Reeling Backward: "Sleepy Hollow" (1999)

 

One of the greatest disappointments of my cinematic lifetime is the devolution of Tim Burton. 

Along with the Coen brothers, he was at the very top of my list of favorite filmmakers during the 1980s and '90s. Burton made breathtakingly original movies, often combining existing stories or mythologies with elements of horror and twisted comedy to create something that felt at once new and very old: "Beetlejuice," "Batman" and its sequel, "Edward Scissorhands," "Ed Wood," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and on.

1999's "Sleepy Hollow" seemed to represent the apex, or at least the median, of his career. It was an R-rated, big-budget spectacle that took the legend of the Headless Horseman as a mere jumping-off point for something that was singularly Burtonian. It's hardly his best film but perhaps one closest to the essence of his filmmaking ethos.

And then, disaster.

Beginning with his next film, 2001's awful "Planet of the Apes," Burton dove over the edge of some boundless abyss. He went from being arguably Hollywood's most original voice to the King of the Crappy Remakes. 

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Dark Shadows," "Dumbo," "Alice in Wonderland," "Dark Shadows," "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" -- it seems there was no moldy intellectual property knocking about that Burton was unwilling to sign onto for a cynical, opportunistic reboot. Most of them made a lot of money, and so we've gotten more of the same.

Meanwhile, on the rare occasion Burton returned briefly to his outsider roots -- "Big Eyes," "Big Fish" -- it's been less of a commercial success. 

(Oddly, I split with the Coen boys the same time as Burton, beginning with 2001's "The Man Who Wasn't There." Just as they achieved mainstream success both commercially and with the respect of their peers as expressed through prestigious awards, I've found them afflicted with a case of the dread Serious Filmmakers disease. Only their Westerns, "True Grit" and "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," have truly pleased me since.)

I haven't watched "Sleepy Hollow" in at least a decade, so given the season I thought it would be a nice visit down pleasant memory lane. Don't think ill of of me, but joining the trip was my youngest, who seems to share my taste for scary movies that the oldest son lacks. Other than one or two fingers-over-eyes moments, he did just fine and enjoyed the movie as much as me, and possibly more. 

I must say that today the film's R rating seems rather overburdensome, as it's no bloodier than the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of the same period. Though I suppose a few lingering closeups of severed necks, along with a general theme that's heavy on the occult, likely tipped the scales toward the harsher rating from the MPAA. 

The script by Andrew Kevin Walker -- known for films dallying with perversion, "8MM" and "Se7en" -- combines the Gothic horror aspects of the original story by Washington Irving with a sort of Sherlock Holmes-esque murder-mystery, with a dash of the moralistic musings of "The Scarlet Letter." Here, Irving's fable of a love triangle mixed with local legends of hauntings gives way to a much more complex conspiracy involving most of the town's key figures.

Apologies: just one spoiler warning after more than two decades, so turn back now if you wish to keep the film's secrets to discover yourself.

One last brief aside before we continue: Sleepy Hollow was not actually a town, but merely a glen (neighborhood) of Tarry Town in upstate New York, today called Tarrytown. It originally incorporated in the 19th century as North Tarrytown, but owing to the lingering notoriety and tourist appeal from the story and various cinematic adaptations, changed its name to Sleepy Hollow in 1996. 

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery has remained throughout, however, along with the Old Dutch Church referenced in the story. My father-in-law, who grew up in Tarrytown, is buried there (along with Irving) and his service was held at the church.

"Sleepy Hollow" is a magnificent-looking film, shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki so as to seem leeched of nearly all color, except for some vibrant blood reds and other dashes of hue that stand out in stark relief. The costumes and production design are also sumptuous -- by Colleen Atwood, and Peter Young and Rick Heinrichs, respectively -- and all three received well-deserved Oscar nominations, with the latter winning.

The big joke of the movie is that Ichabod Crane, played by Burton muse Johnny Depp, is not your typical action hero but a squeamish sort prone to fainting and being repelled by blood and dead bodies -- which, of course, he encounters in abundant frequency. Rather than being a visiting schoolmaster vying for the hand of the town rich man's daughter, he is a constable sent from New York City (banished, really) to investigate three recent murders using newfangled scientific techniques and contraptions. 

With his milk-pale skin, foppy hair and persnickety mannerisms, Depp's Crane seems like a deliberate rejection of stereotypical Hollywood manhood, and for one I could not be more pleased by it. This more or less began Depp's penchant for highly stylized performances, epitomized by his Willy Wonka and Captain Jack Sparrow from the (seemingly endless) "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. 

Christina Ricci plays Katrina Van Tassel, the aforementioned daughter of Sleepy Hollow's most propserous citizen, Baltus Van Tassel (Michael Gambon). At one point she becomes Crane's prime suspect behind the Headless Horseman, played with great effect in a wordless performance by Christopher Walken. 

At first Crane believes the Horseman to be a mere myth, and indeed there's some play on this by local strongman Brom (Casper Van Dien), his chief rival for Katrina's affections, who at one point dresses up as the Horseman and frightens Crane half to death, knocking him out with a flaming pumpkin smashed to the head. (I'd forgotten, but this is actually the event that mostly directly recalls Irving's story.)

Soon Crane becomes convinced the Horseman is real, but being controlled by some local party who possesses his skull and uses this power to assassinate their enemies.

I must confess I'd quite forgotten about all the contretemps with the townsfolk, and even who the true villain turns out to be. It's a messy bit of exposition that never is really clearly spelled out, other than it centers around a local widow who has been impregnated and the various parties -- midwife, doctor, magistrate, notary and several witnesses -- who became embroiled in the scandal.

Katrina is soon revealed to be a witch, though eventually shown to be a good one. In fact, she is just one of a bevy of witches to be revealed in the story. Others include Baltus' second wife, Mary, and her twin sister (both played by Miranda Richardson), and Crane's own mother, seen in flashback by Lisa Marie, who was tortured and murdered by his religious father. 

Katrina was presumably taught her craft by her late mother (apparently murdered by Mary), so Baltus had the distinction of wedding not one but two witches.

Other players include Ian McDiarmid as Thomas Lancaster, the town doctor, who is sleeping with the Van Tassel servant, Sarah; James Hardenbrook (Michael Gough), the cowardly banker and keeper of documents; Jeffrey Jones as Rev. Steenwyck, who is secretly dallying with Mary Van Tassel; Samuel Philipse (Richard Griffiths), the local magistrate who buries his guilty conscience in drink; and Marc Pickering as Masbath, a boy whose father is murdered by the Horseman for bearing witness and becomes Crane's stalwart servant. 

In perhaps the film's most genuinely terrifying sequence, the horseman is sent to slay the midwife, Killian (Claire Skinner), and ends up killing her husband (Steven Waddington) and young son (Sean Stephens), too. The boy watches his parents murdered through the slats of the floorboards under which he is hiding, and then gets his own axe treatment, too.

(And if there's one part likely to wind up giving my kid nightmares, that's probably it.)

Like a classic Agatha Christie whodunit, the movie is surprisingly loaded with movements of the plot. We soon lose track of which of the townsfolk are doing ill and to whom, and bide our time until the next occasion the Horseman shows up to do some death-dealing.

Done up in all black, variously wielding swords and axes and riding his massive steed Daredevil (apparently undead as well), the Headless Horseman is quite unnerving. He whips about with surprising speed and pinpoint precision, as if able to see perfectly well despite not having a head. 

Stuntman-turned-actor Ray Park, best known for playing Darth Maul in the Star Wars franchise, takes over the Horseman for the combat and riding scenes. Rather than doing the usual built-up rig worn up on the shoulders, he performed the entire role wearing a blue ski mask that was digitally removed by Industrial Light & Magic. It's a terrifically effective presence.

Seeing the movie again, I'm reminded that the pacing of "Sleepy Hollow" is not the soundest -- terrific, horrifying action scenes giving way to some rather dull talkie parts in between. But it's the mood that makes it such a spectacular success.

We variously find ourselves laughing, or cringing, or being completely befuddled by what's going on. Some scenes land as straight-up horror, like when Crane and his companions track the Horseman down to his grave at the Tree of the Dead, where he springs forth from the grasping roots, and returns the same way, as if through the dripping gate of Hell itself.

Then we'll have parts, like the Horseman's assault on the Old Dutch Church with the townsfolk trapped in side, where he spears Van Tassel through the heart using a post of the sanctuary fence, which plays more for laughs than cries of fear. 

Or both, or one and then the other, or the other way around. I can imagine being in the theater when this film first came out, and I'd bet when this scene came round half the audience was shrieking and the other chortling.

That's the Tim Burton I remember and cherish. Maybe we'll get him back again someday, for good.

 

Review: "Dumbo"

Where’s the magic?

There’s nary a sprinkle of faerie dust in “Dumbo,” the new take on a Disney icon from director Tim Burton that never takes flight. Instead of a gentle fable about circus animals helping each other, it’s a standard-issue action spectacle complete with adorable kids, a missing parent and a cackling villain.

The new “Dumbo” is so human-heavy, the CGI elephant is relegated to being a sideshow.

Look, I’ve been agnostic about Disney’s let’s-take-our-animated-classics-and-turn-them-into-live-action-flicks obsession. I thought “Cinderella” perfectly wonderful. “Maleficent” was uneven but inspired. And this trend isn’t going away. Heck, we’ve got “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” on the docket just in the next few months.

But this adaptation is a total flop. It’s flat, colorless and almost hypnotically unemotional. The screenplay by Ehren Kruger feels like it was written by someone who only saw the 1941 original underwater with the sound turned off.

Danny DeVito gets in a few early kicks as Max Medici, the chatterbox owner of the Medici Bros. Circus where Dumbo is born. (Like most things with Max, the “brother” is flimflam; he’s the sole Medici.) After he agrees to sell out to upscale conman V. A. Vandevere, owner of the extravagant Dream Land amusement park, Max just stands around with hardly anything to say.

Vandevere (Michael Keaton) manages to be both humorless and un-scary. He wears a swoopy silver toupee and has an announcer preceding him everywhere he goes so folks know he’s important. He keeps a French former aerialist, Collette aka “Queen of the Heavens” (Eva Green), on his arm just because he wants people to think he’s sleeping with a knockout rather than actually sleeping with her.

Colin Farrell, an Irishman doing a woeful Okie accent, plays Holt Farrier, former center ring king as the head cowboy act of the Stallion Stars, recently returned from the war. Alas, he lost an arm to battle overseas and his wife to influenza while he was away. His two moppets, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins), act as de facto friends and guardians of Dumbo.

The story, set in 1919, starts in Sarasota, Fla., and turns through small towns to Joplin, Mo., where Dumbo is born to a mother elephant named Jumbo that Max has just bought at discount. When baby Jumbo pops out with those big floppy ears, Max immediately wires to demand a refund for damaged goods.

The kids notice that the baby seems to hover for a second or two whenever he sneezes after inhaling a feather, though of course none of the grown-ups believe them. Eventually, though, he puts on the act in front of a crowd and soon dollar signs are springing in front of everyone’s eyes. Vandavere shows up almost immediately and offers Max a partnership -- the kind where he calls all the shots.

I’m truly not sure why this movie exists. There’s no overtaxed stork delivering Dumbo; Timothy Q. Mouse is glimpsed briefly but doesn’t speak and plays no role; the pink elephants on parade are mere soap bubbles; and forget about a murder of crows teaching Dumbo to fly. It’s pure elephant ear power.

Speaking of those ears: the CGI is good enough that it seems plausible Dumbo could get airborne by flapping them hard enough. But he’s just a little baby; what happens when he grows up and weighs five tons? Even hummingbird speed wouldn’t be enough to get higher than a peanut’s breadth off the ground.

Same goes for the movie, earthbound and ugh-y.

Video review: "Big Eyes"

I’ve been hard on director Tim Burton for spending the last 15 years (mostly) cranking out soulless remakes of moldy intellectual property – “Alice in Wonderland,” “Planet of the Apes,” etc. He finally diverged to make “Big Eyes,” a low-budget original dramedy about an interesting historical curio.

The result was a funny/sad tale with some first-rate performances by Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz. The film got lost in the holiday shuffle and overlooked by the Academy Awards, but I urge you to give it another look on video.

It’s the true story of Margaret Keane (Adams), an artist whose paintings featuring waifs with enormous eyes became a huge commercial hit in the 1950s and ‘60s, appearing in ubiquitous reprints all over the country. Except it was her husband, a magnetic huckster named Walter (Waltz), who claimed credit for the work. He was a more established artist and better at selling himself.

Plus he convinced her that her paintings wouldn’t be taken seriously if people thought they were created by a woman. (Sadly, he was probably right, which doesn’t make his deception and bullying any more palatable.)

The story (screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski) is about the rise and fall of their relationship, culminating in a real-life court battle in which the estranged spouses engaged in a paint-off before a judge.

Adams is sensitive and endearing as a weak-willed person who eventually finds her own inner voice. And Waltz is delightful as the charismatic, conniving Walter.

Sometimes it’s best to paint outside the lines.

Video extras are pretty disappointing. The DVD comes with a standard making-of featurette, and the blu-ray adds Q&A highlights with cast and crew.

Movie:

Extras:

Video review: "Frankenweenie"

As a filmmaker, Tim Burton's mostly been working on reanimation projects lately -- taking old movies and making them rise from the dead as remakes crammed with computer-generated imagery. The results have been up and down, generally scoring at the box office but leaving lovers of his earlier work (I count myself) feeling disappointed.

If "Frankenweenie" has a fresher feel than most of his recent movies, that's because it's a remake of his own short film.

The original was live action, a black comedy about a boy who zombifies his pet pooch using Frankenstein-esque science. The spiffy new version is stop-motion animation, which suits the material well -- a mix of heartfelt pathos and creepy-crawly horror movie elements.

Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan) is crushed when his beloved dog Sparky is, er, crushed in a car accident. Indirectly inspired by his eccentric science teacher, Victor jolts the canine alive with electricity. But then the other kids in the neighborhood discover the trick, and soon the whole town is overrun with zombie pets.

The animation is truly spectacular, dark in palette but joyful in its intricacy and attention to detail. I loved how many of the individual children resemble horror-flick denizens, like the blonde girl who looks like she stepped out of "Village of the Damned."

Despite the subject matter, "Frankenweenie" is sweet-natured and should be suitable for all but the smallest children. And adults will enjoy the references to classic horror creatures, especially the classic Universal Studios menagerie.

The film comes with a decent array of video extras, though you'll have to shell out for a higher price point Blu-ray edition to get the best stuff. The DVD comes only with one featurette, a "Touring Exhibit" of the Frankenweenie world, plus a music video.

Upgrade to the two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and you add Burton's original "Frankenweenie" live-action short, the making-of doc "Miniatures in Motion: Bringing 'Frankenweenie' To Life" and an original animated short, "Captain Sparky vs. The Flying Saucers."

The four-disc combo pack also includes 3-D and digital copies of the film.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Frankenweenie"

"Frankenweenie" is another repackaging of previously used material from Tim Burton, but its dazzling black-and-white stop-motion animation and sweet tone -- despite the creepy horror film undertones -- wins the day.

This movie is a remake of Burton's own live-action short film from 1984 that launched his career: misfit boy heartbroken over the death of his dog reanimates the pooch using mad-scientist methods. But Burton and screenwriter John August use this concept merely as a launching pad to deliver an homage to classic horror film tropes, especially the Universal menagerie of creature features.

I really loved how the entire cast of characters, even the supposed "normals" like Victor Frankenstein's mom and dad, seem a little sinister and hollow around the eyes. Victor himself (voiced by Charlie Tahan) is a slightly morose loner who likes to tinker with making movies (stop-motion, of course) and experimenting in his suburban family attic.

Things get especially good when we get to Victor's classmates, every one of whom looks like they stepped out of a classic horror flick.

There's the blonde girl with the spaced expression who seems to be straight from "Village of the Damned," the tall kid with the Frankenstein monster's shoulders and Peter Lorre's lisp, and so on.

Best of all is Edgar E. Gore (get it?), a humpbacked kid with a three-tooth overbite from hell.

Deliciously voiced by Atticus Shaffer, Edgar acts as Victor's toadying sidekick-turned-blackmailer, demanding that Victor teach him the secret to pet resurrection. Of course, he spills the beans to other kids and soon all sorts of terrifying creatures are besieging the town of New Holland.

The inside joke is that, other than Victor, the children aren't doing this because of their love of knowledge or the desire to get their critter companions back. No, they're all out to win the prize at the Science Fair.

"They like what science gives them, but not the questions that science asks," laments Victor's condescending-but-wise teacher Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), who resembles Vincent Price and comes from a vague Eastern European country where, he says, even his plumber has a Nobel Prize.

Victor is the only one with pure motives. He absolutely adores Sparky, a scrappy little mongrel who resembles a Jack Russell Terrier interbred with a throw pillow. Alas, Sparky wanders into traffic and is smushed. When Victor witnesses Mr. Rzykruski use electricity to stimulate the muscles of a dead frog, it's not long before he's brought back Sparky in zombie form.

Sparky doesn't realize he's undead, though the fact that his tail or ear keeps falling off might serve as a hint. He's criss-crossed by stitches and has two metal bolts sticking out of his neck -- which Victor uses to "recharge" him from time to time -- but is more or less the same joyful pup.

The film takes almost an hour to really get going, but by the time the town carnival is being assaulted by giant reptiles and a mummy gerbil, it's a genuine hoot.

Despite the tame PG rating, I wouldn't recommend "Frankenweenie" for very small children, who might find the dead pets and scary moments a bit too much.

The great cast is rounded out by Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara, each of whom voice several characters, and old Burton standby Winona Ryder as the Goth girl next door.

"Frankenweenie" is an amalgam of previous stories and themes Tim Burton has been churning out for nearly three decades now. Even if, like Sparky, it's not exactly fresh anymore, there's still some juice in there.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "Dark Shadows"

The long, painful decline of Tim Burton from one of America's freshest filmmaking voices to hack-for-hire director has been going on for over a decade now. Other than the occasional, fleeting return to a semblance of his former form -- "Big Fish," "Corpse Bride" -- he's mostly spent his time remaking musty intellectual properties like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Alice in Wonderland."

Sad to say, but audiences have happily followed him down the rabbit hole of mediocrity. His recent films have made exponentially more money than his previous, more personal work.

That is, until "Dark Shadows." With this remake of the cult favorite TV show from the 1960s, audiences couldn't wrap their heads around Johnny Depp as a fish-pale vampire awoken during the 1970s and forced to co-exist with his less-than-groovy descendants (Michelle Pfeiffer and Chloë Grace Moretz among them).

Meanwhile, he must renew his battle with the witch (Eva Green) who imprisoned him long ago out of a twisted sense of love.

Gothic themes and macabre elements have always been part and parcel of the Burton package. But here it often seems like he and Depp are making a strange movie just for the sake of being strange.

The result is a curiously flat affair, not particularly scary and even less funny.

Here's hoping Burton's next movie -- yet another remake, but at least of his own short film "Frankenweenie" -- will fly higher. If not, it's time to put a stake through the heart of his career.

Video extras are a barely a step above so-so, and virtually non-existent of you don't spring for the Blu-ray edition. The DVD comes with only a single feature, a making-of featurette about the cast and their characters.

Go for the Blu-ray and you'll get eight more featurettes, focusing on such topics as the town of Collinsport, the extensive makeup process to turn the winsome Depp into a creepy bloodsucker, recapturing the fashion and music of the '70s and the film's special effects.

You also get six deleted scenes.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Video review: "Alice in Wonderland"

The worst thing about sitting through "Alice in Wonderland" is the dawning realization that director Tim Burton, once one of the most original voices in Hollywood, has become king of the crappy remakes.

The movie-going public simply did not need a new version of "Planet of the Apes" or "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and the same goes for "Alice."

Festooned with computer-generated critters and the now-obligatory kooky Johnny Depp performance, "Alice" is essentially a sequel to the original Lewis Carroll books. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now a willful teen, refuses an arranged marriage to a wealthy suitor for a return trip to Wonderland.

It seems in her absence the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter, her head ballooned by CG puffery) has usurped the throne of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and is lopping off heads at a record pace.

Depp plays the Mad Hatter, bit player in the Carroll books but now Alice's best friend/muse. It's a performance steeped in its own weird sauce, a spray of sibilant nonsense and rousing Braveheart-esque speeches.

In the unholy and wholly unnecessary matrimony between Tim Burton and "Alice," it's clear that originality doesn't live here anymore.

The film is available as a single DVD or a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. Video extras are OK for the DVD version, and expand considerably with Blu-ray.

The DVD includes a making-of documentary, a featurette about the film's visual effects, and another about how Depp constructed his latest crazy character -- including digitally enhancing his eyes so that he resembled Elijah Wood in drag queen makeup.

In addition, the Blu-ray has featurettes on creating the Red Queen, the White Queen, musical score, sets, stunts and even the Hatter's Futterwhacken Dance.

For myself, I wish Tim Burton would kick all the big-money productions and computer imagery to the curb, and concentrate on small, clever concoctions of his own recipe. These days it feels like he's baking someone else's cakes.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Alice in Wonderland"

Why?

That's my one-word review of Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland." Why does this movie exist? Does it add anything to the Lewis Carroll stories? Does it have a purpose for being beyond dollars-and-cents rationalizing? If it had never been made, would the cinematic world be poorer for it?

I've been a fan of director Tim Burton's comically twisted sensibilities for a long time, but lately he's in a rut. Rather than pursuing original stories ("Edward Scissorhands") or loopy take-offs on reality ("Ed Wood"), he's tackling big-budget revivals of well-known intellectual properties -- "Sweeney Todd," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Planet of the Apes."

Burton's gone from being one of the most vibrant, freshest voices in Hollywood to the king of the remakes. His distinctive style has been packaged and co-opted. You can practically hear the moneymen plotting:

"Hey, no one's made an 'Alice' movie in awhile, let's do it up with a lot of CG for the animals and add in some battle scenes for the teens and slather on some of that Tim Burton kookiness. And we'll get Johnny Depp to do one of his over-the-top nutty characters."

Speaking of which: The eclectic voices that call out to Depp have often aimed true -- his Keith-Richards-meets-Pepe-Le-Pew take on Captain Jack Sparrow made the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" a delectable mash-up of spectacle and spontaneity. But it had gotten old by the second go-round, and his Michael Jackson-inspired Willy Wonka was just strange for the sake of strangeness.

Ditto for his Mad Hatter, who seems to put on his personalities like he does his blue-and-pink makeup. One minute Hatter, as he's nicknamed, is speaking in a rambling, lisping spray of non-sequitors ("How is a raven like a writing desk?"), and then he switches into a strident Scottish brogue.

By the end of the film, he even gets a big ol' Braveheart sword to complete the strange ensemble.

The Hatter, of course, was only a minor player in the original novel by Lewis Carroll, but here he's elevated to sidekick/muse for Alice (Mia Wasikowska).

Carroll actually wrote two Alice books, and most movie versions have simply crammed together characters and story elements from each. This new film (screenplay by Linda Woolverton) goes one further, by essentially positing itself as a sequel.

Alice is now 19 and about to be married off to a haughty young lord, and is plagued by dreams about white rabbits and red queens. Little does she realize these are actually memories from her childhood visit to Wonderland (or Underland, as the natives insist is the correct name).

A quick dash down the rabbit hole, and a few rapid changes in size later, Alice stumbles upon the White Rabbit, Dormouse, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the Blue Caterpillar. It seems in her absence the Red Queen has usurped the crown of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), and is ordering the lopping off of heads at a prodigious rate.

Computer imagery is incorporated into many of the characters. The animals are all CG, but even the Red Queen (played by Helena Bonham Carter) has her head swelled to watermelon proportions. (Depp's eyes are similarly super-sized.)

Alice sets off on a search for the Vorpal Blade, guarded by a Bandersnatch, to be used against the fearsome serpent Jabberwocky at the climactic battle on Frabjous Day -- all bits, by the way, contained in Carroll's nonsense poetry. Oh, and Hatter will celebrate by doing his Futterwhacken dance.

Considered apart, some of these ornaments are amusing enough in their own right. But taken together, Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is an exercise in cynical regurgitation.

1.5 stars

Oscar countdown: Day 6

So about day 9...

Hopefully by now everyone's caught on to my little gimmick of using a movie poster with the number of that day's Oscar countdown in the title. For instance, today is day 6, so I dug up a poster image for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Anyway, it was fairly easy going for most of the numbers, since I already had a movie in mind: "Seven" for 7, Dudley Moore's "10" for 10, and so on. I kind of had to cheat with 8, using Fellini's 8-1/2, but so it goes.

Nine kind of had me stumped, though. In doing a Google search, I came up with that rather amazing poster from "9". I'd never heard of such a movie, but something about it was familiar.

I put the pieces together at a Sunday showing of "Coraline." There was a preview for "9," which is being released on, you guessed it, 9-9-09. It's a visually stunning film, with a dystopian and marvelously creepy vision, about beings made out of bits of cloth fighting some kind of apocalyptic war.

What's the connection to the Oscars? I'm getting to that.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a terrible memory for names. Large parties are torture for me, because I forget new names 30 seconds after I've learned them. I take copious notes at review screenings so I can remember the names of characters, places, etc.

But my visual memory is quite good. While we were watching the preview for "9," I turned to Jean and said, "I think this is based on a short movie that won an Oscar a few years ago."

Long shot, right? And yet I was right.

Writer/director Shane Acker won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2005 for an 11-minute version based on the same characters and storyline. It also was titled "9." I only know it from the 20-second clip they show when they show you a bit of all the nominees at the Oscars. But I remember how arresting the images were, and hoped I'd get to see it someday. I haven't -- Academy Award-nominated short films are hard to get ahold of.

Filmmaker Tim Burton, who's worked on several stop-motion animation movies, obviously liked what he saw and got behind Acker to make a full-length version of his film. The results look very promising.

Swing your browser here to watch a hi-def version of the "9" trailer.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/9/hd/

This sort of thing is not without precedent in Hollywood. For example, Billy Bob Thornton won an Adapted Screenplay Oscar for his screenplay for "Sling Blade," which was based on a short film with the same character and story called "Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade." There was some controversy at the time about it. Thornton directed the feature length version, but not the short one, so it may have been about a screenwriting credit, and thus shared glory for the Oscar. I can't remember, and my Web searches have come up for naught.