, and there is so much vitality, humor, and empathy for his characters in the films he made before the 21st century

[hearthesilence]

Dave Kehr liked Big Fish (and even ranked it the ninth best film of the year) so even though I didn't think it was much, I may revisit it some day.

Burton immediately followed it with the polarizing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which I enjoy a lot and prefer over the first adaptation), Corpse Bride (generally praised, and I like it too) and Sweeney Todd (again generally praised, loved even by the hard-to-please Sondheim and I like it as well). Except for Planet of the Apes, that adds another three, possibly four very respectable big-studio works. I can see why MoMA would hold a Tim Burton exhibit in 2009 to little controversy, fittingly just before he was the jury president at Cannes (and awarding the Palme d'Or to Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was a perfect choice) - up to that point, I would argue he was one of the most dependable big studio auteurs who could succeed both commercially and artistically making personal films on an enormous budget. Alice in Wonderland was terrible but it was very profitable and bought him more security. Then things really went to hell. I haven't seen all of Frankenweenie, just the opening, which I liked - I heard the rest wasn't bad and dog owners may especially like it, but the original short was already excellent. Big Eyes wasn't terrible but it wasn't memorable either. I didn't care for Wednesday and stopped after a couple of episodes. That's the best I can say about his work in the 2010s and beyond.

[therewillbeblus]

I love Big Fish. Burton's oft-annoying, eccentric extravagance is warmly translated into how embellishment serves as one of our flawed, if still magical tools to communicate overwhelming emotions - including those inflating the utility our own human flaws, as we only go 'round this life once. People hate on it, but it's both an earned tearjerker and a strong adventure of magical realism.

[beamish14]

Dave Kehr liked Big Fish (and even ranked it the ninth best film of the year) so even though I didn't think it was much, I may revisit it some day.

Burton immediately followed it with the polarizing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which I enjoy a lot and prefer over the first adaptation), Corpse Bride (generally praised, and I like it too) and Sweeney Todd (again generally praised, loved even by the hard-to-please Sondheim and I like it as well). Except for Planet of the Apes, that adds another three, possibly four very respectable big-studio works. I can see why MoMA would hold a Tim Burton exhibit in 2009 to little controversy, fittingly just before he was the jury president at Cannes (and awarding the Palme d'Or to Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was a perfect choice) - up to that point, I would argue he was one of the most dependable big studio auteurs who could succeed both commercially and artistically making personal films on an enormous budget. Alice in Wonderland was terrible but it was very profitable and bought him more security. Then things really went to hell. I haven't seen all of Frankenweenie, just the opening, which I liked - I heard the rest wasn't bad and dog owners may especially like it, but the original short was already excellent. Big Eyes wasn't terrible but it wasn't memorable either. I didn't care for Wednesday and stopped after a couple of episodes. That's the best I can say about his work in the 2010s and beyond.

The traveling art exhibit, which eventually went to Asia and Europe, was incredible. Seeing those props from his Hansel and Gretel short from the nascent Disney Channel and finally being able to watch the long-suppressed film itself on a monitor within the same gallery space was a dream. I loved the Barry Purves artifacts from Mars Attacks back when it was supposed to utilize stop motion VFX.

Corpse Bride could have been special, and I’d love to read Caroline Thompson’s original script. I can’t for the life of me understand why you’d meant to produce a stop mo film if it’s aesthetically going to be virtually indistinguishable from an all-CG one, and I was just shocked by how the ending straight-up rehashes Beetlejuice note for note

[hearthesilence]

I'd have to go back to see what it repeats from Beetlejuice, but the part I remember most about Corpse Bride was the very, very end...

SpoilerShow

when she accepts that she has to let go of this man she's fallen in love with, and as she walks away, she dissolve into butterflies that fly off into the sky.

Granted, it's tied to the retribution she was seeking, but emotionally they mix together in a very sad and poignant way. She was betrayed by what she thought was genuine love (even though it wasn't, she presumably felt it) and when she found someone worthy of those affections, she had to accept that it wasn't going to happen, partly because there was someone else. To be uncharitable (i.e. unfair), the plot elements to Burton's films have been done many times over in the kind of stories and fairy tales people who watch his films are likely to encounter many times elsewhere - for that reason, I can see him recycling plot elements in film after film as well. But it's mostly not a problem for me because I like how he makes them resonate, and he and his writers put them across in very convincing fashion. More importantly, he does so with a dark poetic touch that's very much him - describing it in words won't do it justice because I'm sure if I took those sentences to some other animator who came before Burton, they'd visually and aurally translate it in a way that wouldn't remotely resemble Burton's film at all, probably to their detriment. And I still liked the film's overall look, which I might describe as a CG film that had strong qualities of stop motion (even though IIRC it was at its core stop motion with CG applied to it).

Except for a few Pixar films, I'm sorry to say I can't really think of many (if any) Hollywood animated features I've seen since then that have equaled it, much less surpassed it, so I might even appreciate it more now as a better-than-usual children's film. This may make Burton a sentimental favorite, but that's what his legacy has been for me, having grown up in a culture that was profoundly shaped by his work. Something like The Nightmare Before Christmas really stuck out because it wasn't a classic our parents watched when they were younger and it wasn't like any of its live-action contemporaries which to me felt like "kids should like this" rather than "kids will like this." His movies were strange films that not only reached a general audience but also embraced outsiders, encompassing things that were off-center or located at the fringes of our culture (not for being dangerous but for being too "weird" to a bland middle). In hindsight, it's fitting that his films would pre-date and then accompany the alternative culture that blew up when Generation X came of age - even moreso when someone like Winona Ryder got her biggest break in his films and then became the "it" girl of the alternative era.

[Orlac]

The ending of Edward Scissorhands weirdly upsets me a lot more now than it did as a kid.

I'm still a bit confused by that of Batman Returns, where we're meant to mourn a man who planning to plunge hundreds of children into toxic waste.

[beamish14]

The ending of Edward Scissorhands weirdly upsets me a lot more now than it did as a kid.

I'm still a bit confused by that of Batman Returns, where we're meant to mourn a man who planning to plunge hundreds of children into toxic waste.

I don’t think we’re supposed to mourn him so massage as see how his fate could’ve easily been Bruce’s as well, given their shared status as orphans. The whole film is an incredible study in Jungian archetypes and how the holidays exacerbate feelings of alienation for many

Many of Burton’s films have rather pointed critiques of American society, particularly of materialism and how easily people are prone to mob mentalities. I love his cynicism regarding the average denizens of Gotham in both Batman films

[Orlac]

The ending of Edward Scissorhands weirdly upsets me a lot more now than it did as a kid.

I'm still a bit confused by that of Batman Returns, where we're meant to mourn a man who planning to plunge hundreds of children into toxic waste.

Many of Burton’s films have rather pointed critiques of American society, particularly of materialism and how easily people are prone to mob mentalities. I love his cynicism regarding the average denizens of Gotham in both Batman films

I always like the contrast in his early films between the Norman Rockwell towns and the gothic landscapes.

[Black Hat]

I love Big Fish. Burton's oft-annoying, eccentric extravagance is warmly translated into how embellishment serves as one of our flawed, if still magical tools to communicate overwhelming emotions - including those inflating the utility our own human flaws, as we only go 'round this life once. People hate on it, but it's both an earned tearjerker and a strong adventure of magical realism.

Burton's one of those guys you hate even more than you usually would because of how annoying his fans are. Thankfully, there aren't too many of them around anymore, they've all moved on to French Anderson but, I liked Big Fish too. Then again, I haven't seen it since it came out when I was an even bigger idiot than I am today.

[knives]

I don’t hate Burton though.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't either, I just find some of his eccentricities annoying, which soil some of his work - especially recent stuff. But he's responsible for some of my favorite films. Batman Returns is still his masterpiece

[knives]

One of the joys of the past year was introducing my wife, who doesn’t like dark and off putting things (her words), to Beatlejuice and her just loving it. I really do think that first decade of work is pretty unimpeachable and love a lot of the later works. It’s okay to me that not every film works and that this later period is almost only a slump. Plenty of great artists have mostly done poor work. It’s the good that gets remembered and celebrated.

[beamish14]

I love Big Fish. Burton's oft-annoying, eccentric extravagance is warmly translated into how embellishment serves as one of our flawed, if still magical tools to communicate overwhelming emotions - including those inflating the utility our own human flaws, as we only go 'round this life once. People hate on it, but it's both an earned tearjerker and a strong adventure of magical realism.

Burton's one of those guys you hate even more than you usually would because of how annoying his fans are. Thankfully, there aren't too many of them around anymore, they've all moved on to French Anderson but, I liked Big Fish too. Then again, I haven't seen it since it came out when I was an even bigger idiot than I am today.

I saw him at a screening of Frankenweenie, and two teenage girls gave him a dress they hand-sewed.

I do like how he’s a nice gateway to auteurism for many young cinephiles, despite the diminishing returns and obvious need for a producer like Denise Di Novi to rein him in

[Orlac]

I always found it a classic case of pot-calling-kettle-black when Jess Franco of all people dismissed Burton as pretentious...the two are quite similar, not least when they go downhill when they swap muses (Franco with Soledad Miranda/Lina Romay, Burton with Lisa Marie/Helena Bonham Carter). I suppose that makes Antonio Mayans Franco's Johnny Depp.