Frankenweenie

I would like to think that I will eventually give up on Tim Burton but I know in my heart I never will and it's mainly because I keep waiting for him to give us the next Ed Scissorhands or Pee Wee's Big Adventure. He however just continues to give us the crappy old man version of Burton who seems to have lost his edge. The thing about this new evil version of Timmy is  he keeps teasing of us with glimpses of his past freshness and thankfully Frankenweenie falls into this category. I was lucky enough to go to a Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA in LA and it was awesome. You were able to see all of his sketches and puppets he made as a kid and you learn that early on this was a different dude. He had this weird carnival inspired imagination and for whatever reason that clicked with me. Maybe it's because I'm from small town Texas. But you could see it resonating in every piece of art that he produced. They also had on display  some of the short films he made as he grew older and you could see the origins of some of the characters we'd later be introduced to in his major releases. Well one short that stood out was Frankenweenie.

Frankenweenie was, and the same applies to today's version; about this young boy and his dog. The two were inseparable as Sparky was Victor's only real friend. Well one day Sparky dies and Victor is having the hardest time coping with it until one day he tries to revive his canine companion via electricity, just like Frankenstein. Burton took you through the boy's complicated set up for the experiment and you eventually see that Sparky is brought back to life. And that is essentially where the short ends. Well this movie carries it a step further and shows the aftermath and consequences that come with messing with death. And you are finally introduced to some of the typically weird Tim Burton characters in the form of Victor's classmates. There is the smart and cunning Japanese kid who also happens to be the school's best baseball pitcher (funny), the creepy blonde girl who looks like a cracked out Amy Poehler and who also happens to collect her cats poo because each one is a clairvoyant prediction of something to come, and the most memorable one is Burton's ode to Igor in the form of Edgar E Gore. By the end the entire town is under attack by some pretty imaginative looking creatures.

So all in all you get what you should expect from this film; lots of creepiness, some sly humor, and an actual good story. Throughout the entire film there are all sorts of references to the classic horror movies that obviously inspired Timmy as he was growing up. I just wish that he would stick to this formula. Or at the very least just do what Shai Ladouche does. Blame everyone else for the terrible movies he makes. The only thing that Ladouche doesnt realize is that he has come out and basically said that every movie he has made has sucked. Maybe it's because he's in them! Check out his imdb. It's amazing that he's not  in a The Facts of Life reboot starring Hillary Duff!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0479471/

Anyway, I rate Frankenweenie as pretty FRESH and suggest you go see it!