31 Days of Gothic Romance | Sleepy Hollow

If we were to define gothic romance by atmosphere alone, almost any of Tim Burton's films would fall into the category. But Sleepy Hollow is the most gothic romantic in the way it hits all the traditional themes and tropes. Like Great Expectations, it gender swaps the traditional roles, having an aristocratic woman employ ancient evil to menace Johnny Depp's perpetually frightened Ichabod Crane. There's also a great, old manor house and of course the coolest ghost ever.

Christina Ricci also looks especially appropriate as the angelically beautiful Katrina Van Tassel. She's not a traditional gothic romance heroine - wonderfully spending most of the movie making Crane wonder if she's his ally or enemy - but ends up playing another gender swapped role: the handsome young man out to rescue his love from the villain.

7 Days in May | Jurassic Big Eyes of SHIELD

Jurassic World (2015)



I loved it. When I came out of the theater, I thought that I may have even liked it better than the first one. I eventually backed away from that, because I was forgetting how effective some of the scenes are in Jurassic Park, like the initial T-Rex attack and the raptors in the kitchen. But the first one didn't have Chris Pratt commanding a troop of velociraptors. Or Bryce Dallas Howard saving everyone's lives. Or Jake Johnson at all. Or a fully functioning, open-to-the-public theme park. And I like the kids in Jurassic World better than the kids in Jurassic Park (although the first ones were just fine). There are many ways that World is more of what I want out of this concept than Park is.

It's not a perfect movie. There are plenty of loose threads to pull at if you're inclined to do that. And I often am in a lot of films. Just not in ones as thoroughly entertaining as this. I don't think the problems are major ones anyway, but these actors fighting and partnering with dinosaurs in a working theme park is a thing that's so totally in my wheelhouse that I will gladly ignore anything that might prevent my enjoying it.

Big Eyes (2014)



Tim Burton's latest film does have a major problem though. It's based on the true story of Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), the wildly popular artist in the '50s and '60s who let her husband (Christoph Waltz) claim credit for her work. Sadly, Big Eyes isn't interested in the burning question I had, which is why Margaret not only let this happen, but was so invested in the lie that she tried to fool her own daughter into thinking that Margaret had given up painting and that Walter Keane was the only artist in the family.

Late, late in the movie, Margaret offers the explanation that she felt dominated and bullied into it, but that's not really how it plays out. Walter turns scary dominating towards the end, but that's when he feels that everything's falling apart for him. Earlier in the movie, when he develops the scheme and convinces Margaret to participate, he's all charm and smiles. But his charisma doesn't explain her total buy-in and none of the movie works for me without understanding that motivation.

Agents of SHIELD



As part of my Marvel re-watch, I'm giving Agents of SHIELD another go. I watched the first few episodes as they aired, but even though I didn't think it was a horrible show, it was tough to get excited about coming back for every week. It seems to reward binge-watching though. I still don't finish an episode all excited for the next one, but it's easier to get in the habit of watching it when I can see a new episode every night or two instead of having to remember every week.

None of that is great praise, but I'm only six episodes in and haven't hit the post-Winter Soldier episodes yet where it reportedly gets better. So far, I like the characters well enough, but none of them are super intriguing. I want to like Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), but she's being kept mysterious for now, so it's hard to connect to her. The only character with any development so far is Skye (Chloe Bennet). I'm learning to like her, but she's not enough to carry the show. I'm ready for the rest of the team to become as interesting, if not more so.

34 Movies I Missed Seeing from 2014

It's time again to run through and rank all the movies from last year that I saw. I'll be doing that over the next couple of weeks, but first: here's the traditional post of movies that I wanted to see from last year, but haven't yet. That's partly to explain why some movies didn't make it into the rankings, but it's also to build a watch list for myself.

This year, work was crazy during the fall and leading up to the holidays, so I didn't get out to the theater as much as I usually do. The Missed List typically has around 20-30 movies on it, but this time there are 34 that I need to catch up on in 2015. I still saw more than I missed though, so I'm happy about that. We'll start on those in the next day or two.

For now, here's the Missed List, more or less in the order that the movies were released:

1. The Wind Rises



Hayao Miyazaki's last film. I'm a fan of Miyazaki and have seen all his feature films since Castle in the Sky, but I'm not a superfan and The Wind Rises is different enough from his fantastical stuff that I didn't rush to see it. Going to correct that soon though.

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel



I experience mixed results from Wes Anderson, but I very much enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom and what I hear about Grand Budapest Hotel makes me think it's even more in my wheelhouse from its cast and setting to its themes and the way it's shot. I love hotels and stories set in them, but there's also that whole Upstairs Downstairs/Downton Abbey angle of telling stories of both the servants and the served.

3. Joe



I would love to like Nicolas Cage in a movie again and if I can't get National Treasure 3, this seems like the way to do it.

4. Locke



A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have been the least bit interested in a movie that's set entirely in a car with a dude on the phone. But I do dig Tom Hardy and I'm curious about the mystery of where he's driving to.

5. Chef



This is mostly about the cast and Favreau as a director, but I also love some nicely shot food porn.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Who's In It: Jack Sparrow, Wednesday Addams, Rita Skeeter, Dumbledore, Tarzan, Ed Rooney, Uncle Vernon, Emperor Palpatine, Alfred Pennyworth, Max Zorin, Darth Maul, and Saruman.

What It's About: A loose adaptation of Washington Irving's story with Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) as a detective instead of a schoolteacher.

How It Is: I loved this in 1999, but that's when Burton was still a director I trusted and cut a lot of slack. I was nervous to rewatch it considering my feelings about most of Burton's recent work, but it turns out that I still love it. He took one of my favorite stories and made it even better with his gothic, fog-shrouded sensibilities, a strong mystery, some great action set pieces, and more nerd-favorite actors than you can throw a pumpkin at. I honestly don't have a bad thing to say about it, so I'll save you a couple of paragraphs of me just gushing and skip right to the...

Rating: Five out of five childlike charmers.

Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

I was really, really skeptical about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I love Johnny Depp, but my least favorite roles of his have been the ones where he's covered up in a ton of make-up while directed by Tim Burton. Then there's Burton himself, whom I tend not to enjoy except on rare occasions. Alice in Wonderland however is one of those rare occasions.

Oh yeah. I also tend not to like Alice in Wonderland adaptations. Lewis Carroll's stories are fantastic odes to the joy and frivolity of childhood, but when you separate the "plot" from Carroll's narrative style, all you're left with is a bizarre series of unrelated scenes. Even Disney's version, previously the only one I've seen that I'd call even partially successful, has no real ending or even a particular point it's trying to make. It gets by purely on design and charm.

By making his version a sequel, Burton gets around that challenge. He's able to find the best parts of the various characters, come up with his own story about them, and make a point that - while different from Carroll's - is at least related to it. Carroll emphasizes the wonder of childhood in all its dreams and potential. Burton points out the necessity of not giving up those dreams as we enter adulthood. As Alice's father tells her early in the movie (and Alice later repeats to someone else), "You're mad. Entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."

The film's plot goes that Alice is being bullied into an engagement that she'd rather not be a part of. As the pressure to marry an offensive, but wealthy aristocrat builds, she sees a white rabbit and follows him down a hole where many of the initial events from Carroll's stories are repeated. She doesn't seem to remember any of it though and when she finally enters Wonderland there's some discussion by its inhabitants about whether the White Rabbit found the right Alice at all.

After the break: we discuss The Right Alice in a way that requires a SPOILER WARNING. Proceed with caution.

How to Make a Tim Burton Movie

I absolutely loved Alice in Wonderland (I'll write a review as soon as I've had a chance to see it again; there's something I've gotta check out), so I carry no hard feelings about Tim Burton's movies in general. That said though, this is hilariously accurate:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.