Respect Authority

If you’ve seen even one preview for upcoming animated feature Coraline, then you - like me - likely assumed the film was written, produced and/or directed by Tim Burton, the brains behind gems like The Nightmare Before Christmas and duds like Sweeney Todd. 

Well, your assumption would be wrong. Some very legitimate investigative reporting (thanks IMDB, and Aaron) reveals that Tim Burton wasn’t involved in the production of Coraline - the creepy story of a girl who escapes into a “perfect” fantasy world, only to discover it’s full of evil, something I personally feel she should have assumed as soon as she saw everyone had buttons for eyes. In any case, the movie is directed by Henry Selick, who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, and was a classmate of Burton’s in art school. 

So if Selick was the mind behind Nightmare, ostensibly Tim Burton’s claim to fame, what exactly has Tim Burton done lately that warrants such unwavering respect? Well, he did produce Nightmare, and wrote, produced and directed The Corpse Bride, which actually isn’t something I’d brag about. In the last decade, he also directed Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Big Fish, the last of which was phenomenal. But all of his other career-making films - Batman, Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands and Beetle Juice - were at least 12 years ago, and he spent the late 1990s making enjoyable but fluffy films like Mars Attacks! and Sleepy Hollow. Read More ›