Frankenweenie

Oh, to be a fan of Tim Burton now is a tremulous journey.  As anyone how grew up with his child-like wonder and joyously odd sensibility has watched his vision become trademarked as a go-to director for hire as of late, there's a wondrous respite and gleeful refrain in watching Frankenweenie.  One of the filmmakers most personal, most gloriously fun and inventive films in some time, there's a sense of delight and a passionate sense of relief as well.  Adapted from one of Burton's first short films-- incidentally the film that got Burton, an up and comer animator at Disney, fired in 1984-- is a joyful reminder that he still has it in him to concoct wicked, yet gently humane stories with the same graceful off-kilter humor to match his always top-tiered production designs that made a fan out of anyone who came of cinematic age between Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Yet there's an elegance too, to this macabre, black and white stop motion story that should hit the gut on anyone, young or old, who lost something precious to them.  And in that great Burton-ian tradition, he makes the outcast, the dreamer in all of us identify with the meanings behind the grandiose shows he displays, while forever distilling imagination in every frame and keeping his idiosyncratic signatures alive.  Frankenweenie is far and away Tim Burton's grandest feature since 1995's Ed Wood, and a redemptive cinematic ode worthy of celebration.

Harking back to the tales that suit him best and most acutely, Burton is channeling, parodying and paying affectionate homage to the great monster movies of yore.  Victor Frankenstein (dryly and sweetly voiced by Charlie Tahan) is an oddball.  An amateur filmmaker, a kid of science and most dear to him, friend to his loyal dog, Sparky.  His dad (voiced by Martin Short) worries he's friendless and encourages sports over his passions; his mom (voiced by Catherine O'Hara) is as doting as any suburban mother on 1950s sitcoms.  There's so much texture to the early sequences-- including a nicely satirical opening node to the gratuitousness of 3-D (a fixture the animated feature, distributed by Disney utilizes) that starts the film in a winning way.  There's familiar Burton touches, such as the heightened tract suburban houses and off-kilter framing, but there's a refreshing component that this is Burton at his most comfortable, in his most stable wheelhouse, away from the drudgery of billion dollar expectations and haphazard attempts to conform his style onto the stories of others.

As Victor trudges back and forth from school, it's Sparky he's the most engaged with, even as his new science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski (voiced by Martin Landau) is starting to shape the youthful science prodigy.  There's a naturalism and unsentimental amusement in Sparky, the cuddly schemer and Victor, a masterful Burton-ian creation (those eyes; they're massive!), that goes down familiar territory of mans best friends loyalty, but plays beguilingly sweet.  Disaster strikes the fictional New Holland town, when Sparky is suddenly hit by a car.  Victor, devastated, takes a cue from Mr. Rzykruski, who has just performed a lesson on the powers of electricity and its reviving affects on frogs, as well as his name, decides to bring his friend back to life.  Using the powers of electricity-- New Holland is a mysteriously storm-ridden town, be digs the grave of his beloved Sparky and, in a scene of masterful bravura, revives the pup.  As his namesake suggests, there's certain moral quandaries that play into Frankenweenie, as their must, yet Victor's God-playing role results in such manically gleeful fun; this is a Burton film after all.  And John August's tight screenplay leaves little space for vested lectures or lessons.

Victor's biggest challenges come in the form of his neighbor, the bullying, rotund mayor with prized tulips and a bad attitude (Short supplies his voice), however his bewitchingly odd niece, Elsa Van Helsing (voiced by Winona Ryder) is more appealing, as is her poodle, Persephone a nice fit for Sparky.  Other adversaries are the science fair bullies who wage war on Victor upon learning of his discovery, and the creepy Edgar (voiced by Atticus Schaffer) who blackmails Victor into friendship after first learning of Sparky's resurrection.  The sub-plots and supporting characters matter little, as they are one of the films few striking weaknesses-- what stays on track is Victor and the continual love of his dog.  Culminating the film with a fun monster mash plays out trickier, plot-wise, than perhaps was necessary, but affirms the love between boy and pet with such weirdly succinct heart; there's little denying its power.  And that's the grandest power of Burton at the top of his form, finding that melding of his uniquely strange Grand Guignol sensibility with an emotional current that can resonate with anyone.  Frankenweenie does that with such an impeccable sense of craft attached, it's difficult not to be bewitched.  A-

Dark Shadows

As a child growing up in awe of Edward Scissorhands, in all its strange, gothic charm, further lead down into a path where imagery from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Ed Wood continue to delight and wallpaper my memories, it's difficult in any fairness at this point to feel nothing for Tim Burton but a sense of regret and near embarrassment.  Whatever happened to his imagination that encompassed grandeur and offbeat humor and child-like innocence, now reduced to wannabe franchise mediocrity featuring fleeting bits of the idiosyncrasies that made him such a worthy and strange talent.  That sense of pity, foreshadowed in 2010's Alice in Wonderland hits it's till with Burton's adaptation of the 60s vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, a wan, tonally discordant, glacier paced piece of opulent production design in search of a script, story and direction of any kind.  There's passing moments that perk up the drab affair, and a few facets that point to a decent idea, but Dark Shadows mostly wanders, and coasts on the formidable relationship between director and his muse, Johnny Depp as its sole reason in existing in the first place, and the only discernible cause for moviegoers to shell out buckets of money to see it.

The Collins family, originally immigrants from Liverpool, established a massively successful fishing company in a small burb of Maine in the late 1700s.  Living richly, the town itself was named after their lineage, and Barnabas Collins (Depp) was the token part of that heritage.  His weakness was for women, falling madly for a comely lady named Josette, while having sideline fun with a fair lower class servant (Eva Green.)  Problem was that the help was madly in love with Barnabas, and quite mad herself-- she's a witch who cursed Barnabas into a hellish immortality by turning him into a vampire, and brandishing him to the town, who revolted in burying him.  Some 200 years later, Barnabas is dug up in 1972, where his descendants have fallen hard financially and mentally-- having a descendant that's cast aside for growing fangs has a toll on a family's reputation, I suppose.  But Barnabas, still in Victorian garb and refined British accent comes back to his estate to help salvage his doomed family.  There's a slight giddy thrill when Johnny Depp tackles a character, meant in great harmony and silliness, where his cartoonish tendencies are an asset, and his coiled, beatific speak has a charm and anachronistic spunk to it at the beginning, but that grows tiring and draining as Dark Shadows plods along.

There's a surprise as the witch who cursed him to begin with is still toiling around town, a bleached-blonde executrix now under the name Angelique Bouchard, who for two centuries has plotted to destroy the Collins name and family.  She's established a fishing company that's taken over the northeastern seas, and is jolted by the newly awoken return of her long lost love.  The spark of Dark Shadows, and there is truly only one, is the nearly transcendent performance of Eva Green.  The brunette beauty, who emerged as art-house hottie in Bernardo Bertulucci's The Dreamers (2003), breathes a freshness, a light but menacing sense of play, balancing the kitsch and camp with such a rare evocation, one only wished the rest of the production were at her speed.  She flirts and haunts, but nearly every one of line readings (some of which, as written, are terribly banal), she maintains the right sense of playful cartoonishness.  The problem is that Burton pulls away from that more often than not-- this isn't serious; nor should it drag.

The biggest drag is the character of Barnabas himself, who speaks in poetic rhythms but also is an undeniable danger due to the whole fang thing.  There's too much back and forth inconsistency on how to feel about him, which might be an interesting take had this been Ingmar Bergman's Dark Shadows, but moral complexity is out of reach in this script written by John Logan and Seth Grahame-Smith.  There's more of an sense that, oh well Johnny Depp will bring to it what he chooses, rather than much thought on conception.  This ambiguity grows especially tiring was Barnabas grows a fondness for the Collins' governess Victoria, played by a Bella Swan-inspired Bella Heathcote.  One passing joke that grows more and more tiresome is Barnabas' anger that she lets anyone call his crush by the oh-so-low class Vicky.  Their relationship has a bit more heft to it, but Burton and team give it so little attention, it hardly seems one should care a whip.  Instead, the production design, and costumes are fitting and continue the brand that this filmmaker has long established.  Longtime collaborators Rich Heinrichs and Colleen Atwood do a marvelous job as always, but that embarrassment comes in again, as they appear to again be creating things they have long ago mastered.  The story itself seems mostly jettisoned by its period soundtrack.

That embarrassment thing hits its reach in a sex scene between Barnabas and Angelique, who after a meeting of trading insults engage in gymnastics sex that's so awkward to watch, one feels sad for the furniture that was built, only to be destroyed for the couples kinkiness.  That scene especially, but others also establish a near auto-pilot response from Burton, once a conjurer of imagination, now a mere cog in a the movie making world of excess and dollar signs.  His cast includes talents like Michelle Pfeiffer (who was such a memorable part of his Batman Returns) as the Collins' matriarch who poses imperiousness well, but is largely ignored, his wife Helena Bonham Carter as the Collins' live-in psychiatrist, whose along for hubby, but saddled with a ridiculous side story, Jackie Earle Haley as the family's butler, who appears bored, and Chloe Grace Moretiz as the family's rebellious daughter, who scowls, per normal.  There's ingredients that make Dark Shadows appear that it might be the campy, bad in a good way fun like Burton's Mars Attacks, but Burton himself seems uninterested, as does, sadly, his once faithful audience.  C 

Dark Shadows Trailer

The trailer for Tim Burton's latest-- Dark Shadows arrives.  Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green and Michelle Pfieffer.  Based on the '60s television show, it appears, as always that Burton's crew had a lot of fun putting the production design and costume elements, but the tone is odd, no?  I never saw the show, maybe it's appropriate or will make more sense in context.  Anyone remember back in the day when Tim Burton was, you know, like king?!?!?  Alas, this must be better than Alice in Wonderland, right?

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

For a proper cinematic staging of Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical Sweeney Todd, throats must be sliced and buckets of blood must gush and spray. And in Tim Burton’s adaptation it does, it pours in thick red paint splendor, an orgy of blood, sliced from the throats of unknowing victims of a doomed demon barber. Sweeney Todd is an old story and in its nearly 150 year origin has been told numerously but none is more famous and prominent than Sondheim’s groundbreaking horror musical. With its music inspired by the great Bernard Herrmann, this masterpiece of American theater invites us to attend the tale of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a man falsely imprisoned back at his old stomping grounds vowing his revenge on the corrupt ones who wronged him:

“Barker, his name was…Benjamin Barker.”
“Not Barker…Sweeney Todd now…and he will have his revenge.”

What makes this piece of work so thrilling is not just that it’s frightening, but also incredibly funny and witty in that intellectual Sondheim way. It’s not very conventional, but satisfying. Sondheim’s music is grand and baroque, while his lyrics are hilarious in there sense of doom. I got to see a concretized version of the stage show nearly ten years ago, and it was thrilling. I’m sure I didn’t understand a lot of it, and missed quite a bit of the quick Sondheim lyrics, but in the years of being enamored by the original soundtrack, I’ve fallen for it, completely succumbed to it’s power and depth and hilarity. When I heard of the movie version finally coming about, directed by Tim Burton, I was scared and excited. Al I kept thinking was…please don’t screw it up…please…pretty please.

Happy to report-- Burton has concocted his richest film since Ed Wood, and that the marriage with Sondheim seems to be perfectly justified. This isn’t quite all Sondheim, Burton, with the capable screenplay by John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) has removed a few characters, cut and spliced some of the songs, but it’s enough Sondheim to appease the die-hards, and enough Burton to possibly convert a few neophytes into exploring the original. The story itself really hasn’t been tampered with, and that proves the malleability and total strength of the material itself, I believe. Johnny Depp stars as Sweeney, and is completely captivating-- he uses his grand movie star charisma and starts to wilt away at it, and this crafty thespian willingly goes the dark demented places needed. He sings too, and it’s not half bad, but he’s really selling the character from his look, not his vocal cords. And Helena Bonham Carter plays Mrs. Lovett, one the wittiest and most complex roles in modern theater history and while her singing voice is a bit off now and then, her porcelain corpse bride look and knotted hair naturally suite the striking pale actress.

The movie opens as Sweeney returns to London and takes up at the residence of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), a widower pie shop owner, and the proprietor of “The Worst Pies in London.” The barber begins anew, vowing revenge on the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) who falsely imprisoned him years ago, stealing his beautiful wife and holding his daughter captive in that time. After first showing up a flashy tonsorial fraud, named Pirelli (Sasha Baron Cohen), he is blackmailed and thusly killed by the hands of Sweeney. At which Sweeney proclaims with great glee, “they all deserve to die,“ in the first act climatic song, entitled, “Epiphany.” Upon this Mrs. Lovett comes up with a solution for both their problems (her fledgling business, his killing problem) and resolves to use his clients meat in her piece, in what she calls, “enterprise,” in the stage play\movie’s most thrilling moment, “A Little Priest.”

There’s more, plenty more-- it’s rich and complex material, all the more impressive the way Burton keeps it flowing while still remaining true to its source. One thing that was drastically altered but turned out be a great idea was making the role of Toby, the boy eternally devoted by Mrs. Lovett and skeptical of Sweeney and his evil deeds, into a kid. He’s played by Edward Sanders and does a brilliant job. Not only does his have the best singing voice in the company of non-singer actors, but gives a natural performance, embodying the only innocence of the story. The only real misstep is the subplot of Sweeney’s sailor friend Antony (Jamie Campbell Bower) trying to wow the lovely Johanna (Jayne Wisener), who happens to be Sweeney (or Benjamin’s daughter)-- it stilts rather than shines, partially due to the lack of screen time of the two, but mostly to their inept glances passing as screen chemistry. However Bower’s ballad, “Johanna” is still quite lovely.

Sweeney Todd is a visual feat-- no surprise there with Burton at the helm. Dante Ferretti’s gothic and gray production design is lovely in it’s dirty claustrophobia, and nearly as impressive as his recreation of old New York in Gangs of New York. Colleen Atwood’s costumes remind of her work on Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, but since that was so inspired in itself, it’s still beautifully disheveled. And Dariusz Wolski’s (Pirates of the Caribbean) cinematography is perfectly dark-- with the thick red blood overflowing the screen in otherwise unsaturated muted hues of gray and black.
My personal favorite moment in the film is while Sweeney is singing his version of the ballad, “Johanna,” and it’s inter-cut with his slashing of arbitrary personage’s throats, and that mixture of poignant sad music laced with ultra-violent killing is the great thing about the story, how it deepens and surprises and somehow makes us laugh and cry all the midst of a hideous tale of revenge and malice. There’s no redeeming these tortured people, and they all know it, and get their just desserts in the end, but it’s thrilling to watch. It was thrilling to watch it on stage, and to my utter delight, it’s thrilling to watch in Burton’s hands, as the blood pours out, an American classic is reborn. B+