“Director Tim Burton, who never met a studio title card he couldn’t darken…” From the first moment, you know the latest installment of Honest Trailers is going to be a good one. In honor of the release of Dumbo, the series takes on the pre-eminent movie goth and his iconic style, including skeletons, clowns, and… mouths. (Extreme Jerry Seinfeld voice) what is the deal with Tim Burton and mouths?
Burton seems like an easy target for Honest Trailers, but to be fair, he kind of brought it on himself–what with his pasty protagonists smitten with “ethereal blondes,” distracted by flashbacks to traumatic childhoods, and battling wealthy and/or fat villains (sometimes both!). The HT crew gives credit where credit is due, however, noting that Burton brought us the first great big screen Batman, made one of the most classic ’80s comedies (Beetlejuice), and one of the weirdest ’90s dramas (Ed Wood), and “helped keep stop-motion animation alive.” Would Wes Anderson have made Isle Of Dogs or Fantastic Mr. Fox if not for The Nightmare Before Christmas? Maybe. But probably not?
Of course, we can’t talk about Tim Burton without acknowledging his bastard cinematic children, like Planet Of The Apes and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, and those other ones that no one likes to remember… moving on! Before you head to the theater to see Dumbo this weekend (unless you have actual plans?), maybe you can use this Honest Trailer to put together a Tim Burton Bingo card, featuring squares like “graveyard” and “contraptions” and “skeletons.” The free space is obviously for “circus stuff.”