Kolda Frankenweenie

          

            The new animated Tim Burton Frankenweenie film based on his earlier 1984 live character film is much more effective in conveying its themes through freedom of action and the possibilities presented with the use of stop motion picture.

            An obvious advantage of using clay characters is the opportunity to control the action of the film’s animals. In the 1984 movie, camera movement was used to show Sparky’s action through what he sees in his eyes. I assume this is because the dog actor could not do exactly what Burton wanted him to do. In the animation, Sparky could do absolutely anything at all that Tim Burton wanted. We are also able to follow Sparky more and he has more personality due to the control Burton has over his clay characters.

            Speaking of animals, there is no possible way the monsters created by the other kids towards the end of the movie could have been a part of the earlier film. They were just too ridiculous. Where would one go to find a bat/cat actor anyway? It doesn’t matter. Burton could just build one out of clay, and it could fly and be nasty and look awesome. The coolest animals to me were the sea monkeys because they were so funny and so evil.

            Victor and his friends are a strange looking bunch. Burton was able to make more references to old monster movies using the clay characters. He could shape and deform them to his liking. For example, Edgar is a totally creepy hunchback with weird hands. And the little girl with the cat could not have looked less realistic. It is as if we are inside one of Burton’s short poems, watching his weird characters live their weird lives.

            Basically, Burton was able to get much more creative with his characters in the animated movie than in the live characters movie. Creating things is what he does best, and that talent really shines in stop motion picture.

            There are advantages to both methods that Burton uses. With stop motion animation, there is more creative possibility. But with live actors, the audience feels that the story is more real. It is set in a real neighborhood, using a real dog. Though it is less likely that the audience will believe that the dog really did come back to life, it is more likely that they might identify with the characters. This is perhaps why parents were so afraid to let their children watch the 1984 film. They might think that zombie dogs could exist, and that is kind of a creepy thing to think about.

            It is interesting that Burton did so many versions of Frankenweenie. I wonder which one he prefers. Each has a unique quality and style, but they all get at the same basic point; which is Victor’s curiosity about the afterlife or perhaps his unwillingness to accept that there is an afterlife. I prefer the most recent stop motion version because it is cute and creepy and creative all at the same time. 

Kolda Sweeney Todd

           It’s a dog eat dog world out there. Sweeney is in the position to hate the world for being destructive to it’s self. He sees his urban society as one where people must walk all over those below them. He has a valid reason for this view. His wife and daughter were stolen from him in order to appease the very powerful Judge Turpin’s want. This in turn, made Mr. Todd angry enough to kill everyone. Is that okay? No, not really. But the audience understands his rage, and so we can sympathize with him.

            He laughs at the world as he feeds them their comrades and/or enemies. They don’t realize that they are stuffing their faces with human flesh just as they don’t realize that they are stepping all over each other to get what they want out of them. Adolfo Pirelli, the rock star barber, rips people off on some bogus concoction disguised as a miracle elixir. But Todd catches his lie and humiliates him in a shaving contest. He then proceeds to bash Pirelli with a teakettle and then slit his throat when he tries to blackmail him. And so Pirelli goes from the top of the food chain straight to a meat pie to be eaten by the men he screwed over.

            It becomes hard to tell who the good guy is. It seems that everyone is bad. Judge Turpin has to be bad because he stole Todd’s family away from him and condemns small children to be hanged. Pirelli is bad because he lies, cheats, and blackmails. Mrs. Lovett is bad because she bakes people into pies. Does this make Todd good because he eliminates all the bad guys? It’s hard to say. I’m going to go with no. Sweeney Todd is a unique story because everyone one is a bad guy! The only good characters in the movie are barely associated with the main story.

            The two lovers, Anthony and Johanna, have a story of their own. If I had to pick a hero, it would be Anthony. He is a reminder that not everybody deserves to be killed and eaten, but he seems to get caught up in the trouble caused by others, so there is no escaping the cannibalism of the world. 

Kolda Big Fish

            Edward Bloom attracts the friendship of some very weird people. He seems to only make friends with outsiders because he himself does not fit into the town he grew up in. He tells his son that he was like a very big goldfish that was too large for the town he was in, so he set out to make a bigger place for himself.

            He creates a community of outsiders, which can be seen when he finds a job at the circus with all the characters who are strange, like the giant, the fat man, and the werewolf. He then helps them to feel as though they fit in. He does not judge them, and they in turn love and appreciate him. He sees them all as very big fish who need a bigger fish bowl, and he helps them in ways. He gets his giant friend a job at the circus after taking him on a journey away from the people who judged him. He shows the misunderstood werewolf friendship by playing fetch with him even though he attacked Edward. He washes the fat man, which was a job that no one else wanted. And he helps the town of Spectre to return to its formal glory.

            My favorite instance of Edward’s friendship with outsiders is when he earns the trust of the Siamese twins by showing him a picture of his wife- the reason he wants to get home. They see that he is not using them because they are weird, but rather requests their help with pure intentions.

            After watching this movie (it’s wonderful by the way), I have begun to consider the characters in my own life story and how I would portray them and myself. I want to be like Edward, who finds a reason to except everybody and who is loved and appreciated for doing so.

Kolda Sleepy Hollow

The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

            Both Ichabod Crane characters are odd in ways, but Burton shows him as a completely different character than Irving does. Johnny Depp’s character does not show interest in Katrina only for her money, in fact he shies away from her at first because he is an outsider, and he knows that she has a bunch of suitors. Ichabod in the story, however, is after Katrina for her money and challenges Brom for her. The fact that Ichabod is selfless in the movie makes him much more likeable which is why I think Burton made that change. He is more of a hero.  With that, there is also the part that Burton left out where Ichabod leaves Sleepy Hollow never to return, leaving Katrina to Brom, and fleeing the ghostly hollow in fear of the apparitions.

            The extra part is that Ichabod returns to solve the mystery of the Headless Horseman who does indeed exist, a plot twist that makes the movie much more interesting and way cool to watch. The stories of the ghosts told in the Irving story are mere superstitions and not very believable. But in Burton’s movie, the whole town regards the Horseman as a commonly known fact of Sleepy Hollow. They scoff at Ichabod, who believes that he can find a man of flesh and blood behind the mystery of the decapitations.

            I really like how Burton takes the ghost stories and makes them true. He takes the fears of the characters and brings them to life so that it is not really a film about the Irving story, but instead a film about the ghost stories told in the town and what would happen if they were all true. He even makes the shrieking woman in white a real character in the form of the witch sister who tells Ichabod where to find the Headless Horseman’s bones. This means that the superstitious inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow are not so sleepy after all. Their tales are true and they live in very real danger.

Kolda Planet of the Apes

Monkey Fist of Fury!

     Burton’s Planet of the Apes deals a lot with superiority; who is civilized and who is not. On the strange planet Leo lands on, the apes are “civilized” while the humans are “savages.” But the qualifications of these two opposites are not very well defined. Are the apes more civilized because they have cities, language, and military power? Are the humans savages because they act apelike (in the way that we are used to seeing apes act)?

     Burton is trying to tell us that superiority is not something accurately measured in technological advancement. The “lesser” species is misunderstood as unintelligent and lazy. But that is because they are denied the chance to live like the other. Apes and humans simply live differently. Who is to say which way is better? The species with the technology tends to be the more ruthless one. Leo asks Daena how the apes got this way, to which she answered, “What other way would they be?” and he told her that usually, his monkey buddies would be begging him for a treat. He now finds himself in the position of having to beg for the treat of freedom.

     Leo’s astronaut friend in the beginning of the film asks him not to tease the monkeys because they will get aggravated and violent if they find reason to do so. Later in the movie, Ari is warned about the danger of wild humans and how she must keep a distance from them for her safety. This misperception of the other species is one that gets traded back and forth and used as evidence that one is civilized while the other is savage, when in reality they are simply afraid of one another. 

Kolda Mars Attacks

Mars Attacks! came out right after Independence Day, which is a film about the human race coming together to defeat the aliens, and uses patriotism as a source of drama and pride. In Mars Attacks!, all traces of patriotism are destroyed and then regarded by the aliens as a joke. The lack of drama about the deaths of all the characters makes the film feel much lighter and funnier. The makers of this film clearly do not take themselves too seriously, which is refreshing. And the Hollywood super stars in the movie are also poking fun at the “invincibility” of stardom. Most of them sre killed by aliens along the way. And with the invincibility of stardom, the invincibility of the government is also made fun of. 

 The government is portrayed as powerless in the scene where the alien Prime Minister issues his formal apology and then zaps the entire congress to red and green bits. This powerlessness is further shown in the failure of the nuclear missal, which was simply captured and inhaled by the aliens while they laughed at the impotence of the military. It is funny because the general was so forceful with the president to sign the agreement to use the missal because he was absolutely sure it would take the aliens down. But indeed it did not. There wasn’t even much of an explosion.

 Jack Nicholson is the all-important leader of the Unites States of America but also a big-talking hustler in Las Vegas. Tim Burton is pointing out that the people with government positions have shadows just as much as every one else. This double Jack Nicholson appearance also confuses the audience and makes them think that maybe it is the same person; that he is deceiving the public to think that he is a purely good man, when in reality he is not. This deception might make sense, as the aliens also use this tactic. They tell the humans not to run and that they come in peace right before frying everyone to death, which is a little bit like the way the U.S. government is viewed.

Kolda, Ed Wood

Three elements in Burton's film that pay homage to Ed Wood himself:

1) Glen or Glenda is about Wood’s struggle with his weird obsession with women’s clothing. Ed Wood also has a focus on this issue, though Burton’s film focuses more literally on Wood’s life and relationships. We see how this obsession affects his movie making and his relationship with his girlfriend, who has little tolerance for his cross dressing or movie making. She is the kind of person that Wood has to work against.  

2) The movie has weird quirks that Wood's films also have. For one, there is the use of very unrealistic animation in both Ed Wood and in Tim Burton’s films. In Plan 9 From Outer Space, there are three space ships that are used in the movie frequently. The same spaceships are used in Burton’s opening credits as well as extra animation. The animated octopus tentacle is in reference to the fake octopus with no motor used in one of Wood’s films. And the names written on gravestones is taken straight from the opening credits of Plan 9 From Outer Space.

3) Ed Wood is not what the audience expects. The opening credits set the stage for a horror movie, yet Ed Wood is much more realistic than expected after watching the credits. This is similar to the way Wood’s movies were not what we think they will be. Glen or Glenda for example is supposed to be a funny movie about a sex change. Instead, it is a drama about his own struggles with being a transvestite.

By filming this movie in black and white and adding strange quirks, Burton is paying respect to the way moviemakers had to do things with the little resources they possessed. In a way, he is turning Ed Woods films into one that has a chance of being seen, but does so in a way that praises Wood, and still gives him the credit.