• Home
  • Buy our Kindle Movie Quizzes
  • Meet Team BMAF
  • Contact BMAF
    • Website Privacy Notice
    • Cookie Policy

Barking Mad About Films

One man and his dog; both barking mad about films

Sharing our love of Tim Burton

March 10, 2016 by Bill Leave a Comment

n/a
shares
Be First to Share ->
Share on Twitter
Share on Google+
Share on LinkedIn
+
What's This?

Name your favourite Film Director? Yes, many will say Steven Spielberg; Stanley Kubrick; Martin Scorsese; David Fincher or Christopher Nolan, there are so many to choose from, but for us it is easy, it’s Tim Burton!

I can honestly say if he directed the opening of an envelope I would still go to see it. ALL his films are owned by me, I can not think of any other director that I could say this about!

What is special for me, is I can even remember the first time I saw one of his films, way back in the summer of 1988, in fact I can tell you the date 14th August!

I had claimed free tickets for a film called Beetlejuice, I had got tickets from Smash Hits magazine and the Cannon Brighton cinema where the screening was to take place no longer exist, but the film certainly does, and I treasure my ticket which was a Beetlejuice mask!

I had loved the ideas of monsters and ghosts, having been a big fan of the 1984 awesome double bill of Gremlins and Ghostbusters and it would be safe to say, even now the creature feature is probably my favourite genre of film, and Beetlejuice ranks high with them.

Having seen the film, as well as singing Day-O by Harry Belafonte with friends at work, I went to the video store to seek out Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, his feature debut, a crazy adventure which was different to so much I had seen, it was clear why Warner Brothers chose him to direct Beetlejuice.

Having now become a Burton fan, what would happen next, would see me having to share him with the world as his next film was to be Batman, this was to be a box office blockbuster (So sadly, we can possibly blame Tim for the fact that there are so many now)

Interstingly, prior to it being a box office smash, the film was slated for Tim casting his Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton as Batman!

How do you follow Batman, with an incredible story that was Edward Scissorhands, a fantasy fairy tale come love story, it would be the first time Tim would work with the actor, many call his muse Johnny Depp! This film had such a great visual style to it that it has even inspired a ballet!

Again, he followed that with huge success in his only sequel to date (I am not including Frankenweenie from short to feature as if anything that is a remake =) my personal favourite Batman film to date, Batman Returns, Danny Devito as the Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer at as Catwoman have never been better.

It was due to work on Batman returns, that Tim handed over his story The Nightmare Before Christmas to director Henry Selick. Tim’s style is clear in this amazing stop motion animation film.

It is possibly that this film, not even being directed by him is what most may even know Tim for! Not even Batman, simply due to the amount of pop culture and memorabilia that is around for this film, and in particular, its lead Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King!

What I admire most is that following the monster success of the Batman films, he could have played safe and found another blockbuster to direct. Instead he next went for a black and white biopic of the director of Plan 9 from outer space, which brought us Johnny Depp as Ed Wood and Martin Landau in his Oscar winning role as Bela Lugosi.

Recently on Facebook, I was tagged to name my 5 top films of all time, I had to have a Tim Film and it was Ed Wood I chose, I love all his films but this one just blew me away, so much so I have since seen most of Ed Wood’s films

It was his next film which seemed to maybe lose him some of his fans, the film that would reunite him with his Joker, Jack Nicholson, was Mars Attacks, a great throwback to early sci fi and little green men. I personally love this film despite what others may say, in fact when I first saw it, I probably annoyed everyone with my constant Martian chanting of Ack! Ack! Ack!

Sleepy Hollow came next, Tim was back with Johnny Depp and this was a fantastic original film about an investigation into the Headless Horseman and has now even inspired a TV series

Next, would be Planet of the Apes remake, not his strongest film, but with the exception of Ted, the only Mark Wahlberg film I own, so certainly not awful. This film seems to be as hated almost as much as the new Ghostbusters trailer, yet I have no idea why, its visually fantastic, granted it may not be as good as the original or even the 2 most recent reboots, but it is in no way a bad film.

Tim, perhaps steering clear from franchises, followed the Apes with an adaptation of Daniel Wallace’s fantastic book of tall tales, Big Fish, having already loved the book having read prior to seeing the film, it was great to see it in safe hands.

Next was the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, again, like Apes. with so much love for the  Gene Wilder adaptation, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, this is widely hated and felt not necessary. I found it to be more faithful to the book and loved it, perhaps more so than the original! Depp also does not deserve the amount of hate he got for his Wonka!I certainly enjoy both versions for different reasons

Stop motion film The Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd an opera would follow. Alice in Wonderland would give him his biggest box office hit to date and film remake of the classic TV series Dark Shadows, with a great cast, also was a lot of fun. Sadly all 4 of these films seem to be disliked and knifes even seemed to turn on Tim and Johnny Depp saying their combination was getting boring?

Frankenweenie, a homage to classic black and white B movie films and a biopic of painter, Margaret Keane, Big Eyes that have since followed are both brilliant films! Big Eyes was also the first Tim film that my wife enjoyed so that is high praise indeed!

For me, Tim certainly is at his best when making original films rather than reboots or remakes and I can not wait for his next film, an adaptation of a fantastic children’s book |I read as soon as it was announced he was onboard to direct, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (follow us on Facebook as any news on the film we will surely share)

After that, a sequel to Beetlejuice or a live action remake of Dumbo are rumoured to follow, but whatever he decides to do next, you can rest assured, come opening day I will be there!

Whose your favourite director? Do you have a favourite Tim Burton film? We would love to hear from you here at Barking Mad About Films

Tim Burton's Beeltejuice film ticket
Free cinema ticket to Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, we’ve seen all his films since

 

Never miss a BMAF blog. Receive email notifications when new posts are published by entering your email address in the subscription box on the top right-hand side of this page.

Share on Twitter
Share on Google+
Share on LinkedIn
+

Comments

comments

Filed Under: Adaptation, Animated, Animated film, Animatronic, Award winner, B Movie, Ballet, Biopic, Black and White, Blockbuster, Blockbuster movies, Bluray, Book, Book Adaptation, Book to film, Box Office, Casting, Characters, Childrens, Childrens book, Christmas, Christmas film, classics, Creature Feature, Debate, Director, Discussion, DVD, Eighties, Family, Family film, fantasy, Favourite, Film, Film Franchise, Film on Stage, Film promotion, Film review, Film reviews, Film Tie-Ins, Film to TV, Films, Franchise, Free, fun, Ghost, Ghosts, Giveaways, Halloween film, Halloween viewing, Horror, Horror comedy, Horror/Comedy, Kids film, Live Action, Memorabillia, Memories, Monsters, Movie Discussion, Movie Franchises, Movie Merchandise, Movie Monsters, Movie News, Movie Review, Movie Tie-Ins, nostalgia, offers, Opera, Oscar nominated, Oscar Winner, profile, Reboot, remake, remakes, review, Scary, Scary film, Scary movie, Sequel, Sequels, soundtrack, stage, Stop motion animation, Supernatural, Supernatural comedy, Tim Burton, Top 5, Tribute, True events, True Story, Vampire Movie, Wonka Tagged With: Alice in Wonderland, Batman, Batman Returns, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice 2, Bela Lugosi, Big Eyes, Big Fish, Biopic, Black and White, Catwoman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Christopher Nolan, Creatire Feature, Daniel Wallace, Danny DeVito, Dark Shadows, David Fincher, Dumbo, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Frankenweenie, Gene Wilder, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 1984, Gremlins, Harry Belafonte, Henry Selick, Jack Nicholson, Jack Skellington, Johnny Depp, Margaret Keane, mark wahlberg, Mars Attacks, Martin Landau, Martin Scorsese, Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Nightmare before Christmas, Opera, Oscar Winner, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Plan 9 from outer space, Planet of the APES, Sleepy Hollow, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Stop Motion Animation, Sweeney Todd, Ted, The Corpse Bride, The Joker, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Penguin, Tim Burton, Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

What Have We Been Barking Mad About Recently?

  • Our Visible Review of the Invisible Man
  • Is Bad Boys For Life A Return to Form For The Franchise?
  • Is The Rise of Skywalker A Fitting End To The Star Wars Saga?
  • The Barking Mad About Films Top 10 Films of 2019
  • 10 Films We Can’t Wait To See In 2020

Jump to a Category

Jump To a Tag

3 star review 3 Stars 3D 4 Star review 4 stars 5 Star Review 5 Stars Blockbuster Book Book Adaptation Book to Film CGI Comedy Deadpool Disney drama Film Film Blog Film Review Five star review five stars Four Star review Four Stars Franchise Ghostbusters Harry Potter Horror James Bond Jaws Jennifer Lawrence John Wick Marvel Marvel Comics Movie Blog Movie review Reboot Remake review sequel Star Wars Star Wars: The Force Awakens Three Star Review Three Stars Thriller Tim Burton

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in