Tim Burton: Mo Money, Mo Problems
Poor Tim Burton. Even the Goths are giving up on him. The director, recently buffooned a la College Humor parody, is taking hits from all over. In the crotch.
The vid pikes Burton for turning his style into industrialized shtick. True. (Is he at all that manic though?) I’ve stopped giving a rat’s hemorrhoid about Alice since I found out it’s some sort of hockey sequel. (Way to dodge the whole little-girl creep-factor, by the way.) Danny Elfman’s taking heat too, and he’s faired pretty excellently in smaller productions and side projects. So, is money really the problem? A Coilhouse commenter seems to have it figured out:
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure budget – 7 million
Beetlejuice budget – 13 million
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory budget – 150 million
Alice in Wonderland budget – 150 millionNeed I quote the fallen prophet Biggie Smalls with this example?
It might be the damn-stupid incurable CGI trend. It might be budget pressure. It might be that he’s tired of all of us hounding him to death with our childhood expectations. Whatever it is, if Tim Burton doesn’t want his precious bunny-marker-autograph besmirched in the CalArts basement, he better… What’s that next thing he’s working on?… Frankenweenie (2010)… Oy.
Editor-in-Chief:
Marina, I love your write-up, but would hesitate to describe all Coilhouse readers categorically as goths. Actually, the big Tim Burton defender in our comment thread is actually a well-known gothic fashion designer. Just an editorial comment!
Agreed^2. Sorry that I implied it for the sake of emphasis… and Nadya, you know how I'm up in Coilhouse like everyday
I know. Love ya, babe. Let's catch up soon! There is talk of a Coilhouse bash in New York this spring or summer. Hope to finally meet!
Absolutely positively yey.
This is a nice culmination of my Tim Burton kick this week. I went to the Tim Burton Ball on Friday, the Burton MoMa exhibit on Saturday, then watched Corpse Bride, Batman Returns, Pee-Wee, and Beetlejuice. It definitely gets repetitive with the same actors, same Danny Elfman, and his fast zoom through graveyard/village perspective. Though if it's repetitiveness we're annoyed by, I'd rather bash Jackson Pollack for making the same painting again and again for ten years. Meanwhile, I'm still curious to see further additions to Burton's world. Sweeney Todd was cheesy at times, but still amusing overall. I'm interested to see Alice.
But why is Burton remaking his own film (Frankenweenie)?
I was the one who made the handy-dandy budget chart there, and even I wouldn't say that my opinion surmises the population of the entire mutated coilhouse universe. I love that little oasis of opinionated misfits, be they goth, faux-goth, neo-goth, goth sympathizers, or, you know, sane good hearted regular people.
I do think the numbers speak for themselves. There was a time where Burton's appeal was there was nothing else like him in the multiplexes, and his work was weird and strange and clearly very personal. Now, every few years we can expect him to trot out another black and white striped interpretation of something that most of us could really care less about what his "take" on it would be. If I wanted to know what Tim Burton thought about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I'd stalk him, call him up, and ask him. Since I neither have the time nor energy to give two craps about that, I'd rather he stick to making original content, which I know he can do well if he tries.
PS – Thanks for plugging my lil' site, too. Much obliged.
You're welcome, sir. Kudos.
And I think Burton still stands out, but as a sort of grandiose parody of himself. It's probably wrong for me to blame him entirely… it's the industry system that's rotten, and not in the pretty way.
I linked to the Fortune Teller at HERE Arts Center here: something Danny Elfman was involved with – darkly puppet show in a small theatre. It was amazing. Burton should take a long vacation and go do something like that, somewhere…
Best,
sane-ish
Kudos to Depp, then, that he still generates another memorable, albeit this time one-dimensional, on screen persona. He provides his Hatter with plenty of lovable eccentricities and rough edges, all the more noteworthy considering the non-existent depth to which the material affords him. He'll certainly be a hit with the kids. The rest of the cast are unpredictable in their output: Aussie newcomer Wasikowska overdoes it as the titular protagonist, Hathaway's saccharine White Queen grates on the nerves and the opaque Glover is unbearably boring as Stayne; whilst Carter's malevolent Red Queen is a hoot, Lucas induces a laugh or two as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Rickman oozes noble charisma as the Blue Caterpillar and Paul Whitehouse's March Hare steals every single scene he is in.