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If ever there was a Tim Burtonn movie, that was unlike Burton, it had to be Big Fish. Where Burton’s earlier movies were dark, brooding and featured a conflicted hero, Big Fish was more personal and more emotional.

When i was a kid, i spent a lot of time with my grandmother . Curled up beside her, she would regale me with stories of great leaders, mythological characters, saints, kings, princess. And after she slept i would stay awake for some time, still imagining the story she told. My daughter does not get to spend much time with my mother, as we are in different stories, but still i make it a point to tell her some story or other. And right now, every night whenever we go to bed, she does not sleep, till i tell her some story or other. Story telling is an art that seems …

With Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton was back again, in his familiar dark, horror territory. Based on the short story by Washington Irving, who created the other famous American character, Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow, was Burton’s homage to Hammer Movies, who produced those memorable horror flicks during 60’s and 70’s.

Right from it’s basic theme of a mysterious headless horseman, who goes around killing people in a remote village, to its dark, scary style, Sleepy Hollow was vintage Hammer. The movie is set in 1799, when New York police detective Ichabod Crane(Johnny Depp) is asked to investigate a series of mysterious murders in the village of Sleepy Hollow, where all the victims are found to be headless. In reality, this was a way to get rid of Crane, whose methods of scientific investigation and forensics, are anathema to the police dept, which believs in rough and ready …

It’s bloody delightful. And Helena Bonham Carter is the best thing about it.
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In the last post, i had discussed about Tim Burton’s homage to the B Movie genre with Ed Wood.

Tim Burton continued his homage to the B movie genre with Mars Attacks, a spoof on the B movie sci fi stuff, which Burton grew up on. If in Ed Wood, he paid a tribute to his idol, in Mars Attacks, he bases his story on the popular trading card series.

What are trading cards?

Basically a variant of playing cards, these would contain images of a famous sports person or movie stills, cartoon characters, TV characters etc. Generally used for exchanging with friends or associates, you had various games around them.

Mars Attacks was a popular trading card series of the 60’s, which narrated a story of Martian invasion of the earth, through the …

This is the 3rd in my series on Tim Burton’s movies.

For earlier posts check here and here. This post is primarily to take a look at Burton’s landmark 1993 movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was done using a stop motion effect.

What is Stop Motion Effect?

The basic concept of Stop Motion effect is to give the appearance of an object moving on it’s own. So what we effectively have here is, if say i were to capture the motion of a coin. So Frame 1 would have the coin at a particular spot, in Frame 2 i would move the coin to another spot, not too far from it, so when you play the frames as a continous sequence, you get the illusion of movement.

Tim Burton first experimented with this idea in a 1982 short Vincent, which he made as a homage to his idol …

My first Tim Burton movie was Batman, way back in 1990. I was just around 20 and watched it in on the screen, and was totally blown away by the dark, brooding atmosphere of the movie, the action pieces and of course Jack Nicholson’s manic performance as The Joker. Couple of days later i again caught another Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice in the theater, and just loved its crazy weird look. And from then on, i have faithfully watched every Tim Burton movie, right up to Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber. He might not exactly be a darling of the critics, and many do feel put off by the dark, violent, surrealistic atmosphere of his movies. But for me i just love the energy in his movies, and also his stylish narration. So am just putting …

It amazed me no end that someone would try a equivalent of professional hara-kiri by redoing any film of Tim Burton. But Nolan did and gave such a fresh breath to the franchise with Batman Begins that The Dark Knight was the most anticipated film of the year!! He began with elan, is making merry with the knight and the journey has just begun.

And I am being extremely balanced and fair here when i say its worth every fucking minute!!!

I have unashamedly professed a love for comics before. Once the red and blue cape fantasies wore thin, Batman has always been the most intriguing amongst them all. Whilst Burton made Batman in his own signature style and Schumacher tried his bit to resuscitate the comic (pun very much intended) bit, Nolan reinvented!! The character depth and detailing which he gave Bale’s crusader is what prompted me and so many like …