Lileks vs. Tim Burton

Lileks smacks at Tim Burton in his Backfence column:

I'm done with Tim Burton. I loved some of the earlier movies, but I peeled off after the second Batman. Subsequent efforts have bored or amused, but what counts is that I don't get that old familiar thrill: Dude! A Tim! Burton! Movie! I am so there. I am so not. I am so renting the DVD nine months later. Some artists keep me interested; others lost me years ago.

Yeah, that's pretty much the case. I liked Charlie and the Choclate Factory, but the Roald Dahl wrote weird and creepy kid's stories. I also didn't see the whole Michael Jackson connection but that is perhaps because I have avoided all refernce to that disturbed individual. Um, what was the last Tim Burton movie I liked? Well that depends, did Batman or Edward Scissorhands come first? When my mom, sis and I took the kids to see Charlie, there was a trailer for Corpse Bride. Again from Lileks:

The rather pretentious name of the movie is "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride," which seems to suggest he is not only a necrophiliac but a bigamist, unless he smothered Helena Bonham-Carter before renewing their vows. In any case, the movie -- due exactly one month from today -- concerns a fellow who mistakenly betroths himself to a dead woman. Or rather a dead puppet, since this is all stop-motion animation. She takes her revenge, I assume, all to the oompa-oompa accompaniment of the obligatory indistinguishable Danny Elfman score. I'm sure it'll be a hit with the glum-teen-female crowd, because, well, the Corpse Bride is dead, which makes her not just cool but downright lucky.

We immediately jumped to cover the eyes of the tots. Who needs this? It seems a pointless excursion into morbidity. I am not against suspense or action in a kid's flick, I think that parents should gage the appropriateness of the material for thier kids. Corpses though? Wasn't it bad enough we had shriveled heads for Christmas presents? If I want offbeat kids stuff I can delve into the classics. Mary Poppins wasn't the relentlessly cheerful Julie Andrew, her magic had an edge of danger to it. Let's see a remake of Poppins by Nicolas Roeg who directed The Witches a marvelous adapatation of another Dahl story. Place it in the hands of PJ Hogan who reclaimed Peter Pan from it's saccharine animated version and told Wendy's story anew.

Lileks contrasts Tim Burton with Nick Park the creator of the Wallace and Gromit claymations whose feature is premiering opposite Corpse Bride. He asks:

Quick! You get to name the ruler of the world. Burton or Park? In whose world would you rather live?

I say: "Crackin' toast Gromit!"