Tim Burton -- classic or dud?

beetlejuice 2: beetlejuice goes hawaiian

would probably watch that too

dug up this quote from an old alice thread:

"Every other version I've ever seen, I've never really connected to because it's always just a series of weird events," Burton said. "She's passively wandering through, meeting this weird character, that weird character. It's fine in the books, but the movies always felt like there wasn't anything underneath them. That's what we tried to do. Instead of the Hatter just being weird, [we wanted to] get some kind of character underneath him. That's the goal, is to give the 'Alice' material a little more weight to it."

wow thank god you were there to 'give a little more weight' to one of the greatest books ever, you doofus.

that TB quote right there is pretty much why I hate screenwriters in a nutshell.

weirdy mcweirdson of weirdsville decided his source material was too weird xp

giving the Hatter character = dancing like a nit

"yes but who ARE the flying monkeys"

can you imagine if he made 'pee wee' now? it'd start out with a flashback to 10-year-old pee wee getting hit by a bike.

I liked the back story he gave Willy Wonka in that Charlie Chocolate Factory movie but at the same time, in typical Burton fashion is underlined the motivations of the original story way too much (ie original was a sad treatise on spoiled children and horrible parents masquerading as a fun adventure)

he just can't help to make everything bummertown USA

in typical burton fashion *he, not is

I really really liked his version of charlie, especially the whole michaely-jacksony parallel xp

i liked a lot of it, but there was something about the disco-y ness of it that really annoyed the shit out of me at the same time

depp did a nice carol channing, I thought :)

oh yeah, the pop culture oompah-loompah sons were shithouse

*songs

bahahaha carol channing

i got really really tired of deep roy after a while

making wonka into a sad victimized dude just messes too much with the whole dynamic of the story. the original film's take, where wonka remains mysterious, genuinely unpredictable, and even vaguely malevolent throughout the whole story, seems much more in line with dahl's intentions. plus wilder's thinly veiled delight in the kids' fates is way 'darker' than anything in burton's film.

yeah that's what I mean -- burton can't resist telegraphing all of that dark backstory, when you really didn't need it
it was a nice creative detour though

christopher lee as scary dentist dad was perfect casting

yeah, that's very true (xp to j.d.)

but at least burton told the story that was the actual title of the actual film

as opposed to, you know, 'the battle for wondergarth'

lol

sadly absent of wombles

can you imagine if he made 'pee wee' now? it'd start out with a flashback to 10-year-old pee wee getting hit by a bike.

genuine lols. sad but true

his idea of character develeopment is just to have a flashback sequence of his dad being mean to him and not understanding his art maaaaaaan

his schtick is now as one-note and lame as gilliam's on that level

I finally watched Frankenweenie today (well, I caught the 2nd half) --- I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. I laughed out loud in lots of places and got quite a kick out of all the movie references. Will definitely seek it out and watch the whole thing. I think had gotten so Burton-shy I wasn't sure if he had completely lost his touch, but animation is definitely still his bag. And really quite beautifully executed with all black and white imo, it had quite a nice warmth to it somehow. idk. it looked pretty is what I'm saying.

yeah i totally loved it. nothing surprising at all but all the usual burton riffs -- frankenstein, rankin-bass references -- felt comfortably familiar and sweet and nice to see again. it felt like the real burton, not the hollywood hack who's taken his place for like a decade.

otm

which kind of makes me slightly mad - if he could do THAT why is he insisting on doing all of this other garbage ffs

him and Gore Verbinski and Johnnny Depp need to be forced by court order to stop making movies together, like a 20 year moratorium
hang out in a fucking bar if you like each other so much, ffs

depp's career is pretty sad too -- he was awesome until he did the pirates movies and suddenly turned into this guy:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/johnny-depp-now-physically-unable-to-walk-unless-w,32942/

yep

which kind of makes me slightly mad - if he could do THAT why is he insisting on doing all of this other garbage ffs

is that how he funds his pet projects? idk

i feel like there haven't really been many of those in a while -- every now and then he does a stop-motion thing but i feel like there'd be an audience for those no matter what.

the way hollywood works now (a small number of blockbusters at us$200m a time) he'd be hard pressed convincing the suits that his stop motion fantasy would rake in what alice in wonderland made

i don't know anything about its development so maybe i'm wrong but i figured dark shadows was a pet project. i mean who else cares. and i didn't see it but it looked better than alice. although so is... everything.

otm, alice was so very horrible

yeah they're all pet projects, it's just he keeps putting the same people in and it's like episodes in the same terrible tv series

burton: "WHAT i have to cast my wife AGAIN"
exec: "we can always look at one of these…"
burton: "oh all right then, i'll bring helen in tomorrow"
exec: "you don't have to…"
burton: "I SAID IT'S FINE"
exec: "but it…"
burton: "SHUT UP"

hahahaha

the real crime of Burton's latter career is how thoroughly he has made Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter seem incapable of acting

YES

Big Eyes looks like a real departure in terms of casting. I imagine it looking like Big Fish but I dint think there is a trailer. It's a biopic of one of his favourite artists.

Huh. The guys who wrote Ed Wood and yeah, a total shift from his usual rep players. This will be make or break for me, a sort of control to see if he knows how to make a movie anymore minus his usual crutches.

This will also be the first film Tim Burton directed since Edward Scissorhands to not have Chris Lebenzon involved with the editing, due to him having other commitments with Maleficent.

Hmm. Lots of changes. Good luck, Tim Burton!

I'm intrigued

is tim burton aspies y/n

Looking at the cast again (seemingly no people from older Burton films) Krysten Ritter seems ideal. Danny Elfman the only major recurring collaborator here?

I wished that Crispin Glover was in a better Burton film.

He and H Bonham Carter have broken up after 13 years.

Anyone amped to see Big Eyes?