The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Untapped New York "My Day as a Paparazzo" how New Yorkers react to celebrity sightings and how it changes when the paparazzi are involved. Roger Ebert remembers Diary of a Lost Girl one of my very favorite silents starring Louise Brooks. Geekscape wonders what The Avengers might have looked like had it been made in the 1980s. Michael Biehn for Steve Rogers and Cary Elwes for Tony Stark? I could deal. Stranger Than Most names the laziest tagline ever. Oh Safe House. Try harder!
In Contention Julian Fellowes to right Cameron's wrong on Titanic. Oh dear. Fellowes has let Downton Abbey go to his head. Aint nothing wrong with Titanic (1997) that isn't so wrong it's right. Deja View remembers an animated bit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) Awards Daily new images from Woody Allen's To Rome With Love. How many title-changes has this one gone through now? Animation Mag here's a fun one for Los Angeles based readers. There will be special one-off screenings of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves (1938) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre next month. Rope of Silicon first image of Jennifer Lawrence in House at the End of the Street. Elisabeth Shue co-stars (yay!) Vulture Star Market Jennifer Lawrence
And speaking of... yeah yeah we'll talk about Hunger Games soon. My review will be up Sunday at some point. Stay tuned.
BURTONJUICE. Our Tim Burton retrospective begins now... Every Thursday night until we can't take it no more!
Last week I rented the Disney documentary "Waking Sleeping Beauty" which I was curious to see again after it's strangely quiet public reception. I really enjoyed the documentary and though it ended like one big long self-aggrandizing commercial for the Magic Kingdom and all they bring to the movies, it's first hour is surprisingly frank about the downward slide of Disney animation in the 70s and 80s and the political tug of wars among the big money executives.
But let's get to the subject. Don't you always forget that Tim Burton started at Disney? I know I do. He never gets a line in this documentary but we do see him briefly twice in the behind the scenes footage while the narrator talks about the generational divide at Disney during the animation studio's near-demise in the 1980s.
Ron Miller knew that Walt's guys were retiring fast. He had to raise a new crop of animators but he was cautious about it. It was this interesting cross generational thing where you still had a few of these legendary artists who were in their 60s and approaching retirement and then a bunch of young people in their 20s who were really really exited and sort of passionate about this medium.
It was thrilling to learn from the masters but there was a feeling that somehow we could be making better films."
Burton doesn't look too happy sitting slack jawed in that tiny cubicle, but that's just his face. Surely the budding filmmaker was excited to be chasing his dreams. Even if his now ultra familiar dreams are far more Gorey lite Gothic than Disney cheerful.
Before his star ascended in the early 80s when two shorts Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984) gained him a reputation within the industry as a truly distinctive and entertaining filmmaker, he made a handful of very rarely screened shorts. I wish I'd attended the Burton exhibit recently which featured them. Have any of you seen these five?
The Island of Doctor Agor (1971) was his first effort at the age of 13. He played Dr Agor. Stalk of the Celery (1979) is a one punchline animated short but you can see Burtonisms especially his love for the mad scientist... though it should be said that Burton's ouevre also includes subversions of this trope, the benevolent (if still mad) scientist. Doctor of Doom (1979) has Burton crashing a party and creating a monster that he sends out to "destroy all beauty." Luau (1982) is a lengthy short that is unfortunately kind of unwatchable on YouTube but it telegraphs a bit about Burton's oddball sense of humor though it also seems a little hornier than his subsequent work. He plays a disembodied head that's the "most powerful force in the universe" and though he tries to turn people into zombies, he doesn't have much luck. At least at first... I gave up 12 minutes in but not before I understood his affinity for Ed Wood. Burton also made a version of the oft- filmed fairy tale Hansel & Gretel (1982) -- which is hard to find -- with the great production designer Rick Heinrichs as his producer. They met at Disney and kept working together.
Oscar winner Rick Heinrichs and Tim Burton at work on Vincent (1982)
It only took their collaboration 17 years later to win an Oscar (Heinrichs for Sleepy Hollow) though Tim Burton has famously never been nominated as Best Director. His sole personal nomination was for the animated feature Corpse Bride.
Where were we? Oscar trivia is so distracting. Oh yes, Vincent (1982). We love it. Disney, rather famously, did not. Too dark!
My favorite favorite favorite part...
He likes to experiment on his dog Abercrombie in the hopes of creating a terrible zombie.
Vincent is just wonderful isn't it? A.
Vincent's Tim Burton's perfect woman? Before we move on to Frankenweenie (The Original) next Thursday tell me if I'm crazy but little Vincent's hallucinated dead wife...
He knew he'd been banished to the tower of doom where he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life. alone with the portrait of his beautiful wife."
She looks SO familiar. A pinch of Lisa Marie? Two cups of Corpse Bride... a scoop of Helena Bonham-Carter in Alice in Wonderland? What Burton woman does this most remind you of?
What's your favorite part of Vincent? And do you think it's too easy to retroactively project meaning on to the early work of famous filmmakers?
Kill Screen imagines Downton Abbey as a card based RPG. Love the artifact "pants of modernity" Deja View a relic brochure from a time when Disney was seeking animators. Irish Times is pissed about Streep's Oscar win and illustrates, again, that a backlash grows. But here's the interesting part...
One can think of many star actresses...who will submerge themselves in films bigger than themselves. But Streep has to be bigger than the movie, to the point where she can become, in effect, a substitute for it.
You may recall we were talking about just this fascinating issue (within the Oscar symposium). It's hardly a Streep-Only topic. What does it mean to "carry" a movie and should an actor ever be asked to?
Rope of Silicon has "sexy" issues with Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in the upcoming feature Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho (omg please change the title). So do I and the first being that Scarjo, who I enjoy, is very different than Janet Leigh in body, age and looks. She might be able to summon up the contemplative paranoia mood of Leigh but otherwise it's a huge miss if you ask me. Guardian odd lawsuit of day. Sandra Bullock is pissed that a watch company is selling a watch by comparing it to her Blind Side look. Coming Soon Disney must've liked the response to titling Rapunzel Tangled because their next fairy tale musical will be based on The Snow Queen and it's called Frozen. Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars herself, gets lead vocal duties. /Film remembers Black Swan with a new behind the scenes photo gallery. I don't remember Natalie wearing this white cloak thing onstage. Have I lost my mind or just my short term memory? ioncinema details a new "slippery nature of truth" project called True Story starring Jonah Hill and James Franco. Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing. Pitt has good taste and this sounds interesting. Pajiba lists the 25 biggest animated hit (adjusted for inflation). Pixar doesn't even make the top 10! Indiewire lists films they hope show at Cannes this summer
And even though I always try to let each year's Oscars go within a week's time of the ceremony, I find myself still reading Oscar recaps since I have emerged from my cave of silence. I did like these two overviews of the ceremony from two of my favorite online peeps, The Self Styled Siren and Glenn at Stale Popcorn. So if you also share the Oscar sickness, read 'em.
Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 1:33AM 
click to remember this house
