Sleepy Hollow
“There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.” ― Mary Renault, The Charioteer
There are Tim Burton films whose characters are so memorable and Burton's characteristic Gothic stamp pleasantly rests upon it. Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas. Then there are the Burton films that feel like an abomination of Burton's style, clearly his but without any coherent, redeeming features. Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows.
And then there are the films like Sleepy Hollow. Burton's fingerprints are all over it, from the ghoulish to the humor to the simple script. Johnny Depp is here, but without his "cannot do wrong" eccentricity which gets all wrong. He has remembered to act. These films, like, say, Sweeny Todd, captures the stamp of Burton's direction, but are unique in their own way. Yes, Sleepy Hollow has the Burton gothic outline, but it captures some of the fun of his earlier works that I miss in some of his blockbusters.
3.5/5
Big Eyes
“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Burton is a stylist, but he isn't always able to direct actors. We see him lose control (or perhaps vision) of the performances in the above mentioned abominations. And sometimes celebrated actors need the most control. Depp, certainly, is in this category-- control that man, or you have a disaster on your hands. And the same, unfortunately, can be said of Christoph Waltz. Quentin Tarantino knows how to get the most out of a Waltz performance, but few others do.
Big Eyes is, in a sense, a two-actor play with Amy Adams as the brilliant painter's wife whose paintings are considered less artful, but are very popular; and Christoph Waltz as her husband who knows a cash cow when he sees one. You need both actors to be brilliant to make this film work, but only one is. The same one who was brilliant in Arrival, in The Master. And the other was not.
This film is a stand out in Burton's cinema for it isn't a fantasy, high or otherwise, but a biography. It is not especially memorable, but not altogether uninteresting, either. Unless you are a completist, I'd say skip it.
3/5