Mal: Can I come in? Inara: No. Mal: See? That's why I usually don't ask.

'Our Mrs. Reynolds'


Buffista Movies 7: Brides for 7 Samurai  

A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.


Amy - May 10, 2012 11:55:59 am PDT #20137 of 30000
Because books.

BECAUSE IT NEVER HAPPENED

I saw. And I can never, ever unsee ...


Polter-Cow - May 10, 2012 11:57:07 am PDT #20138 of 30000
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

I refuse to link that for you.

I thank you for not even giving me the temptation to click.


DavidS - May 10, 2012 12:01:29 pm PDT #20139 of 30000
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

The thing is, in the movie it's presented as a positive. Like, if only the Mad Hatter would get his dance on again then we would know that Underland (Wonderland) is free and glorious again. Whereas, it is just the opposite and makes you suspect the Red Queen knew what she was doing repressing all their free expression. If freedom leads to Mad Hatters' breakdancing then freedom must be quashed.


DavidS - May 10, 2012 12:08:26 pm PDT #20140 of 30000
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Ouch, Scott Tobias speaks the painful truth:

Somewhere in the sloping arc of Tim Burton’s career, what was once a sensibility slowly morphed into a brand. That distinctive gothic flair, freed from horror and animated by comedy in great films like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, has not gone away, nor has his attraction to stories about imaginative outcasts misunderstood by the squares around them. But what’s gone missing in recent years—Sweeney Todd excepted, though Stephen Sondheim had a hand in that—is the spiky wit and purposefulness that used to accompany that unmistakable visual style. There’s no doubt that viewers still know that they’re watching a Tim Burton movie. The question now is why.


Steph L. - May 10, 2012 12:25:21 pm PDT #20141 of 30000
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine

Well, the animated Frankenweenie should be arriving soon.

True story: we had a trailer for Frankenweenie before The Avengers. Unfortunately, the friends who went to the movie with us had had to put their dog to sleep that morning. I am not even kidding. Worst. Timing. EVER.


Atropa - May 10, 2012 12:54:04 pm PDT #20142 of 30000
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

There’s no doubt that viewers still know that they’re watching a Tim Burton movie. The question now is why.

Because we're desperate fans who are hoping that the spark and wit will come back. It's a dysfunctional relationship.

But saying that Tim Burton has become a brand is spot-on. And I feel like I, personally, shouldn't bitch about it too much, because a lot of MY "personal brand" owes a debt to the Tim Burton brand. But it still hurts to think that the man who made Beetlejuice or Big Fish isn't really around anymore.


tommyrot - May 10, 2012 3:12:06 pm PDT #20143 of 30000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

From Slate, a good review of Dark Shadows:

[link]

Dark Shadows (Warner Bros.) was probably a beneficiary of the low expectations I brought into it. Tim Burton adapts a late-'60s/early '70s TV soap about a melancholy vampire, with Johnny Depp in the lead: All the elements of that sound so drearily familiar, from vampires to TV-shows-turned-movies to Burton/Depp collaborations in camp-Gothic mode. And stretches of this movie do feel dreary: like Burton’s recent Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows puts too much faith in the power of lavish costumes and eye-popping set décor and Danny Elfman’s music, and too little in constructing a well-paced story. But there’s something there that elevates Burton’s Dark Shadows above the strained, plodding whimsy of his Alice: At least he and Depp, both avowed childhood fans of the original series, seem to be in their element and having a grand old time.

Yeah, I think the reviewer's low expectations helped....


Atropa - May 10, 2012 3:14:21 pm PDT #20144 of 30000
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

ION of mixed emotions for me: MGM Plans to Adapt Ray Bradbury's From the Dust Returned. I am ... wary. Yes, that's the best way to put it. [link]


Jessica - May 10, 2012 5:44:12 pm PDT #20145 of 30000
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset

Burton would treat it like the fucked-up black comedy it is.

Twenty years ago, yes. Now?

Because we're desperate fans who are hoping that the spark and wit will come back. It's a dysfunctional relationship.

Yeah.


beekaytee - May 10, 2012 6:07:03 pm PDT #20146 of 30000
Compassionately intolerant

True story: we had a trailer for Frankenweenie before The Avengers. Unfortunately, the friends who went to the movie with us had had to put their dog to sleep that morning. I am not even kidding. Worst. Timing. EVER.

I was having such a good time before the Avengers. Then, the Frankenweenie preview came up and I spent the next 10 minutes quietly crying.

Thank goodness the movie was enough to pull me out of it.

Love Tim Burton...won't be seeing that.