Tim Burton Goes Home to Burbank

I'D say director Tim Burton has done pretty well for himself -- successful cult filmmaker becomes bigtime filmmaker, is subject of a show at MOMA, lives near London's best cemetery, and he sleeps (presumably) with Helena Bonham Carter every night. And he was just announced to head the jury at Cannes this May.


“After spending my early life watching triple features and 48-hour horror movie marathons," he has said, "I’m finally ready for this.”


Pretty good for a guy who grew up a major dork in the most provincial part of Burbank and had his first important art project appear on the side of a garbage truck. (Man, I thought I had a tough high school experience.)

HERE is a large except of my trip around Burbank, The Valley and Hollywood with Burton a few years back -- and HERE the full piece. I found Burton very open and fun to talk to -- and got a strong sense of a wounded guy who'd made the best of things as an adult but was still full of self-doubt. I've also rarely seen a celebrity so naturally warm with his fans -- we were mobbed as soon as we got to Hollywood.

Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, of course, comes out in March.

Anybody besides me think "Ed Wood" is still his best film?

Inverting Alice in Wonderland

WHEN world-class ski champion and hollywood film producer frank beddor approached me about his book project a couple years back, i wasnt sure what to think. the fact that, he told me, he had taken lewis carroll's "alice" stories and turned them into a rather violent YA novel, as well as a graphic novel and video game, made me wonder if this was just a case of corporate-style "synergy" gone mad.

but beddor's first book, "the looking glass wars," was powerful and smart, and entirely un-cynical, as was its sequel. here is my story on beddor, and here's what i wrote at the time:

'What's most impressive about them is that the novels seems to be recounting a universe fully imagined ahead of time. Beddor admires what he calls "the epic world creators" such as J.R.R. Tolkien, "Dune's" Frank Herbert and Philip Pullman of "His Dark Materials." Beddor's books seem tailor-made for kids who've completed the "Harry Potter" series and are looking up, a bit dazed from the experience, eager for somewhere else to go.'

i'm writing about beddor today because the third book in the trilogy has just come out, and my old colleague geoff boucher of hero complex, speaks to him, here, about the project. and dont forget: a tim burton "alice" film comes out in march.