Whenever I tell people my reasons for hating Tim Burton, I am always greeted with the same response, "But Shannon, you like Wes Anderson." Fine, so they both have very distinct aesthetics, an affinity for repeat casting and sometimes delve into animation, but at least Wes Anderson is talented. I won't deny that Burton knows his stuff; Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas are all easy classics (and let us not forget Pee-wee's Big Adventure), but with the arrival of Alice still weeks away, my frustration with the director has reached its capacity -- or at least the point at which I need to go all livejournal rant on his ass. Whenever I tell people my reasons for hating Tim Burton, I am always greeted with the same response, “But Shannon, you like Wes Anderson.” Fine, so they both have very distinct aesthetics, an affinity for repeat casting and sometimes delve into animation, but at least Wes Anderson is talented. I won’t deny that Burton knows his stuff; Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas are all easy classics (and let us not forget Pee-wee’s Big Adventure), but with the arrival of Alice still weeks away, my frustration with the director has reached its capacity — or at least the point at which I need to go all livejournal rant on his ass.
Let’s start with Johnny Depp. What are you doing with your life? Sure, you’ll redeem yourself with The Rum Diary, and your appearance in Doctor Parnassus gave you some Gilliam cred, but are you really not aware that you’ve attached yourself to a sinking ship? Do you feel some sort of allegiance to the man because he let you have scissors for hands and it catapulted your career? I’m not blaming Burton for your Jack Sparrow stint, but you’ve pigeonholed yourself just as badly on his behalf. Oh you, being all quirky and taking cues from Keith Richards. I don’t go to the movies and pretend to direct, so I’d appreciate if actors who long to be rock stars took their boydreams elsewhere. You’re 46 and still hot, now do something about it.
Helena Bonham Carter, you are a badass. I’m going to pretend you know you’re capable of way grittier and more affecting roles and give you a pass for mothering Burton’s children.
Onto Alice — a story visual enough to never have needed a film version (no easy task), and a preexisting film version way cooler than a high percentage of all other movies ever made. In 1988, Czech director Jan Svankmajer took a surrealistic fantasy approach to the work, combining live action with stop motion animation. Equal parts creepy and compelling, it will hopefully see a resurgence as part of an anti-Alice campaign that brings some well deserved attention back to the classic. In some ways, Svankmajer’s pioneering techniques and unique vision could be compared to Burton’s early work, and both could thus be classified as auteurs to some extent. I would be loathe to include Burton in a group that also holds the likes of Hitchcock in its ranks, however, or at least from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory forward (he really thought Gene Wilder was due for a facelift? really?).
The soundtrack is a joke. This is a man who had Danny Elfman score all but two of his films, and he’s now producing movies that warrant two separate soundtracks. The first will be the original score by Elfman, and the second is a who’s who of the Scene roster, including: Avril Lavigne, Pete Wentz, Pete Wentz collaborating with Mark Hoppus, Plain White T’s, All-American Rejects and some shitbox named 3OH!3. As if in acknowledgment of this marketing concession, Burton managed to throw on The Cure’s Robert Smith — godfather of all things mall metal — as well as the radical idea to close it out with Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”. I don’t know if I’m more upset with Mark Hoppus for implying Blink 182 was ever on the same plane as FOB or Tim Burton for letting Disney steal his integrity.
I’m not criticizing Burton for deciding to go with a big budget studio on the project. In fact, it’s probably the one issue on which I’ll cut him some slack. Alice will be in 3D, and until that method becomes the standard, it’s important for directors to get the type of financial backing that will allow them to really hone the technology (or it will never become the standard). But there are ways of doing this without becoming the studio’s bitch. For the record, letting them turn your artistic masterpiece into a faux goth wet dream is not one of those ways. Urban Decay, that makeup company you forgot about after you stopped wearing eyeshadow colors like ‘acid rain’ and ‘gash,’ reports on their website that they were called by Disney to create a product for the movie launch — case in point.
Growing old in Hollywood does not have to mean continuing to make movies just because you can. Scorcese’s lost it, but at least Shudder Island wasn’t merely a marketing gimmick. Don’t let MOMA’s sorry excuse for an exhibit fool you Burton; your gift is gone, and instead of accepting your suffering as a silent burden like the rest of us, you got $250 million to air your grievances. Off with your head.
February 23, 2010 at 10:52 pm, Jim said:
Whatever dude, I bet this new Alice in Wonderland will actually keep the story of Alice going for years. If your to old to enjoy it then so be it, it is no big deal really, your rant reminds me of a small child that has grown up as a single child in a family that spoiled their child and damaged that child’s ability to function in society in an adult. Well all know someone like you, your the one who always want things a particular way, so everyone around you bends to your will, just because your such a pain to deal with if you don’t get your way. So bitch and whine all you want, but just don’t expect anyone to remember anything about you except that your a whiny little biotch.
February 24, 2010 at 12:16 am, Shannon Hassett said:
Aww, that’s cute Jim, you’re trying to offend me.
There are a few questions you’ll need to answer for me, however, before you can really pack your little punch:
1. How old exactly do you think I am? (The answer is 23, so unless you’re pushing 13, which judging by your grammar you very well might be, nice try with the ageism platform)
2. Did you know that there are two forms of ‘to’ (well, three if you count the fact that I just used ‘two’)? It’s one of those tricks of the English language, called a homophone, that makes it so difficult to learn. Words sound the same but mean different things – so when you try and say I’m just ‘to old to enjoy’ Burton’s version of Alice, you really meant ‘too’ old. The same would go for your use of ‘your to old’ in the very next sentence; that would be the contractual ‘you’re’, as in you are (which funnily enough… I’m not!).
3. Do you really think taking the time to make judgments about my childhood – ones that you are in no way qualified to postulate considering your information is being culled from an opinion piece on Tim Burton – changes the fact that regardless of your feelings afterward, you still read my post? And what’s more, that these feelings were so strong you even felt compelled to comment?
To be honest, it seems like you simply read the title, gathered that it was going to be a criticism of Tim Burton’s version of the story, read the lead paragraph (hence your use of the word ‘rant’) and then decided to attempt a potshot of a comment at the author with little to no justification other than your dislike of others stating an opinion contrary to yours, which at the end of the day, is exactly what you’re claiming is my grand old character flaw, is it not?
So in future comments, Jim, I would love for you to take direct issue with any of the details I mentioned regarding the movie, the director – there are many famous treatises against the auteur theory, so that’s always a possibility – but please, spare your time and my own next go ’round and stick to the actual post.
February 24, 2010 at 11:04 am, Sorian Grey said:
Your quite mad indeed. Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea to go with your sour grapes. Art is very subjective and open to interpretation. You are entitled to your opinion-everyone has an opinion just as they have an arse. So id like to add a few statements of my own…get all Siskel to your Ebert.
Robert Smith godfather of mall metal? ummmm hmmmm…a little music history lesson…The Cure has been making enchanting gloomy moody music for many,many years and is defined as modern rock or modern alternative and yes ill say it-goth…nothing close to metal. The Cure have way more in common with say Depeche Mode than Metallica. Also, it’s not his fault that the recent influx of hipster trash that’s flooding the music industry(and malls) notes him as an influence.
Oh and so what that it has not one but two soundtracks? Ok yes the original score by the “god-of-modern-film-scores” Danny Elfman is something to look forward to… and ill give you that the “Almost Alice” is “Almost S**t” the only promising track is the one done by Smith. They should have let him do the whole thing-even better they should have had him and Elfman do it together. It would have been a miraculous deathmatch of Oingo Boingo vs. The Cure. But I digress, so what if there is two? Who cares? Download what matters and disregard the rest.
Disney is a clever marketing machine- i’ll admit. But you have to actually acknowledge and consider Tim Burton’s stylings,imagery and his prior creative endeavors. Disney was his former employer. He was an animator at Disney when he first developed Nightmare Before Christmas. He was told “no” by Disney. Now it and other Burton films it have become classics. Now Disney and others are crawling on thier knees to have the “Burton” treatment on one of thier projects.
I do not think that he is a sell-out or has lost his touch because of things that he has made are popular. This only shows validation of Burton’s style and aesthetics. Burton’s exhibit at MOMA celebrating his career and past work with art, design and film is highly justified. Burton has earned his place- he is no longer the young animator kid from Burbank trying to help an avant-garde comedian and convincing his favorite musician friend to make a quirky film.
..and yes I belong under that huge black umbrella of “goth”. So I may be a little biased.Oh and by the way im not some kinder-bat(as me and my friends call young gothlings)-I am 33 years old. I was raised on Burton films and relative projects. I watched the Beetlejuice cartoon on Saturday mornings. This was before I even knew what the hell “goth” was. So yes im very intrigued to see the “Burton” treatment of Alice in Wonderland as it was another of my favorites from my childhood.
Leave it to the goth chick to have a positive view. How ironic. To each his own.
February 24, 2010 at 11:29 am, Shannon Hassett said:
I would love some tea, Sorian, though I wouldn’t call ire at dumbass comments akin to sour grapes. Your comment, however, I fully appreciate.
When I use ‘mall metal,’ I’m attempting to describe a subculture common in NJ (where I grew up) that seems to be the same as what you call ‘kinder-bats’. In other words, all those tweens who hang out in front of Hot Topic, which in NJ, is only located in malls, hence our use of mall metal to describe them.
I agree with your sarcasm regarding Elfman; I actually much prefer Philip Glass and don’t enjoy Elfman’s scoring (except on ‘Big Fish’), but that doesn’t change the fact that an original score will always beat out an Avril song for a soundtrack. I also think an entirely Smith produced second soundtrack would have been awesome.
My argument was not that Tim Burton was a sell-out for going with Disney; I actually said that was the one point on which I wasn’t going to give him any flack. I also don’t think getting popular necessarily means selling out, but my opinion is that Tim Burton has stopped being as creative as he’s gotten older and started settling on an overdone aesthetic that lacks innovation and a repetitive method of acting in most of his recent work.
You are totally allowed to be biased and excited for Burton’s take on Alice. I’m not, but it’s awesome to hear why someone else would be. To each her own.
February 24, 2010 at 11:54 am, Peyton Westlake said:
Is a corduroy jacket required to read this hate-on, insignificant hipster flash website?
Blaming Tim Burton for an Avril Lavigne tie-in soundtrack is a bit naive. It’s more likely a product of Disney’s massive marketing for this picture. Burton is as involved with Pete Wentz and Mark Hoppus as he was with Prince penning tunes for BATMAN (1989, when you were how old, Shannon?). That is to say not at all.
February 24, 2010 at 12:32 pm, Shannon Hassett said:
I was 3. Prince rules. You just took the time to read a really fucking long article for a site that’s so insignificant. My blazer is a wool hacking jacket from J.Crew, but you can rock corduroy if you prefer.
March 12, 2010 at 3:47 am, Dee said:
Well all I can say is you were wrong, Tim Burton did not butcher “Alice in Wonderland”, he actually extended it. I rate this movie a solid 8/10. I even enjoyed Avril’s song during the credits, call it a guilty pleasure, whatever you want. But I saw no butchering on the silver screen as you predicted, everyone with a blog these days thinks they are a good critic, but they’re not. Don’t quite your day job, dude.