He didn't fit in when he went to Sunday School.

September 12, 2010 8:18 AM

Timothy Gray wants to be just like Tim Burton when he grows up.
posted by gman (46 comments total)

He wants to stop making decent movies after Ed Wood?
posted by The Whelk at 8:31 AM on September 12, 2010 [8 favorites]

Ken Turner's blog and portfolio.
posted by ericb at 8:35 AM on September 12, 2010

The animation is good, but I had to turn it off after two minutes because of that wretched rhyming. Delivered with the skill and earnestness of a high school freshman phoning in a project.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:36 AM on September 12, 2010 [6 favorites]

Prettier with the sound off.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:58 AM on September 12, 2010

He wants to put his name on other people's films? I know of people still upset about how he put his name on Henry Selick's "Nightmare Before Christmas".
posted by bhnyc at 9:00 AM on September 12, 2010

I like it! Although I do not wish to be Tim Burton unless I also get Helena Bonham Carter. Or at least a Jack Skellington night light.
posted by shinybaum at 9:16 AM on September 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

Aw, what a sweet tribute. I support young filmmakers who want to be Tim Burton, as long as they don't continually cast the lead actress they're living with at the time, and also so long as they show interest in acting, not shoving pretty human setpieces around.

I was very much this kid. It wore off when I got to meet a whole bunch of other ones who were just the same. I even started wearing colors again after a while.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:20 AM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Very pretty visuals, and I hope he gets more animation work, but please, somebody take away his rhyming dictionary and copy of MS Word.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:23 AM on September 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

I might add that the poor rhyme scene is authentically Burtonesque, as you'll find out if you pick up a copy of his book of poems, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. Just as with his movies, he concentrates on what interests him (creepy stories, Gorey-style art) and completely ignores what doesn't interest him (meter). A big disappointment.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:29 AM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

The minister is right. He should be himself--that is, develop his own style rather than aping some else's, no matter how much he admires it.

Actually, that advice goes to Ken Turner.
posted by eye of newt at 9:34 AM on September 12, 2010

I think it's supposed to be an homage to Vincent, one of Tim Burton's short films.

Someone needs to hide his Thesaurus.
posted by domo at 10:13 AM on September 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

Actually, that advice goes to Ken Turner.

I think that advice should go to Tim Burton (only the person he admires is himself, circa 1992).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:23 AM on September 12, 2010

If he does grow up to be Tim Burton will he refund the cost of my ticket for Planet of the Apes?
posted by biffa at 10:59 AM on September 12, 2010

Just as with his movies, he concentrates on what interests him (creepy stories, Gorey-style art) and completely ignores what doesn't interest him (meter).

Yes! I could never quite put my finger on why Burton doesn't work for me. He is clearly excellent in some areas, and too lacking in others. It's like filmmaking isn't a collaborative art with him.
posted by acheekymonkey at 11:01 AM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes! I could never quite put my finger on why Burton doesn't work for me. He is clearly excellent in some areas, and too lacking in others. It's like filmmaking isn't a collaborative art with him

Which is why his later movies, where he's been allowed to do whatever he wants have been so listless, unimaginative, and dull. I don't think he's had a good film since 94. ( Wel okay Sleepy Hollow was *okay* ...although he produced ..Cabin Boy? What?).
posted by The Whelk at 11:06 AM on September 12, 2010

Seriously Charley And The Chocolate Factory looked like it was made in a week.
posted by The Whelk at 11:06 AM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I did not like this. Mostly because I didn't see the point. Domo has it. This is a total remake of Vincent. But like many a cover song it comes no where near the original, so what's the point? Now maybe if he'd gotten Burton to Narrate it....

As it stands this moves too slow, as noted the rhyming sucks, and the visuals have already been done.

This gets a meh from me. This said I admire obsession and dedication, so love the fact that he's all, "I don't care if there's a Tim Burton in the world! I'm going to be one too!" There's plenty of room for another dark director out there. Just seems weird he's typecasting himself as Burton.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:23 AM on September 12, 2010

I liked it despite the horrible rhyming, and I liked his portfolio, but then I like Burton too. And if you look at his other demo reel, Ken Turner has other things going for him, he's not copying Burton exclusively.
posted by gemmy at 12:14 PM on September 12, 2010

I was going to write a really witty comment,
But I couldn't think of anything to rhyme with "comment."


...What really would have brought this together would have been more creepy background music--the narrator's voice, alone, stands out too much and takes my attention away from the otherwise fun tribute going on visually. The voice also could use some sort of editing and effects. I can hear him swallowing, I think! Still, this looks like it was done with a true love of Tim Burton driving it.
posted by not_on_display at 12:33 PM on September 12, 2010

Yeah, I wanted to like this, but it's kind of meh. I think the director has talent, but this didn't work for me.
posted by empath at 12:43 PM on September 12, 2010

Burton was better before he became a one-man candystripe twee-goth industry, with all the responsibility to stakeholders that that entails. Back in the early 1980s, he ventured a lot further afield, dabbling in things like Steadmanesque surrealist cartoons. Now he has his hands full being Tim Burton.
posted by acb at 2:07 PM on September 12, 2010

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about upcoming movies, and we decided that it'd be great if Tim Burton and David Fincher swapped their next films. Like, I can't really get excited about Burton directing Dark Shadows, or Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, since it feels like they've made these movies at least three times already...but if they switched? It'd be nice to see both venture into new territory. And at least Fincher is mixing stuff up a little (albeit with projects that don't interest me personally at all, but who said they had to?); Tim Burton just keeps making these lookalike movies, has been for years, and while it's not his fault that his whole bag of tricks has been co-opted by Hot Topic, it's still just...tired. The apex of his trademark style came with Sleepy Hollow, which even he seemed to realize when he made Planet of the Apes, a movie that doesn't have that style at all -- or really any style at all -- but then it was back to the twee mines. I'm thinking he needs to make another movie for grownups; it can't be a coincidence that his least Burton-y film (Ed Wood) was his best. I love Burton, but it doesn't feel like he tries all that hard anymore.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:57 PM on September 12, 2010

Is there really going to be an American version of The Girl With The Dragon tattoo already? I wonder if this is the fastest remake yet.
posted by dng at 3:20 PM on September 12, 2010

I'd rather hear the one about the little kid who wants to be Danny Elfman.

This piece is a demo reel in and of itself, for effects and nothing else. Evoking TB is unfortunate since his star is falling and since none of the work here compares favorably with his, imo.

Fincher and Burton lately have made me really appreciate the subtle mainstreamed style of Chris Nolan. Cheers for him. ...Their mehness also reminds me to get a torrent of Micmacs.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:54 PM on September 12, 2010

Fincher and Burton lately have made me really appreciate the subtle mainstreamed style of Chris Nolan.

Chris Noland really is in this odd little auteur box isn't he? Like we know he delivers hits, and they appeal, but they're juuuust idiosyncratic enough to make us collectively go "huh?"" but you can't put your finger on it.

I think it's the subject matter. Every Nolan film to date is about some obsessed man who's life is permanently warped as the result of his devotion. Men who have to live above or beyond or outside of life to get anything out of it. Considering DiCaprio said he based Cobb on Nolan (and Noland kinda ...looks like him) it makes watching his movies very interesting.
posted by The Whelk at 4:07 PM on September 12, 2010

And as for Big Fish? Eh. It felt watered down and second-hand, being watered down is pretty much every TB movie since Sleepy Hollow. I've never seen a big-name director basically phone it in so often for as long as he does. Alice In Wonderland was like someone making a mean parody of TB movies. It's so totally risk-less and unmoving.
posted by The Whelk at 4:12 PM on September 12, 2010

say what you will about late Tim Burton- Sweeney Todd rocked.
posted by brevator at 4:14 PM on September 12, 2010

say what you will about late Tim Burton- Sweeney Todd rocked.

Please compare

By The Sea

By The Sea
posted by The Whelk at 4:16 PM on September 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

Seriously. It's not often that you can compare a STATIC CAMERA FILMED STAGE PLAY with a Hollywood production for tension and unnerving frightfulness and find the latter inferior. Nevermind that fucking HBC, whom I do adore, can't bloody sing anything but a whisper, and Russell Crowe would have been a much scarier Sweeney.

As for Nolan's jusssst idiosyncratic enough style... No way! Memento isn't spare in its stylization, you'll admit. And Inception is a wonderful labyrinth of tropes, editing and evidence, the most debatable film of the year or more.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:22 PM on September 12, 2010

Okay, I wanna preface this by saying that I haven't seen Inception, which by most accounts is Nolan's best movie, but...I don't really get all the Nolan love. I think critics respond well to his variety of blockbuster because there's actually some substance there -- which is, okay, setting the bar a little low for action movies, but Michael Bay -- and I've never seen a Nolan movie that I hated, but I've never seen one that sent me over the moon, either. (Well, The Prestige was pretty close. But that ending...jeez louise, I think M. Night Shyamalan threw that one back. Even if that silly bullshit came out of the novel, and I don't know whether it did, Nolan should have known better than to keep it.) What I think some, and I guess maybe even most critics are reading as "realism" is just some very dull-looking filmmaking, to my eyes. They're good movies, but they're so unimaginatively presented (again, maybe Inception corrects this) and so sexless that they make me feel like I'm in Catholic school watching them. This is apparently only me, I am well aware.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:25 PM on September 12, 2010

As for Nolan's jusssst idiosyncratic enough style... No way! Memento isn't spare in its stylization, you'll admit. And Inception is a wonderful labyrinth of tropes, editing and evidence, the most debatable film of the year or more.

Maybe what I'm saying is that you can't really pin his stylization down. Quick, what makes a Nolan film? Lots of action with few cuts? The only common factor, that I can think of right now, is the obsessed outsider protagonist. Which is what makes him interesting.
posted by The Whelk at 4:27 PM on September 12, 2010

Kittens for breakfast, if I had to guess I'd say Nolan directs action movies where he actually cares about action. They're so ..coherent.
posted by The Whelk at 4:29 PM on September 12, 2010

Well, if you want to consider directors who have unique style and DON'T guarantee box office, there are loads. Guy Maddin, Jim Jarmusch, Jean Pierre Jeunet, Lars Von Trier, Werner Herzog, Tarsem Singh, Julie Taymor, etc. But the mainstream appeal usually comes as a prerequisite in these comparisons.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:31 PM on September 12, 2010

The Whelk: "Quick, what makes a Nolan film?"

- A palette with a lot of black undertones
- Abrupt scene transitions
- Themes of criminality, existentialism and social being
- Terse lead character and gallows humor

CILLIAN MURPHY WITH A BAG ON HIS HEAD (srsly wtf)

I could go on. That was "quick." I like being quizzed!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:34 PM on September 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

what I meant was, Nolan totally has mainstream appeal and his films are very stylized, but it's not a standard kind of stylization like say, Burton (or Bey) has. And that is kind of unusual and I can;t put my finger yet on what makes a Nolan film so Nolan-y but I know it when I see it, and I think it might have something to do with the way he shoots and positions action scenes, but I'd have to re-watch everything with notes and get back to you.
posted by The Whelk at 4:35 PM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Kittens for breakfast, if I had to guess I'd say Nolan directs action movies where he actually cares about action. They're so ..coherent.

I think it's more that Nolan actually cares about the story in his action movies, as opposed to moving from 'splosion to mounting 'splosion. The action itself I don't think is done terribly well -- maybe on purpose, to some degree. What I mean is, if you look at something like the Hong Kong scene in Dark Knight, Batman flying over these buildings in his glider rig should have been this amazing thing to look at, but it's kind of...just there. Charitably, one could argue that Nolan's trying to tone stuff like that down to keep the film feeling believable; for me, I just look at it and think he's kind of a boring stylist. And the fight scenes where you can't see what the hell's going on are the same kind of deal -- maybe that's realism (via the Bourne Identity movies, but never mind that), but it doesn't really look that good, and I read it as a director who just doesn't care that much about that part of the film.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:39 PM on September 12, 2010

I have to believe that the action sequences in Inception are reflexive comments on his "is it or isn't it auteurish" action style. Many things about that film point to other films in overly deliberate ways, that wouldn't be exceptional. Dream bigger... adn the temporal cross-cutting which really points up the pacing signature of his editing... And there is a comment directly to reflexive effect in the snow fortress scene (Which you know looks very much like the first act of Batman Begins) where someone criticizes the unnecessary complexity and challenge of Eames' design. Obligatory climactic chase sequence, in other words.

Yeah, I take notes on movies for a living. I go back to film nerd cave now.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:45 PM on September 12, 2010

hey this is MY film nerd cave! I have the bones and fur just how I like them!
posted by The Whelk at 4:51 PM on September 12, 2010

Well I guess you could say the temporal cross-cutting in Inception is both, very indicative of his editing style and a larger comment on films as a whole. What other medium can you really control the flow of time AND audience focus like that?
posted by The Whelk at 4:56 PM on September 12, 2010

I was hoping this would be about this Timothy Gray.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:57 PM on September 12, 2010

Seriously. It's not often that you can compare a STATIC CAMERA FILMED STAGE PLAY with a Hollywood production for tension and unnerving frightfulness and find the latter inferior.

Seriously. I like looking at Johnny Depp just as much as the next nerdy girl, but the casting entirely missed the point. It's not horrifying if Sweeney isn't a choleric everyman, and Mrs. Lovett isn't a rosy-cheeked Angela Lansbury type. To look at Depp and Carter in character, you'd be hard pressed to imagine circumstances in which they didn't murder and butcher people.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:04 PM on September 12, 2010

Big Fish was quite good - made much more recently than '94.

I thought it had potential but left me wanting something different, something more but not more of the same.
posted by krinklyfig at 6:30 PM on September 12, 2010

I've never seen a big-name director basically phone it in so often for as long as he does.

Someone tell Tim Burton to MAKE ORIGINAL STORIES AGAIN. (only not Corpse Bride either)
posted by shakespeherian at 7:47 PM on September 12, 2010

Someone tell Tim Burton to MAKE ORIGINAL STORIES AGAIN.
Or, y'know, clue him in that the 80's are long gone and we're a full decade into the 21st century.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:41 PM on September 12, 2010

I openly admit to pretty much disliking anything hippie, burning man, or Burton (and goth, though done well is another story) but I admire Burton for making Planet of the Apes because he just about matched Lucas in film making mediocrity. I mean, right down to having a stellar British actor like Tim Roth too, like Lucas with Guiness and McGregor. Fascinatingly awful movies. Throw in the Hitch Hiker's Guide film in the same company and RTD Doctor Who finales.

Ed Wood was a film about the real Ed Wood played by Johnny Depp. It's rather meta of Burton to play Ed Wood when he directed POTA.

I'm looking forward to the sequel where Timothy Gray, having grown a little more mature, realizes he no longer wants to be like Tim Burton when he's grown up or will it be how he, like the goths I knew in high school, now in their 40s. are still goths and listen to the same music from the 80s and watch the same movies from the 80s and before, making exceptions for new movies by Tim Burton and more new movies if the Crow was in a perpetual sequel cycle?
posted by juiceCake at 10:53 PM on September 12, 2010

I know a few animation students, so I know how insanely long this kind of thing takes to put together. But seriously, the script reads like William McGonagall was a co-writer.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:35 AM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]