Burton and Depp keep on Burtoning and Depping in...Dark Shadows!

First official photo, Helena Bonham Carter is in it, lather rinse repeat blah blah blah

Grayson Hall is turning over in her grave. Or is she?

I saw that one behind the scenes photo where Depp looks like Chevy Chase's character from Memoirs of an Invisible Man when he wears goggles and slathers all the make-up on so he can be seen.

http://io9.com/5893731/the-dark-shadows-trailer-this-might-be-tim-burtons-most-ridiculous-movie-yet

Check out the first ever trailer for Tim Burton's swinging 70s vampire epic Dark Shadows. And it looks like Burton is taking it to the max — not a single bit of 70s shtick is left untouched by Johnny Depp's fluttery dance steps (someone literally tries to kill him with a giant disco ball).

Meh

...

uh oh, cheesy people living in an undead's house? sounds like a good cause for a michael keaton cameo!

Will prob never see another Burton movie, but maybe we at least get a good Elfman score out of this.

And here I was thinking that Mirror, Mirror looked like the worst and most unnecessary movie of the year. Congratulations, Tim Burton. Congratulations.

Oh I dunno. Mirror Mirror looks worse than this.

i think it actually looks decent compared to his last 6-7 cinematic war crimes. at least depp's only schtick is a british accent.

c'mon, Sweeney Todd was his best in eons

yeah Sweeney Todd was great

ah yeah, i didnt see that. he'd annihilated any good will i had for him by that point, so i gave it a wide berth. maybe i'll peep it

this basically looks like the addams family and i think i could dig on that

This looks awesome

t. rex in the trailer; Depp kinda biting this look

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUgcFq9w6U

i got some of the o.g. dark shadows from netflix a few months ago. it's really draggy and repetitive in spots (it's a serialized soap opera), but where it succeeds is the sense of dread that comes from the low-budget sparseness. in that way it's very english for an american series -- it's "spooky" rather than "scary." i don't know if tim burton knows how to push those buttons. i don't want a fucking whimsical barnabas collins; i want him to be quiet, shy, polite, and sad.

It's a total Brady bunch the movie thing I guess

Or an Addams Family movie thing.

okay, i just watched the trailer... oy vey.

^^^^^^^ cosigned

Yeah, I don't feel sorry for any of you who actually pay money to see this. I'll at least refrain from saying I told you so.

at least he's trying something vaguely new right?

the last few burton films, they could have just assembled a "tim burton filmmaking committee" to replace the actual tim burton and the movies would have come to about the same thing.

im getting a bit of an ed wood vibe tbh, an exaggerated more 'comedy' one but that's what depp's reminding me of here and i kinda am ok with that

yeah i was getting a bit of that feel too. i thought some of the gags were pretty funny too

It had a very "Jump in the line, rock your body in time" vibe to me. So I'd argue that, no, he doesn't seem to really be stretching out so much as reaching further back into his filmography for tropes to recycle.

its probably gonna be more like mars attacks! but i'll still take that over alice in wonderland

beetlejuice is his best film though so i guess if he has to recycle himself...

all the '70s jokes are so plaaaaaaaaayed tho

get bent otm about the low-budget spookiness of the original property being its strongest point

sad to see something killed that could have stayed undead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSbCqp_a3iE

c'mon i hate burton as much as anybody but when did you guys start hating fun so much, jeez! i will watch the hell out of anything that allows depp to be as campily ridiculous as he can be

trailer reminds me of edward scissorhands, too

This looks awesome

― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Friday, March 16, 2012 4:06 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was about 9 when "Dark Shadows" was huge and never gave a shit about it. Boring. So again, what is the allure of reworking something that has no cultural currency with the "target demo"?

why dont they just form a singularity in their pants

horror + soap opera, what could be worse?

http://open.spotify.com/user/lathamgreen/playlist/6oAn3jbCEuSOLGopVcuSMN

dark entries !! dark entries!!! Barnabus!! Peter!!

horror+ soap opera + reality show

I don't know how much cultural currency the original show has now, but people who never even saw it might see this b/c of Depp, Burton, vampires, they like the trailer, or for whatever reason they go to other movies. There are people who probably don't even know this is based on an tv show.
I actually love Dark Shadows but have no need to see it get the "Burton/Depp treatment" Sweeney Todd was okay but most of the recent ones have been terrible (or looked terrible.) If anything they are probably worse for people who have any fondness for or knowledge of the source material.

i think there's an older This American Life episode about a dude who goes to a Dark Shadows convention

there could be non-cynical reasons for reviving it, like burton & co just dig it

I want to say "wtf people Sweeney Todd sucked" but I think my distaste for Sondheim had a lot to do with that opinion.

The best thing I can say about the last 15 years of Tim Burton's career(having not seen Sweeney Todd) is that Charlie & The Chocolate Factory wasn't awful.

I'm not a huge fan of Batman, but pretty much everything he did >15 years ago ranges from solid to wonderful.

Are you kidding? That was the worst one of that entire period!

(xpost)

I remember Sweeney Todd being not as bad as the others, but I like Stephen Sondheim. Though, they left out The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd and didn't employ good singers. I don't actually remember much else about it.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/5941081/tim-burtons-secret-formula

sure this has appeared on multiple tim burton threads but def applies to this trailer

that said, aside from Ed Wood, I've seen little reason to think Tim Burton should leave his wheelhouse

ed wood is pretty firmly in his wheelhouse

i think we both know how the point-counterpoint on that goes

shall we?

en garde!

weird old hollywood, b-movies, misfit protagonists, johnny depp.

go!

The singing in Sweeny Todd was lol but the visual spectacle (which is kind of the point of Burton films nowadays) was great and, since the story it was based on was good, it didn't have awful rhetorical flourishes like whatever the fuck that thing at the end of Alice in Wonderland was (the Fudderwacken?)

biopic, not fantastical (orson aside), bill murray

i dont like sondheim but i thought sweeney todd ws pretty good

biopic, not fantastical (orson aside), bill murray

― da croupier, Friday, March 16, 2012 11:33 AM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but i mean, come on, it touches on practically all his fixations, i'll give you its a bit of a departure, but it's still in his wheelhouse. just a different room in the wheelhouse. he's a successful director, he can afford a big wheelhouse!

ok maybe you didn't foresee how the debate of what defines a wheelhouse would go

NEVER. FORGET.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1vaEweJUUk

if I'd seen Alice or the original Dark Shadows I bet I'd be more annoyed by this trailer

Okay I forgot about that scene, I guess that does push AIW over C&TCF as the worst Burton, but its still really close.

t/s: "Fudderwacken" vs "the same CGI Oompa Loompa over and over"

As I understand it, the Fudderwacken one of the tweaks they made to Alice In Wonderland in the wake of negative test audience reaction to the original version of the film (which was mostly just two hours of Tim Burton urinating on Lewis Carroll's corpse).

I have not seen a Burton movie since . . . which came out more recently, Mars Attacks or Sleepy Hollow? Whichever of those.

Guys its only going to get worse:

On January 19, 2010, it was announced that after Dark Shadows, Burton's next project would be a Wicked-like film that showed the origin and the past of Sleeping Beauty's antagonist Maleficent. In an interview with Fandango published February 23, 2010, however, he denied he was directing any upcoming Sleeping Beauty film.[21] However, on November 23, 2010, in an interview with MTV, Burton confirmed that he was indeed putting together a script for Maleficent.[22] It was announced in The Hollywood Reporter on May 16, 2011 that Burton is no longer attached to Maleficent.[23]

Sleepy Hollow was more recent, '99 vs '96.

I still think my idea for Alice (The White Queen and the Mad Hatter are actually villains duping Alice into destroying Wonderland) would have been a more interesting movie

xp: oh no, Tim Burton had an idea for a movie that he is no longer attached to, the future is so bleak now

the worst thing about the fudderwacken was that the instant they mention near the beginning that the mad hatter has a famous dance or something you can see it all so crystal clear and you have to sit there for 90 minutes with it hanging over you

xp: oh no, Tim Burton had an idea for a movie that he is no longer attached to, the future is so bleak now

congrats for not reading all the way through, he's still involved

uhhh

or not, lol jokes on me

Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes were the one-two punch that pretty much TKO-ed Burton out of my favor.

the worst thing about the fudderwacken is EVERYTHING

the constant back and forth confused me, still the idea of the film is awful, Burton or no

I kind of liked Sleepy Hollow, but Apes was awful.

Apes was okay, I enjoyed it enough while watching it but have zero desire to ever see it again

i don't understand why Hollywood launched 900 "dark reinterpretation of a fairytale" tv shows and movies before a single one succeeded. Sure, it's a logical follow up to hit superhero and vampire movies, but it really does seem like a thousand ships were launched before we'd ok'd a single one. Unless Alice counts.

from best to worst:

Batman Returns
Batman
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
The Nightmare Before Christmas (i know he didn't direct this, but still)
Edward Scissorhands
Mars Attacks
Ed Wood
Beetlejuice
Corpse Bride
Sweeney Todd
Sleepy Hollow
Big Fish
Planet of the Apes
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Alice in Wonderland

Oh, god, I did see Planet of the Apes. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

lol never realized two of his movies are "Johnny Depp IS Ed..."

I saw Big Fish, too! Obviously I have repressed all memory of having seen these movies why because they are terrible.

Gonna start working on my fantastical script for Edison because seriously how could Tim and Johnny resist

I don't remember Sleepy Hollow, does anyone care to say more about it, pro or con?
Planet of the Apes was so awful.
I didn't see AIW.

I think I still own Big Fish, I bought it at one of those Blockbuster sales where you could buy DVDs for like $2. Still overpaid by about $3, imho.

Sleepy Hollow had Johnny Depp doing a Doctor Who impersonation and was chock full of comedy decapitations; it was great!

otm

comedy decapitations

yes, this is pretty much what I remember

also Christina Ricci making like zero impact as the love interest

oh no, Tim Burton had an idea for a movie that he is no longer attached to, the future is so bleak now

2012 is a bittersweet year

btw Pee-Wee's Big Adventure > Batman Returns > Batman

Sleepy Hollow was the last time Burton made a movie that I didn't find outright offensive. "Doctor Who impersonation and was chock full of comedy decapitations; it was great!" is about right.

OMG thanking Abbbottt for that clip. That's one of my favorite trex trax and I have NEVER seen that particular Bolan look. O_O

xxpost

Yeah, no kidding! Pee-Wee was Burton hitting his apex right out of the gate.

I wish I could find a clip of Christopher Walken going "RAAR!" like a scaaaary monster. That's the thing I remember most from Sleepy Hollow.

DJP I AM SO GOING TO FLAG POST YOU FOR REMINDING ME ABOUT THE FUDDERWACKEN GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL

Depp has some really funny beats in that trailer, but the 70's joeks are definitely, definitely played out.

Apes was kind of worth it for the art direction. I'll never see Big Fish because the Spaulding Gray thing freaks me out.

Big Fish is gorgeous. I love it.

I had no idea about the Spalding Gray connection until just now.

(which was mostly just two hours of Tim Burton urinating on Lewis Carroll's corpse).

― Soggy Cheeseburgers (Deric W. Haircare), Friday, March 16, 2012 11:38 AM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol thats still what it is

Yeah, the "Fudderwacken" scene just ratchets it up to defecation for the finale.

arrgh beaten to the punch

Got to say this looks ok!

I got a sort of Wes Anderson vibe from bits of it.

If Big Fish hadn't finished Spaulding the fudderwacken would have.

(sorry couldn't resist, hate myself)

this looks fun!

^ gets it

for a horrifying instant I thought you guys were still talking about the fudderwacken

grr Burton's Alice in Wonderland just makes me ANGRY

I got over the Depp/Bonham-Carter/Burton triangle a long time ago (I think the last thing I saw was Willy Wonka), but this looks positively awesome. Will see!

I hear Burton was going to remake Charlie's Angels with dead corpse ladies that shoot tiger claws from their anuses when they laugh but then he decided instead to save the world by Destroying Alice in Wonderland and leaving the charming spot it once occupied in the collective mind with a substance fouler than any the universe has ever knowed

that trailer sucked, all the jokes had a real HAHAHA RAP LYRICS BUT LIKE ALL STODGY AND PROPER ENGLISH AND SHIT THANKS FOR THE EMAIL FORWARD DAD vibe to 'em

thanks to how I have my web browser sized, I am going to be haunted by the phrase "DAD vibe" for the rest of the day

just DAD vibin to DJP's dad over here nbd

this will probably be cheesy and awful but I'm inclined to give it a chance since the source material really wasn't that great (unlike Burton's other depp abominations, charlie and the chocolate factory and alice in wonderland) to begin with.

as for mirror, mirror: I think taht will be good. I like Tarsem. It's certainly more promising than the other Snow White movie which would have me believe that Kristin Stewart is prettier than Charlize Theron.

Man...if Mirror, Mirror looks good to you, it's probably long past time for your cataract checkup.

when did you guys start hating fun so much

get bent, hating fun since 1976

they actually did the character from the past being bemused by television joke

Man...if Mirror, Mirror looks good to you, it's probably long past time for your cataract checkup.

I have a 5 1/2 year old so it looks good in that context (ie: movie I can take him to and not want to cut my head off)

they actually did the character from the past being bemused by television joke

what is this, some encino man shit? unfrozen caveman lawyer? but with vampires?

i dunno, maybe it'll be good and just has a lousy trailer. wouldn't be the first time. but like i said, the "dude from the past cannot comprehend our modern doodads" humor is plaaaaaaayed and seemed really stale to me.

at least the good thing about it being set in the '70s is there won't be any iphone joeks.

i agree with all the criticisms here but i still think j dog looks kinda hilarious

I saw and enjoyed Ultraviolet in the theaters, I have no real basis to object to anything resembling this movie

which will be worse, this or The Lone Ranger?

You guys took his version of AIW way too seriously, if has destroyed the original story for you.

On the one hand, I agree with you
On the other hand, did you not actually watch the fudderwacken

on the one hand stfu

xpost

I don't think I take it *too seriously*

But honestly how do you take a children's story that has been successfully adapted many times including a version that featured Carol goddamn Channing, and then turn into a stultifying heroin goth navelgaze

with a bloody FUDDERWACKEN

... was that a continuation of the rhetorical question or an answer

lol I'm tired

you shut up too :)

it's an answer, clearly

Carol goddamn Channing was great in that adaptation btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-MLwPW86Rs

^^^OTM

def one of the better adaptations

this looks fun! stupid, silly, but potentially entertaining, and i do love johnny depp, so sign me up. i'm kind of a burton apologist, though. i find even his worst films sort of "diverting" or at least generically "watchable". i'm a sucker for elaborate production design, gothic atmosphere, eye candy in general, and at the very least, he knows how to keep things moving colorfully along.

through a distended poop chute

I would be more inclined to watch this if it starred Depp and Carol Channing.

the comic timing on this looks really sharp. thats most of the battle there. "dude from the past cannot comprehend our modern doodads" humor still works for me tbh. i'm much cooler with stale 70s pop culture jokes than i am with the fucking fudderwaken. and pfeiffer, hbc and green all look like they're havin some fun. peace

man see u

Most times, I'd rather watch stupid fun than some serious brooding bs.

Also, the 1972 date made me think of "Dracula AD 1972"

shit this movie looks pretty fun

xxpost I was not besmirching Carol in that AIW adaptation, it's near and dear to my heart!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgIBGjXIoEs

Between that and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-UMlJhgQbY

Carol Channing scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.

I loved her, but she was def weird as a kid growing up in the 80's

from best to worst:

Beetlejuice
Ed Wood
Edward Scissorhands
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Big Fish
Mars Attacks
Batman Returns
Sleepy Hollow
Batman
Corpse Bride
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Alice in Wonderland
Sweeney Todd
Planet of the Apes

obviously you can kind of imagine how I'd describe his overall career trajectory.
i'm not much of a burton fan, but surprisingly it's really only the last five on that list that i pointedly never want to see again. i kind of liked big fish.

I'd put Sweeney in top 10 but otherwise I pretty much agree

i'd switch alice and apes around, and put batman returns a few spots higher

i dunno alice had the worst shit of his career but also some nice stuff in it. apes was just bad bad bad bad.

I'm too afraid to even see Apes.

Just catching up with this and I feel no love for Tim Burton but I'll say that Mars Attacks and Ed Wood are pretty all-time. Edward Scissorhands has some great moments - mostly Winona Ryder in the ice-sculpture snow with that Danny Elfman score - but I've never loved it like others have. Sleepy Hollow is solid and fun iirc, but I haven't seen it since it came out and however many years can really change a man. Dark Shadows looks pretty stupid but it can go either way (fun! or FUCKING TEDIOUS SHIT).

Biggest takeaway from all of this is

I was about 9 when "Dark Shadows" was huge and never gave a shit about it. Boring. So again, what is the allure of reworking something that has no cultural currency with the "target demo"?

Morbs is now annoyed that Hollywood isn't making something for the "target demo"

btw if this is terrible I will be disappointed if there isn't a review headline along the lines of "Plumbing the Depps"

in a way apes is the worst kind of bad movie - excruciatingly boring. but alice outright offended me with its badness. apes at least had some great ape makeup.

sleepy hollow's kinda fun, chivo lubezki is really its secret weapon though

yeah i don't anyone involved in the PotA remake really felt good about it. burton says it was the low point of his career. everybody just seems to wish it hadn't happened. maybe they'll say the same about alice in ten years, i dunno.

alice made more than a billion dollars theatrically, so probably not

I saw Apes when it came out, didn't read any reviews, just met up w friends beforehand and got slightly toasted. I had a blast.

"Batman Returns" is the best Burton imo. Recently I was showing someone clips of it on youtube and we ended up practically watching the entire thing that way.

ed wood is just such a special movie to me, it is so perfect.

beetlejuice and pee wee's are also all-time. those are my top 3 i guess.

much of pee wee is totally out of what became tim burton's artistic "character." i like the tonal and visual looseness, the fact that he doesn't think to control every element of the mise-en-scene.

I also think Pee Wee works well because there was already a really specific framework for him to work within, Pee Wee's Playhouse already had its look, and Burton put a great shine to it. Not to say Burton didn't do anything, but like with Sweeney Todd (and I know there's dissension on that but w/e), the bones are established enough to not tempt him to fuck with them. Which is why Alice in Wonderland pisses me off so much. He would have done a much better job leaving well enough alone.

ya it's a great collaboration, is what it feels like. xp

wait i believe pee wee's playhouse post-dated PWBA.

but i don't think the movie (except for a few passages) looks anything like the TV show!

xpost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOGWbzUM-y8

this was comedy GOLD when i was seven

but i don't think the movie (except for a few passages) looks anything like the TV show!

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, March 17, 2012 6:42 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this too

'PWBA' is just about perfect.

Even if Large Marge and "Tequila" had been the only funny things in the movie it might still be all-time, but yeah, it's amazing from start to finish.

http://www.caseengaines.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Large-Marge.jpg

Edward Scissorhands
The Nightmare Before Christmas (controverhul)
Ed Wood
Beetlejuice
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Sleepy Hollow
Mars Attacks
Batman Returns
Sweeney Todd
Batman
Corpse Bride
Big Fish
Alice in Wonderland
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Planet of the Apes

amateurist's list was pretty much spot on. i've moved things around a bit, but not much. and regardless of who gets the director's credit, i figure the nightmare before christmas deserved to be counted as a "tim burton movie". dude's made 10 or 11 films i at least like. in that list, it's only at big fish that i start to have strong reservations.

Carol Channing is Johhny Depps Mom

You're johnny depp's mom

besides pwba mars attacks is the best...it's definitely his most cynical movie, and probably his funniest; it's like an alternate universe version of independence day (they make a great party night double-header btw).

also it's the one that least blatantly looks like a "tim burton movie"

I must admit, I am a woman and I did let a Depp got from my Utey

Not my idea of a successful publicity stunt.

I am saddened.

And that movie looks so bad.

there are posters ALL OVER buses and bus stops here in Chicago, kinda surprised at how big the ad campaign is so far

nobody in the US knows this show. movie is not going to do well.

dunno if that matters really

what was the last summer blockbuster based on little-known material that succeeded

you can strike "summer" from that entirely if you like

Iron Man was a minor player in the public's consciousness of the comic universe, methinks.

but tbh this will do nowhere near the box office Iron Man did.

again, remaking 40-year-old TV "properties" reminds me of Steve Martin's Sgt Bilko movie.

Iron Man was a minor player in the public's consciousness of the comic universe, methinks.

nah - Iron Man cartoons have been in TV rotation in America for at least a decade, and he's all over the comics. Nothing about Dark Shadows has been in wide distribution in America for decades.

Burton, Depp, vampires, comedy, how can it lose? I think the people that will stay away *are* the ones that are familiar with the source.

The trailer's winning, the subject's of the moment, and the Depp/Burton team-up is still a big enough draw to get a good opening weekend crowd in the seats. If enough people come out thinking it is funny and charming, then the obscurity of the source material probably won't matter at all. It'll just be "that funny vampire movie with Johnny Depp".

nickn otm

And I'm an exception to my prediction, I loved the show in the original run (as a pre-teen, and probably into my teen years), and think this looks good.

The original developed a whole teen fandom thing, along with Bobby Sherman, Partridge Family, etc - the mags referred to it as "DS."

RIP Jonathan Frid

what was the last blockbuster based on little-known material that succeeded

Eventually, John Carter.

lol by what standards did that succeed...? I thought it bombed

According to boxofficemojo, counting worldwide receipts it made back its cost with a little profit, but since the studio only gets half of that, still a bomb.

Half of the profit, or half of the gross minus all of the cost? Obviously it's not what anyone there was looking for when they green-lit it, but I thought it was interesting that a staggeringly mismarketed film could overcome terrible first-week sales by dint of word of mouth (also, being a good film, which I do not suspect Dark Shadows will be).

Also likely to make a lot on DVD sales I suspect.

the old formula was that a movie needed to make around 3x its budget in worldwide ticket sales for the studios to expect a profit. this has probably changed with the advent of dvd/blu-ray/netflix/etc.

The trailer for this was actually kind of....funny?

is it true that he died becuase the new movie is terrible?

Yes, yes it is.

i have to admit the trailer made me realize i'll be watching this at some point in the next few years on pay cable whereas you couldnt force me at gunpoint to watch burton's last few trips up his own baroquely whimsical asshole.

Have we posted this bit about the production of the show:

http://badassdigest.com/2010/12/14/terror-tuesday-how-burtons-dark-shadows-could-be-great-but-wont-be/

Also, an obit:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/rip-jonathan-frid-dark-shadows-barnabas-collins,72682/

While going into the offscreen lives of the cast members, that article didn't even mention that one of them was later the mistress of Claus von Bulow.

OTM about the "panic filled frames" of Frid's performance-so endearing! Also one of the main sources of suspense on the show.

voting for Sweeney Todd in the horror poll btw

Am I the only one who remembers the early 90s remake of Dark Shadows? I've never seen the original series, but I really liked the remake as a kid. I guess it wasn't very popular though, because it only lasted for one season; frustratingly enough, the final episode ended with a cliffhanger, with the female protagonist discovering the guy is a vampire.

I remember that the remake existed, but I haven't seen it.

I was thinking of nominating the earlier, Todd Slaughter version of the Sweeney Todd story in the horror poll, but didn't because I don't remember a thing about it.

From wiki

In 1991, a short-lived primetime remake was produced by MGM Television and aired on NBC from January 13 to March 22. The revival was a lavish, big budget weekly serial combining gothic romance and stylistic horror. Although it was a huge hit at introduction (watched by almost 1 in 4 households according to official ratings during that time period), the onset of the Gulf War caused NBC to continually preempt or reschedule the episodes resulting in declining ratings. It was canceled after the first season.

The final episode ended with a cliffhanger: Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) learning that Barnabas Collins (Ben Cross) was a 200-year old vampire. It has been reported[who?] that the opening episode for a proposed second season would have had Victoria collapsing, after seeing Barnabas, and losing her memory of his terrible secret.[citation needed]

It also starred veterans Jean Simmons as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and Roy Thinnes as Roger Collins, British character actress Lysette Anthony as Angelique Collins, Barbara Steele as Julia Hoffman, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as David Collins.

Barbara Steele as Julia Hoffman sounds good, I think.

I remember the remake, and remember hating it.

I doubt I would like it, but I'm curious to see it.

more re: John Carter

sounds like a bomb to me

if only John Carpenter remade Dark Shadows

I keep forgetting this is actually about to be released.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k90hz1_9Amk/T5nC5zkrVHI/AAAAAAAABo8/shs6t0bSKf8/s400/450661-Dark-Shadow-12-display.gif

This seemed very random and strange to me.

The dingier bowels of marketing.

Whats weird is that they have individual character posters up all around Chicago right now, but I've yet to actually see one for Depp. The Chloe Grace Moretz one is near my office and I see it every day.

OPI had a nail polish line for the last pirates of the carribean movie

what's that nail color you're wearing?
oh this? barnacle

ORLY?

Seeing tonight. Along with DS TV cast members, a nonagenarian vampire legend and a rock geezer make appearances.

or as you like to call it, "Tuesday"

http://rjbuffalo.com/images/apertures/shining_3_185.jpg

It's overly concerned with the undead, ie early '70s pop culture.

HBC is most valuable player.

What I can't figure out is why Burton, undoubtedly a man of vision, hasn't made a movie that wasn't an adaptation or remake since "Ed Wood" (which, coincidentally or not remains the general consensus for his "best" movie)? Is it all about the bucks?

One of those adaps is among his best films, Sweeney Todd. Doing a 30-year-old Broadway musical classic is not "for the bucks" even if you make it explicitly gory.

(All of Stanley Kubricks's films (aside from the first two I think?) were adaptations.)

also Sleepy Hollow had pretty much nothing to do with Washington Irving aside from the basic Headless Horseman image.

really an aptly named movie

What I can't figure out is why Burton, undoubtedly a man of vision, hasn't made a movie that wasn't an adaptation or remake since "Ed Wood" (which, coincidentally or not remains the general consensus for his "best" movie)? Is it all about the bucks?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 10:09 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

isn't it clear that he's just more of a visual stylist than an ideas guy? the only full-length films he has a writing credit on are Scissorhands and Nightmare Before X-Mas and in both cases he came up with the basic story and then gave it to a screenwriter to flesh out (his next project is a full-length adaptation of the early short he wrote, Frankenweenie, but again he had someone else do the screenplay). the real shame, i guess, is that he never found a writer or writers that could serve as a longterm creative partner the way he did with Depp as a star, so remakes and adaptations kind of became a logical direction to take (although obv i agree that he has lost his touch in other ways and could've done better even with the projects he has done).

maybe there's just a pile of terrible spec scripts sitting in a pile in his office from kids who think they've written 'the perfect Tim Burton movie,' though. supposedly Jonathan Gems, who wrote Mars Attacks, has written a bunch of unproduced screenplays for Burton, maybe they're great, maybe they suck.

the real shame, i guess, is that he never found a writer or writers that could serve as a longterm creative partner

john august

As with many auteurs, Burton may do plenty of uncredited rewriting (have TB or any disgruntled writers weighed in on this?).

John August, the writer whose breakthrough was Go, has had a hand in four of TB's recent films (incl story credit on this) and is listed for the upcoming feature version of Frankenweenie.

xp

well i meant specifically someone who was coming up with ideas for original films, not someone to help him adapt Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc. (xpost)

really i think Depp's embrace of CGI is far more tragic than his turn to remakes. he had such a gift for in-camera effects and then he just tosses them aside to make digital puke like Alice In Wonderland.

to my mind he's always been in favor of gimcrackery; it's just that his means of achieving it are less charming today than they were during - say - beetlejuice's claymation scenes.

on the commentary track to Ed Wood, Burton says it's the only script he's never changed/rewritten prior to production

Wasn't a fan of Sweeney Todd, so that sort of makes this one Burton's best in the last decade or so by default.

Not meant as a rave at all; just saying.

I'd call this movie somewhat original despite the tepid results, because my impression of the Dark Shadows series as a child was that it was monstrously boring, like every soap opera ever.

perfect match for tim burton, then

(i liked big fish)

I really like "Sweeney Todd." But really, that aside, Burton has show himself truly adept when it comes to original properties. "Pee Wee," "Beetlejuice," "Edward Scissorhands," "Nightmare Before Christmas," "Ed Wood" - these were all original scripts, and really are the guy's best, most iconic movies. SInce then it's been these garish remakes and recreations, perhaps good places to hang his visual sensibility but imo, aside from Todd, all pretty much duds (giddy dud though Mars Attacks! may be).

Big Fish is soooooo mawkish and sentimental, though.

Also, thematically creepy, I seem to recall.

I think the phrase "Big Fish" pops up a couple times in Shadows, incidentally.

it is mawkish, and probably not very good. It's like everything else TB has done; emotionally simplistic – schematic – kind of Aspie, sort of TB taking on Spielberg.

monstrously boring

perfect match for tim burton, then

nope, but should've done DS as a pure burlesque, and preferably with more kink and violence.

Never loved him before the 1-2 of Ed Wood/Mars Attacks!, haven't since. (and here we are recapitulating the goddamn career again)

btw how the hell did the French chick from The Dreamers and Casino Royale turn into an Anne Hathaway clone?

Big Fish was lame. Every so often something would happen and there'd be a real cool image on the screen and why can't i watch THAT movie?

Alice was cool. The retro-fitted 3D gave it a nice paper doll look in the pre-CGI scenes. I can forgive the post-Matrix plot autopilot because the design of the castle and especially HBC's queen was so much fun to look at.

As an aside, when did they confirm Beetlejuice 2? I keep seeing things here and there on it. Johnny Depp will be in it, of course, but not at Beetlejuice. Hopefully Beetlejuice won't be a Shrek/Aladdin's Genie-like pop-culture whore.

Oops, said it three times.

As an aside, when did they confirm Beetlejuice 2? I keep seeing things here and there on it. Johnny Depp will be in it, of course, but not at Beetlejuice. Hopefully Beetlejuice won't be a Shrek/Aladdin's Genie-like pop-culture whore.

I really hope this does not happen, it would be so bad.

really i think Depp's embrace of CGI is far more tragic than his turn to remakes. he had such a gift for in-camera effects and then he just tosses them aside to make digital puke like Alice In Wonderland.

― some dude, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 10:37 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah AiW was so incredibly ugly

I am sorry to have paid money to see this thing.

I guess $28 M gross is bad, given $150 M cost.

this movie looks good, maybe? i should get my hopes up though, right? cahiers du cinema (or jean-michel frodon in particular) liked it a lot.

it's easy to forget that burton is/was an accomplished director, one of the best directors that american cinema of the 1980s produced. his last few films (with big fish a partial exception) have been so dire that he could be zack snyder for all anyone cares.

shouldN'T get my hopes up

I am sorry to have paid money to see this thing.

otm. worst movie i've paid to see in the theater in a long time. hugely disappointing, even relative to other recent burton flicks.

I'm seeing it tomorrow night, I am unenthused/ambivalent

probably the right way to go in

Masochists!

I'm going with a group, they picked the movie I'm just tagging along to get out of the house/eat dinner

That's understandable. Unfortunate movies have been a component of many otherwise lovely evenings I've experienced.

I've seen plenty with this group, I'm used to it :)

So I saw Dark Shadows tonight and it-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

so
fucking
boring

otm. worst movie i've paid to see in the theater in a long time. hugely disappointing, even relative to other recent burton flicks.

It's totally understandable to think this movie boring or just plain bad, but how anyone could fail to see this is nowhere within earshot of the megaton disaster that was Alice in Wonderland is beyond me.

oh it's miles better than Alice

Dark Shadows has Alice Cooper doing 70's Alice; Alice in Wonderland only has junkie Alice which = massive fail on all levels

burton's filmmaking, while perfectly competent or more, feels completely anonymous and uninspired. all the CGI landscapes are so predictable and dispiriting. they could have hired any competent director, added some goth trappings, and it would probably be about the same.

it's kind of sad that the best parts of this film were all the cheap-but-funny fish-out-of-water gags.

it's also kind of sad that we're measuring this film's artistic success against alice in wonderland. i will probably never see a movie directed by this shell of a filmmaker again.

This just didn't have a reason for existing. Sweeney Todd did.

Dark Shadows just seemed to miss the point: the fish out of water gag should be like 5 minutes of the movie, at best. You can't make a whole movie out of that.

but how anyone could fail to see this is nowhere within earshot of the megaton disaster that was Alice in Wonderland is beyond me.

i know i'm in the minority on this, but i think alice in wonderland has a kind of casual pride in complete junkiness that makes its many sins seem sort of irrelevant. i took it as a cheap, dumb children's cartoon and was happy just to see distorted versions of crispin glover and HBC camping it up at the margins. it's a failure, of course, but it at least moves quickly from one colorful bit of nonsense to the next - never lets things drag the way dark shadows does.

Alice makes me so IA I can't even begin to say how much I hated it

the nihilism in it was just, ugh...maybe I'm too sensitive but it was just downright offensive

I look forward to watching Lucy once again pull the football away upon the arrival of Frankenweenie.

Dark Shadows just seemed to miss the point: the fish out of water gag should be like 5 minutes of the movie, at best. You can't make a whole movie out of that.

otm, and worse, the fish-out-of-water bits weren't funny even on the first pass. why beat a dead joke into the ground?

so many missed opportunities. stuffy old vampire twit asking a surly mod teen for dating advice: that should be funny, right? no! it was dumb and boring because the script and character interactions were wretched - and we never barnabus him trying to woo his beloved anyway. burton didn't spend any time developing the lead couple's romance. we were simply meant to gather from depp's tragically furrowed glances that true love (i.e., big eyes and pancake makeup) would eventually conquer all. what's a soap opera without some romantic complication? ten bucks down the drain, apparently.

"we never barnabus him" = "we never saw barnabus"

lol

You never her.

I barnabused right after I left that stupid barnabusing movie

the thing about burton's recent (hell, at this point most of his) movies is that while they retain all these signifiers of "weirdness" and "originality" (those tend to me the words that come up on press junkets) they seem so terribly devoid of anything surprising or inventive.

which is why his films are def. tending toward the discount rack at hot topic.

stuff w/ HBC character was uncomfortably misogynistic no? HBC gives JD unexpected BJ --> HBC stealing JD's essence --> JD kills HBC in horrible fashion, and we're supposed to cheer.

spoilers or whatevs, not that anybody cares.

I walked in expecting it to be terrible and ended up rather enjoying it. I mean, it's a mess. But it was pretty and funny enough. I guess Burton's twee goth stuff holds some kind of inherent appeal for me. Surprised by how raunchy it was however. Tone-wise, weird juxtaposition between goofy childishness and blow-jobs...

yeah it was weirdly raunchy.

BTW i had no fucking idea that dark shadows was a failing soap that decided to add a vampire after a year! that's wild.

(i knew it was a soap, i just figured it was about vampires from the beginning. maybe the sudden revelation that chloe moretz is a werewolf was an homage to the way the original show just tossed in a new element when things were getting stale.)

The last Tim Burton film I thought was of any value was The Corpse Bride, and before that Big Fish. Dark Shadows looked appealing from the trailer, but it's taking a beating here. I'll probably wait for video.

amateurist, you're dumping spoilers all over this piece like a leaky garbage bag.

trust me, it won't matter to anyone.

BTW i had no fucking idea that dark shadows was a failing soap that decided to add a vampire after a year! that's wild.

That's interesting trivia! I had no idea. Just think what could've been had Passions really taken off.

HBC stealing JD's essence --> JD kills HBC in horrible fashion, and we're supposed to cheer.

um, rather than cheer, i felt we were supposed to see that barnabus' treatment of julia replicated/inverted angela's treatment of barnabus, and i never for a moment thought that spoiler spoiler spoiler.

spoilers spoilers here be spoilers i guess

hmmm, i wonder how that scene was intended to play. i think we were supposed to be amused by it, maybe a little horrified, but ultimately sympathetic to barnabas who after all is the protagonist. if we were supposed to wonder about our identification with barnabas maybe burton could have made that clearer?

The last Tim Burton film I thought was of any value was The Corpse Bride, and before that Big Fish. Dark Shadows looked appealing from the trailer, but it's taking a beating here. I'll probably wait for video.

jeez, the corpse bride has its moments but is such a sad, pale shadow of the nightmare before christmas. and big fish is too mawkish by half (at least). i kind of like sweeney todd, but the last burton feature i can endorse without reservation is sleepy hollow, going back some 8 films and 13 years.

pfft to you and your mawkish, I <3 Big Fish

unreservedly love Sweeney Todd

PFFT PFFT PFFT

except sweeney todd is pretty okay

pffffffffffffffffffffft

I like fish out of water stuff. It's hackey and has been done a million times, but honestly, what hasn't?

Haven't seen this yet tho.

wd put perm stake thru movie vampires, kidz.

but HBC will surely be back for the sequel!

the nihilism in Alice was about the only thing that movie had going for it

I still wish they'd gone whole hog and had a hero/villain inversion where it was revealed that the White Queen was actually treacling Wonderland to death and the Red Queen's tyranny was the only thing keeping the realm alive, making the story more about balancing the forces than eradicating the evil. Maybe then they wouldn't have felt the need to shoehorn in the fucking fudderwacken.

(Basically I wanted that movie to end with Alice committing a violent pogrom against the White Queen's forces while sobbing her eyes out, eventually waking up back in the real world shaken, upset, and wholly mistrustful of authority and power. So yeah, the nihilism it had didn't bother me so much.)

The trailer for Frankenweenie actually makes it look halfway decent.

There was a nice DS moment in Pfeiffer's interview of the governess, where she's trying to ferret out if she's a lefty freak, asking "What do you think of the war?" "I don't watch TV." Seems left over from an earlier, smarter script.

The trailer for Frankenweenie actually makes it look halfway decent.

― heated debate over derpy hooves (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:30 AM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know! but won't be fooled again etc.

and we never barnabus him

This is still cracking me up.

I pushed to go see this based on the trailer and a got a friend sort of excited about seeing it, but now I really don't want to go see it and she still does and I'm probably going to wind up seeing it.

How can I prepare myself to Barnabus this?

get drunk

and take heart that Alice Cooper appears halfway through to break the monotony

it's not intolerable or anything, it's mildly amusing. in other words, barnabusing it is strictly optional.

it's better than Big Fish.

The trailer for Frankenweenie actually makes it look halfway decent.

"I swear I won't pull it away this time, Charlie Brown. Honest."

exactly.

although i kind of initially read that as "i swear i'll pull out this time"

So Lucy was a tranny.

worst reboot ever.

Pee-Nuts

As we speak...a new generation of fangirls is applying Rule 34 to Peanuts, and probably every other cartoon with which you grew up.

lol from tumblr:

Tim Burton should just make a movie called ‘Johnny Depp’.

plot twist: Johnny Depp is played by Helena Bonham Carter.

wd watch

if it was done sleuth style with hbc playing both characters it could work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHchmWsrfUo

^ ultimate fish out of water film

Wound up getting out of seeing it by getting showtime wrong and giving up.

I'm watching this now. Not bad, a few dumb montages aside. It is hard to buy Eva Green as an evil witch though.

If the thought of Johnny Depp playing a vampire for under 2 hours appeals to you, you will enjoy this.

beg to differ

i *thought* that idea appealed to me until I saw Dark Shadows

It's incredibly stupid and watered down. But that doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable. It just means they had like 6 producers and you end up with a safe Hollywood movie that lets Tim Burton goth out in a big-budget way.

As a soap Passions just got worse and worse

It is stupid and watered down. It isn't particularly enjoyable. Werewolf reveal was the biggest deus ex whogivesafuck ever. So why do I sometimes feel like defending this one? Must have something to do with Eva Green.

It's been a long time since I felt moved to walk out of a theater. Dark Shadows is as close as I've come. Not walk out in disgust as much as, I'd rather go sit in the parking lot.

Alice Cooper was cool tho

They should have made Alice Cooper the werewolf.