Alice in Teaserland

Maybe "Tweedle Dee!" should be the new "Squeeeee!" for excited exclamations. You've probably seen the new images via USA Today and the info on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland? But I'd like to talk about the cast and the polish. One of the only pluses of mainstays like 'Wonderland' being retold each decade over original work is to see how the different eras and visual artists interpret them.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

Wonderland. If you click over to USA Today you can move
around in the gardens with your mouse. For what it's worth it looks like
Edward Scissorhands has been hired as Wonderland's landscape artist.

Mia Wasikowska as Alice (the oldest Alice since Meryl Streep?) and
Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and Tweedleydum

Helena & Anne Hathaway as Red & White Queens. Depp as Mad Hatter.
I love what My New Plaid Pants says about the latter: "if Elijah Wood
and Carrot Top had a baby" Ha!

The look is certainly eye-popping and I will be there on day one (March 5th, 2010 to be exact) but maybe the saturation (will it be garish onscreen?) and practically-an-animated-movie CGI smoothness is worrisome. Is Burton moving too far into George Lucas 'make it up on the computer later!' green screen terrain as a filmmaker? And given that we're seeing a batch of teasing photos a full 270 days before this is opening is this going to be one of those movies (like Terminator Salvation or Spider-Man 3) that shows and tells all prior to its release?

What, me? Worry???

I'm thinking about Burton's oeuvre today because i09 is remembering the game changing public mania that surrounded the release of Tim Burton's Batman 20 years ago tomorrow (June 23rd, 1989). Yes, long before Nolan made that crazy successful The Dark Knight, Burton was largely creating our current movie culture. Supermans I-IV beat him to the superhero game but their very rapidly diminishing returns didn't make the superhero franchise idea all that viable. It was Burton and that yellow and black symbol, plastered on everything, that did it.

Remarkably that particular Batman starred neither Johnny Depp (the star of literally 50% of Burton's filmography) nor Helena Bonham-Carter (who appears in 6 of Burton's 14 features). If the film were remade today they'd be your Batman Joker and Vicki Vale replacing Jack Nicholson and Kim Basinger.

<-- You know they would!

I'm exaggerating a little since their absence was a given. Burton probably hadn't even met them. In 1989 Depp was still on 21 Jump Street and Helena Bonham Carter was that tiny corseted Merchant/Ivory dress-up doll.

Burton's Troupe O' Players

Johnny & Helena aren't the wild haired auteur's only favored thespians. He isn't quite Woody Allen or Scorsese in the steady faces game, but here's a list of his other pets. I personally think he's underused Sarah Jessica Parker who aced both of her Burton roles, totally understanding his peculiar comic tone.

6+ collaborations
Johnny Depp & Helena Bonham Carter

5 collaborations
Lisa Marie (Burton's ex) - Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Planet of the Apes, Sleepy Hollow and the short Stainboy

4 collaborations
Christopher Lee - Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice
Deep Roy -Planet, Big Fish, Charlie, Corpse Bride

3 collaborations
Danny DeVito -Batman Returns, Mars, Big Fish
Jeffrey Jones -Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, Sleepy
Michael Keaton - Beetlejuice, Batman, Batman Returns
Glenn Shadix - Beetlejuice, Planet plus Stainboy

2 collaborations
Albert Finney -Corpse Bride, Big Fish
O-Lan Jones -Edward Scissorhands, Mars
Martin Landau -Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow
Jack Nicholson -Batman, Mars

Sarah Jessica Parker -Ed Wood, Mars
Vincent Price -Edward Scissorhands and the short Vincent
Paul Reubens -Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Batman Returns
Alan Rickman -Sweeney, Alice
Winona Ryder -Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands
Timothy Spall -Sweeney Todd, Alice
Missi Pyle -Big Fish, Charlie
Sylvia Sidney -Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks!

Who are your favorite Burton players? Share in the comments. Do you think he should keep reusing people or move on like Paul Thomas Anderson when he left all his regulars behind for There Will Be Blood?

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Revelations Winners Revealed

Three alien-loving Film Experience readers have won The X-Files: Revelations DVD set. Eight episode of Chris Carter's beloved series (starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny) are going home with them. The episodes are handpicked for their relevance to the new movie. I asked all contestants what their favorite movie about aliens were. The randomly drawn winners named the following films...

Rene in Texas loves Mysterious Skin. An interesting choice for the aliens question. Those of you who've seen it will agree.

Lynsey in Maryland is fond of a James Cameron's flick The Abyss.

Ed Harris is simply the icing on a big old fantabulous cake when it comes to that flick.

Ed as icing? Yes, please. Smother my deserts with it.

Neel in Nevada choose one of my favorites Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! for three reasons.

1. The Bening, hot off The American President and willing to try something completely different.
2. When the filmmakers decided that the temporary solution of having the aliens saying only "Ack ack ack" was funnier than anything else they could come up with, so they kept it.
3. The scene where they show the contrast between The New York Times' sobering, scientific headline announcing the alien arrival and The New York Post's more tabloid approach.

"Ack Ack Ack" really is one of the funniest lines in the history of the cinema. I laugh every time... which is saying a lot because the line is repeated hundreds of times. I also completely love Sarah Jessica Parker in that movie. She's so undervalued as a comic actor in that she's only really valued for Sex & the City these days but hasn't she been wonderful in so many other comedies, too?

20:07 (Burton Scissored)

I love this 20:07 image from Edward Scissorhands I’ve always loved the way Edward embodies all things Burtonian and yet he’s in this very pastel environment for most of the film. In this still he's in Kim's bedroom, the girl he'll soon fall for. It’s such a great juxtaposition --a perfect visual foreshadowing of the most famous dialogue exchange later on:

Kim: Hold me.
Edward: I can’t.

The environment may be soft but it’s hard on Edward. He’s all uncomfortable sharp edges. The irony being that Edward is himself deeply squishy and huggable on the inside.

Tim Burton is on the brain due to that Cinema's Demon Barber Event on Wednesday. I thought I’d share a few anecdotes not involving a certain Sondheim musical since some readers asked.


The initial Burton clipreel provoked a lot more smiling nostalgia that I expected. T’was a great reminder that he’s consistently been one of the most fun filmmakers to ever contribute to the medium (“fun” being a major compliment). Dialogue snippets from the film were obviously chosen for their correlation to the man behind the curtain. Lines like "Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds", "We are dealing with a madman here", "People fear the unusual", and "visions are worth fighting for" (yet the editors were smart enough to include “I am Catwoman. Hear me roar” which made no sense in context but who can get enough of Pfeiffer’s line readings in that film? Not I!)

They divided the evenings clips up into three sections: Blockbusters -- in which they discussed the effects heavy films and/or smash hits, Animation --in which they discussed the short films which put his name on Hollywood tongues many moons ago plus the feature toons, and Collaboration with Johnny Depp -- in which they discussed the rest of the filmography (Johnny’s in just shy of half of his films)


Some notes of interest from the evening:

• During the blockbuster section, Burton reminded us that Hollywood didn’t always think in terms of “franchise” and “fast food tie-ins” and the only ground rule for the original Batman was “make it successful” –that got a big laugh.
  
• He seemed to have mixed feelings about Batman Returns but mentioned that he was proud to have made a movie where a major character licks themselves and that while making it he was entirely focused on the animals (The Penguin and Catwoman).
• The interviewer was doing that annoying thing interviewers do at these events where they try to be overly kind about a critical failure. Burton was much more direct about the disappointment that was his Planet of the Apes remake. He said with some defeat in his voice ‘it made money. But that’s not why you make movies.’ He made it because “I was lured by talking apes” His final thought: "I tried"
  
• He knew of Pee Wee before they made Big Adventure and that his job there was different than it’s been on other pictures. The character was already created: He just had to provide the world Pee Wee could live in.
  
• He once worked on Disney's Fox and the Hound. While he worked there it was "a dead place." He mentioned that the talent was amazing (John Lasseter, Henry Selick, Brad Bird were mentioned by name) but nothing was happening. That nothing gave him freedom to make Vincent.
  
• He felt bad for other filmmakers after Ed Wood bombed because he had to talk everyone into letting him make it --he knew that the failure would prevent other black and white pictures from getting the greenlight.
  
• Though he started as an artist, he storyboards less and less. He’s more interested in collaborating with the actors and seeing what happens.
  
• The audience at the event loved the conversation about Sleepy Hollow. He reminded us that this was before Pirates of the Caribbean. He knew that though people liked Johnny and him, there was a feeling of "duck and cover --here comes another bomb." He said that Johnny wanted to look like the Disney animated Ichabod with a huge nose but the studio was against it. The compromise: 'Johnny you can’t wear the nose but OK, OK you can play the hero like a 13 year old girl.'
  

On that amusing note, let's wrap up. These are my favorite Burton films:

1 Edward Scissorhands
2 Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
3 Ed Wood
4 Batman Returns
5 Mars Attacks

Share yours in the comments.

A History of... Sarah Jessica Parker

It's Tuesday. Time for another episode of "A History of..."


1965 The Parkers welcome frizzy haired baby girl Sarah Jessica into their fold in Ohio. These kids all sing for their supper. Sarah isn't the only professional kid.

1979 At an over-the-hill 14, Sarah Jessica Parker improbably steps out of the chorus and into the lead role of little Orphan "Annie" in the hit stage musical. Spends a year singing "Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I love ya tomorrow. You're only a day away..." [oh, I'm sorry. Is the song stuck in your head now? Think how SJP feels, whiner.]

1982 Sarah plays a nerd in TV's "Square Pegs" to the delight of many kids in America. The show is cancelled. In the surprisingly enduring nostalgia for all things 80s, though, Pegs lives on.

1984-1990 After segueing into 80s staples like Footloose & Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! SJP gets lost in two volatile dramas for seven years. The first: the TV market of thankless guest spots and cancelled series. The second: Robert Downey Jr.

1991 Her ebullient turn as enema enthusiast "SanDeE*" in Steve Martin's LA Story revitalizes her film career. It leads to a string of films (Miami Rhapsody, Honeymoon in Vegas, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood, The First Wives Club, 'Til There Was You' and State and Main) that prove her to be a supremely talented comedienne. Meanwhile, everyone politely looks away while she "acts" in dramas (Extreme Measures, Striking Distance.)

1995 In interviews for Miami Rhapsody Sarah Jessica reveals that the goal of her career is to become a 'gay icon like Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler.' Roughly 1095 days later (see: 1998) faerie dust is liberally applied, sending career flying. Call her Sarah Jessica "Cassandra" Parker.

1997 Ladies and gentlemen I give you Mrs. Matthew Broderick --or is it Mr. Sarah Jessica Parker? In the ensuing year...

1998-2004 ...Sex & The City premieres. Even in impractical $500 stilletos it never once trips in the ensuing popculture-quake. Cue: total gay hysteria, HBO subscription fever, fashion trend frenzies, her name used as exclamation point on "Will & Grace", and superstar status bequeathed to Ms. Parker. Dreams do come true (see also: 1995)

2006 SJP begins her fight for romantic comedy queendom with Failure to Launch. The bloodied big money crown is currently worn by Reese Witherspoon. It was once seen briefly atop Sandra Bullocks congenial follicles. In the most famous dispute over ownership, it was torn painfully from surgical implantment in Meg Ryan's cranium by the all-devouring mouth of Julia Roberts.

The Broderick-Parkers whisper a prayer to the flat iron gods that "Failure to Launch" is not wielded maliciously as a pun to describe her post-Sex career.

Previous Histories
Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal
Julianne Moore's Screen Kids
Gay Cowboys

back to...
the full blog

A History of... Sarah Jessica Parker

It's Tuesday. Time for another episode of "A History of..."


1965 The Parkers welcome frizzy haired baby girl Sarah Jessica into their fold in Ohio. These kids all sing for their supper. Sarah isn't the only professional kid.

1979 At an over-the-hill 14, Sarah Jessica Parker improbably steps out of the chorus and into the lead role of little Orphan "Annie" in the hit stage musical. Spends a year singing "Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I love ya tomorrow. You're only a day away..." [oh, I'm sorry. Is the song stuck in your head now? Think how SJP feels, whiner.]

1982 Sarah plays a nerd in TV's "Square Pegs" to the delight of many kids in America. The show is cancelled. In the surprisingly enduring nostalgia for all things 80s, though, Pegs lives on.

1984-1990 After segueing into 80s staples like Footloose & Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! SJP gets lost in two volatile dramas for seven years. The first: the TV market of thankless guest spots and cancelled series. The second: Robert Downey Jr.

1991 Her ebullient turn as enema enthusiast "SanDeE*" in Steve Martin's LA Story revitalizes her film career. It leads to a string of films (Miami Rhapsody, Honeymoon in Vegas, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood, The First Wives Club, 'Til There Was You' and State and Main) that prove her to be a supremely talented comedienne. Meanwhile, everyone politely looks away while she "acts" in dramas (Extreme Measures, Striking Distance.)

1995 In interviews for Miami Rhapsody Sarah Jessica reveals that the goal of her career is to become a 'gay icon like Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler.' Roughly 1095 days later (see: 1998) faerie dust is liberally applied, sending career flying. Call her Sarah Jessica "Cassandra" Parker.

1997 Ladies and gentlemen I give you Mrs. Matthew Broderick --or is it Mr. Sarah Jessica Parker? In the ensuing year...

1998-2004 ...Sex & The City premieres. Even in impractical $500 stilletos it never once trips in the ensuing popculture-quake. Cue: total gay hysteria, HBO subscription fever, fashion trend frenzies, her name used as exclamation point on "Will & Grace", and superstar status bequeathed to Ms. Parker. Dreams do come true (see also: 1995)

2006 SJP begins her fight for romantic comedy queendom with Failure to Launch. The bloodied big money crown is currently worn by Reese Witherspoon. It was once seen briefly atop Sandra Bullocks congenial follicles. In the most famous dispute over ownership, it was torn painfully from surgical implantment in Meg Ryan's cranium by the all-devouring mouth of Julia Roberts.

The Broderick-Parkers whisper a prayer to the flat iron gods that "Failure to Launch" is not wielded maliciously as a pun to describe her post-Sex career.

Previous Histories
Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal
Julianne Moore's Screen Kids
Gay Cowboys

back to...
the full blog