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I've always been a fan of his movies. Does anyone else like them? There has to be someone else that does.

My favorite is Corpse Bride, btw.

I wrote a university paper on Tim Burton. Was fun actually. :). The topic was "auteur theory" (sort of the personal touch that directors add to films they work on). We had to have at least three films so I used Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (my favourite of his, probably, At least the most watched), Edward ScissorHands, and Sleepy Hollow. I also referenced "Vincent" (fun short film he did that comes on the special release of Nightmare Before Christmas, among others. Was watching many, many of his films over those two weeks. :)

That sounds like a paper I wouldn't mind doing.

mm well Beetlejuice helped shape my childhood, so that's easily my favorite. Of course I love Edward Scissorhands, too.

@Quiet - I constantly write pop culture into my essays, and now that I'm taking Film Genres I can finally use the entire series of Cowboy Bebop into the final paper. Did your teacher love your paper?

I adore how you can tell it's a Tim Burton movie simply by looking at the eyes. He has the habit of making the eyes more recessed and even more so in movies that are actually dark.

That could likely be a make-up trick Kali, but it was neat to watch how they made Alice in Wonderland, by mixing live action with computer and making the Hatter's eyes larger than they should have been.

Amoena - he did. :). It was actually a legitimate topic. The class was on Literature in Popular Culture and there were about six paper topics available, with the two on Auteur theory being either Tim Burton or Wes Anderson. It makes me happy to see a new Tim Burton film and find that the comments I made in my paper are still valid. :)


I didn't pick up on the eye thing though. I focused on contrast, weird contraptions, the prevalence of certain actors and film professionals, and his fondness of odd twisty things. Not to mention houses on hills and attic rooms. There's also starting the film with something important to the story.

It's nice to see a director who actually likes movies, in the sense that he paid attention to film since he possibly could. My film genres teacher talks like that and when he shows us those black and whites he jokes with us (the few that actually get it) about how "none of you have probably seen this picture, you're too young" and i'm like <.< "yeah teach that was on last week on TCM.. teehee!".

More to the point:
You can tell that Burton appreciates films in the way he presents his own, which is refreshing.

Heh. I love all the retro stuff that's available now. I watched an old movie marathon on TCM around Halloween. Mostly Edgar Allan Poe stuff. Some of it was dreadfully dull but others were fun.

I remember watching the making of Corpse Bride and it was nice to hear Burton talk about working with stop motion and his comments on how it isn't common, not because it's out of style or anything, but few people have taken the time to really work with it in contemporary times. He used Toy Story as an example of a how a good film can really promote the medium it was made in. In Toy Story's case it was computer animation, and since Corpse Bride I think stop motion has become more popular again.

xD my favorite movie marathon was the Marion Davies one a few summers ago.. but that's because, I think, one of my favorite movies is Citizen Kane (cliche I know, but I can't stop giggling at a few lines).

I may have seen that "making of" too, or at least a snippet of it. And he's right, I mean there are few artists out there (masquerading as directors/writers/whatevers) that are true to their art.

I'm not a huge fan of Tim Burton movies, but quite a few of his movies were the highlight of my childhood.
Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, namely. I've watched those movies so many times, it's crazy.
I also watched Dark Shadows, and really enjoyed it. :p

I know it's done with make up, I had a friend that was able to make me look like I stepped out of a Tim Burton movie.

As I watch Alice, I forget that the people don't look like that, they did such a GREAT job with that!!!

Yeah, "the making of" on the DVD was really interesting to watch. The whole film was a mixture of live acting, motion capture, and green screen simultaneously. Johnny's Depps eyes weren't CG for instance, they were his own eyes, but sized bigger, and they used various film tricks and such along with costume to make the exaggerated sizing and such.

I thought it was interesting how they picked up the "futterwacken" dancer. Minus the anatomical impossibilities, that was an actual person doing it. He apparently had a video on My Space that one of the guys working on the film saw. Apparently, Johnny Depp doesn't dance.

I didn't think Johnny Depp moved, I thought he was just a mass of wax. I mean come on.. he looks like he's 20.

I love a lot of Tim Burton's movies, but I especially love A Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands.

Nightmare he produced, rather than directed, but it definitely still looks like one of his films, doesn't it?

Well, he came up with the story for it too.

I don't have a particular opinion on him one way or the other; I think he's done a pretty equal mix of good and bad films. If I had to pick a favorite off the top of my head I'd go with Sleepy Hollow, I think.

I saw a bit of Alice in Wonderland on TV and it gave me too many Uncanny Valley willies to ever want to watch it XD