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Tim Burton (USA, 1958) worked at Disney as an animator before directing
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985),
a parody of DeSica's Bicycle Thieves with
comedian Paul Reubens' character Pee-wee Herman as the protagonist.
Beetlejuice (1988) is the film who revealed his skills at crafting
fantasy and horror adventures.
Due coniugi muoiono e tornano alla loro amata casa sotto forma di fantasmi.
La vita da fantasmi non sarebbe cosi` dura se la loro casa non venisse venduta
a una famiglia di artisti. Quando gli artisti prendono possesso della casa,
i fantasmi non si danno pace. Purtroppo sono sprovveduti, alle prime armi,
e possono soltanto consultare il manuale dei fantasmi, ma non sanno come
liberarsi della famiglia. La figlia, Winona Ryder, un'adolescente sempre triste,
ossessionata dall'idea della morte, sembra in grado di sentirli
o perlomeno percepirli, ma non sembra per nulla terrorizzata dalla loro
presenza. Nel frattempo loro vanno a chiedere aiuto alla burocrazia dei
fantasmi in un grande palazzo popolato da impiccati ed esseri deformi.
Ricevono soltanto un consiglio: non chiamare Beetlejuice, perche' causa
piu` guai di quanti ne risolva.
I due inetti fantasmi le provano tutte, ma invano.
La ragazza ha la facolta` di vederli e non si spaventa per nulla nell'apprendere
che si tratta di fantasmi. La ragazza a sua volta tenta invano di convincere
la matrigna che ha fotografato dei veri fantasmi. La madre ha indetto una
cena per sette persone, ma non sa quello che l'aspetta: i due fantasmi,
disperati, evocano lo spirito di Beetlejuice, un mostro davvero disgustoso
e scatenato, che semina il panico alla cena facendo danzare tutti il calypso.
Purtroppo gli avidi ed eccentrici amici della famiglia sono deliziati dallo
show e pensano subito a come far soldi. Mandano la ragazza a invitare i fantasmi
ad unirsi a loro, ma i fantasmi sono depressi perche' non riescono a
spaventarli. I genitori sono ansiosi di capitalizzare sulla presenza dei
fantasmi, i fantasmi adesso sono ansiosi perche' non riescono a controllare
Beetlejuice, che e` anche uno sporcaccione fissato con la ragazzina.
Non solo: la burocrata ordina loro di eliminare tutte le prove della loro
esistenza, dal manuale alle fotografie.
Beetlejuice viene rinchiuso nella riproduzione in miniatura del paese
e invano supplica la ragazza di liberarlo (basta pronunciare tre volte
il suo nome).
I fantasmi si sono affezionati alla ragazza e sono disposti a coesistere
con la famiglia, ma non sono disposti ad essere usati come attrazioni
turistiche. Quando i genitori invitano due personaggi potenti, la ragazza
rifiuta di aiutarli a intervistare i fantasmi. Ma l'amico di familia, Otto,
ha messo le mani sul manuale e riesce ad evocare i due fantasmi, eccetto che
la sua formula li fa anche morire. Per salvarli, la ragazza corre a liberare
Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice si scatena subito in una serie di acrobazie horror.
Non e` facile imprigionarlo di nuovo. Alla fine i due fantasmi sono ridiventati
esseri visibili e vengono accolti a braccia aperte dai genitori della ragazza.
La ragazza e` felice e diventa persino un'adolescente normale. Beetlejuice
rimane nel suo inferno, incorreggibile anche con gli altri fantasmi.
Fiaba surreale che sposa l'horror alla commedia e al volo di fantasia.
Burton also directed
the first two installments
of the adaptation of the comic strip "Batman":
Batman (1989) and
Batman Returns (1992).
Burton reinvented the super-hero movie and these two films started a whole
new Hollywood industry (alas, of mostly disposable movies).
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Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Burton also
conceived and produced
the stop-motion animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993),
that was directed by Henry Selick.
Ed Wood (1994) is a fictional biography of Hollywood's filmmaker Ed Wood,
who was mainly remembered for his ineptitude. But Burton turns it into a silly
comedy that is rarely funny.
Whether intentionally or not, Burton's film is almost as clumsy as the films
that Ed Wood directed. On top of the low quality, it is also a very long movie.
It is also a totally inaccurate biography, both of Wood and of Lugosi.
Ed Wood and his friend Bunny (Bill Murray) fail miserably with their first
theatrical play, starring Ed's girlfriend Dolores.
Ed is then refused a director's job for a sex-change film, despite revealing
his secret transvestite passion. But he's lucky enough to meet an aging
Bela Lugosi, who is out of job. When Lugosi consents to star in it,
the producer hires him for the film. His direction is even more akward
than his awkward team (he wears woman's dresses on the set and always likes
the first cuts). The producer fires him and Lugosi is desperately broke.
Wood can't find work for himself or Lugosi. He repeatedly tries to raise money
for a new horror project, helped out by
a new friend, magician Criswell, who predicts a big success,
and finally Ed gets the money by promising leading roles
around. The incompetent actors, that now include wrestling champion
Tor Johnson and the usual, rapidly aging Lugosi, are a recipe for disaster.
Eventually, Lugosi has to be hospitalized for his drug addiction.
Dumped by Dolores and ignored by tv starlet Vampira, Ed dates a sweet girl, Kathy, who doesn't mind his strange
transventite hobby.
The film is an absolute disaster: the audience chases the team out of the
theater. Furthermore, Lugosi dies.
Vampira, fired from her tv show, joins the team for their next horror project,
funded by Ed's bigot landlord. Inspired by Orson Welles, Wood decides to
press ahead with his vision. The movie is Ed's first success.
Mars Attacks (1996) is a funny farce and satire, that relies on
special effects and an impressive cast.
Even more than a satire, it is also a giant encyclopedia of human stupidity at the end of the 20th century: the hypocrisy and incompetence of politicians, the pomp and arrogance of scientists, the superstitious insanity of the new spiritual faiths, the senseless ardor of the neofascists, the implacable certainty of the under-educated rural middle class, and so on.
We are all ridiculous: gamblers, journalists, generals, entertainers, patriots,
the smiling newborn Christians,
the thousands of Muslims bending to their non-existent god,
even our beloved monuments. The film mocks every aspect of human civilization
through a carnivalesque romp:
it's all ridiculously insignificant from the viewpoit of another civilization,
which also happens to have the weapons to destroy it.
It's like the Marx brothers on steroids, taking on the very world that watches their movies.
This film is to society as a whole what Dr Strangelove was to the military world.
Why would a superior civilization even remotely think of treating human civilization with respect?
In the White House the president (played by Jack Nicholson) is informed of
flying saucers. His advisers are split:
a general would like to nuke them, a scientist thinks they must be peaceful.
The president goes live to announce that Martians have been spotted by
the space telescope.
As the president speaks on tv, some Las Vegas residents listen:
an ex-boxer black waiter dressed liked an Egyptian and waitress Sidney,
a selfish gambler (Danny DeVito), millionaire Art (played by Nicholson again),
and his wife Barbara, an helpless alcoholic who practices new age spirituality.
In a small, rural town of Kansas, a gentle and shy teenager, Richie, takes care of his
grandmother, while his rude, trigger-happy father swears to kill any Martian
that invades his land and his brother, an obnoxious soldier who calls him
"retard", is preparing for the historical events.
Life goes on.
A black bus driver stops the bus to pick up her children who are playing
videogames. The president's press secretary picks up prostitutes.
In New York a tv show hostess, Natalie, interviews and flirts with a
professor, Donald. Jason, her boyfriend, also works at the tv station.
The president watches the show with his wife Martha and his teenager daughter
Taffy.
Suddenly, the tv image disappears and a martian appears.
A fleet of flying saucers has already surrounded the Earth and are about to
land in the desert.
Donald elucidates the president and his generals about the Martian anatomy.
He believes they are peaceful, and they have more to fear from humans than
humans from Martians.
The president opts for a friendly course.
Art the millionaire wants to hire the former boxing champion to take care of
some business, but the man is more interested in getting back with his wife,
the bus driver.
Thousands of soldiers converge towards the spot in the desert where the
Martians are going to land.
The new age alcoholic is out there with her crystals.
The vain Natalie and her boyfriend cover the landing live from the desert.
A flying saucer finally lands, the door open and the Martians come out.
A clumsy machine translates their greeting in English and the general's
greeting in Martian. The machine translates that they are coming in peace,
and the crowd explodes in an ovation. But the Martials start shooting
like crazy. Their weapons burn the entire human body, leaving only the skeleton.
People and tanks are disintegrated.
The first encounter turns into a massacre.
Ritchie's brother attacks like Rambo holding the American flag but is
pulverized in front of the tv, as his parents are watching.
Natalie's boyfriend is one of the victims.
The president has watched all of this live.
Donald the scientist thinks that there was a simple misunderstanding.
The president's teenage daughter suggests that maybe the machine does not work.
Using another of the scientist's invention, the president broadcasts another
message of peace to the Martians. But the chief of the Martians simply bursts
out laughing, while he's flipping through the pages of a porno magazine.
The Martians have captured Natalie and her very annoying dog, and have
performed an experiment on her: Natalie's head is in a bowl, while the dog's
head has been transplanted on Natalie's body.
The Martians send a new message, which the scientist translates as a formal
apology for what happened and a request to meet with the USA Congress.
The president accepts. But the Martians do it again: they incinerate the
entire USA Congress. This time they kidnap the scientist.
They remove his head and perform electrical experiments on it. Natalie,
who now has the body of her dog, doesn't miss the opportunity to flirt again
with him (or, better, with his head).
In the meantime, an attractive female Martian enters the compound of the White
House. The sex-crazy press secretary lets her in. The Martian heads for the
President's room and almost succeeds in kidnapping him.
But the aliens wreak havoc anyway in the capital and in the White House.
The videogame-dependent children of the bus driver, on a tour of the White
House, steal the weapons of the aliens and defend the president shooting like
in their favorite videogames.
While the millionaire is talking business to his partners, the aliens
attack Las Vegas. The wife of the ex-boxer calls him and tells him that
there are Martians everywhere (her children are shooting from the window).
Martians enter his casino and start shooting at everybody and everything.
The alcoholic, the boxer, the gambler and a singer manage to escape.
The Martians are now attacking also the small town in Kansas. Ritchie's
parents are loading the guns.
The president finally authorizes the use of the nuclear weapons.
Martians destroy all the missiles in a few seconds.
Martians attack all the countries in the world, and particularly enjoy
destroying the most historical monuments in ever more creative and
irreverent manners, and take pleasure in it like mean children.
Ritchie's parents are crushed by a giant Martian, while Ritchie is
rushing on the highway to save his grandmother. She is actually saved by
the music she's listening to (old country music that blows up the brains of
the aliens).
The Martians enter the control room, where the president and the generals
are hiding. The general attacks them, but they shoot him with a beam that
shrinks him down and then the ambassador just crushes him under his shoe.
The president tries to move the Martian embassador with a
noble speech, but the ambassador makes fun of his speech and kills him.
Martians are on a rampage everywhere.
The ex-boxer protects the take off of his friends
(including the alcoholic) by facing the aliens with no weapons, just his
fists.
Finally,
the teenager saves the world by broadcasting country music throughout the
world. The music destroys the brain of the aliens. Martian soldiers drop like
flies. The flying saucers collide and explode in the air.
Life returns to normal.
In front of the ruins of Washington,
the daughter of the president presents the medal of honor to the teenager
and his grandmother.
The boxer returns home, to his wife and his children.
References to Dr. Strangelove, Godzilla,
Welles' War of the Worlds, but mostly a colossal satire of USA society
at the turn of the century: high-tech industry, new-age mystics, politicians,
generals, patriots, entertainers, news media, etc.
The heroes are the old-fashioned ones, notably a teenager and an old lady.
However, the world is
saved by them accidentally, and it is saved by playing the holiest of all
USA-made forms of music: country music.
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(Translation by xxx/ Tradotto da Corrado Cantelli)
Mars Attacks (1996) e' una commedia satira che si basa
principalmente sugli effetti speciali e su un cast imponente.
Alla Casa Bianca il presidente (interpretato da Jack Nicholson)
viene informato dell'avvicinamento di dischi volanti. I suoi
consiglieri sono divisi: un generale vorrebbe attaccarli con le
armi nucleari, uno scienziato ritiene che debbano essere
pacifici.
A Las Vegas vive Sidney, un ex-boxer nero vestito da egiziano
che fa cameriere e cameriera, Art, un giocatore d'azzardo
egoista e miliardario (interpretato ancora da Jack Nicholson), e
sua moglie Barbara, un'irrecuperabile alcolizzata che pratica la
spiritualita' new age.
Il presidente annuncia, in diretta televisiva, che i marziani
sono stati avvistati dal telescopio spaziale.
a New York la presentatrice di un programma TV, Natalie,
intervista e corteggia un professore, Donald. Anche Jason, il
suo ragazzo, lavora nell'emittente televisiva. Il presidente
guarda il programma con sua moglie Martha e con la figlia
adolescente Taffy.
In una piccola citta' del Kansas, un ragazzino, Richie, si
prende cura della nonna, mentre il rozzo padre giura di uccidere
ogni marziano che invada la sua terra.
Una flotta di dischi volanti ha gia' circondato la Terra e
stanno per approdare nel deserto. Il presidente opta per la via
amichevole. Centinaia di soldati danno il benvenuto ai dischi
volanti. La vanitosa Natalie commenta l'atterraggio per
l'emittente televisiva.
Ma i marziani sono cattivi e cominciano a sparare come pazzi. Le
loro armi bruciano tutto il corpo, lasciando solo lo scheletro.
Il primo incontro si trasforma in un massacro.
Gli umani decidono di riprovare e li accolgono a Washington. Di
nuovo gli alieni annichiliscono l'intero parlamento e rapisco
anche lo scienziato cordiale.
L'assistente del presidente (una maniaca del sesso), lascia
entrare nella Casa Bianca un'aliena che quasi rapisce lo stesso
presidente. Ma gli alieni provocano comunque distruzioni nella
capitale e nella Casa Bianca. Due bambini, che erano in visita
guidata, prendono le armi degli alieni e difendono il presidente
come nei videogiochi.
Mentre il miliardario di Las Vegas sta parlando d'affari coi
suoi soci, gli alieni attaccano anche la sua citta'.
I marziani si burlano delle armi umane di distruzione di massa.
Distruggono tutti i monumenti famosi in modi sempre pi— creativi
e irreverenti, prendendoci gusto come dei bambini cattivi.
Il presidente degli Stati Uniti cerca di convincere
l'ambasciatore marziano con un discorso toccante, ma
l'ambasciatore se la ride del suo discorso e lo uccide. I
marziani si scatenano ovunque.
Tutti i personaggi principali vengono uccisi tranne l'umile
ragazzino che ha salvato la nonna, e l'umile boxer, che protegge
la fuga dei suoi amici facendo a pugni con gli alieni. Il
ragazzino salva il mondo causando la morte degli alien e la
distruzione delle loro astronavi. La figlia del presidente
conferisce la medaglia d'onore al ragazzino davanti alle rovine
di Washington.
Troppo episodico, troppi personaggi. Riferimenti a Dottor
Stranamore, Godzilla e La Guerra dei Mondi di Welles.
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Sleepy Hollow (1999) is a silly gothic tale with a silly ending.
As usual, the visual effects are the saving grace of Burton's film.
Just before New Year's Even of 1800 the superiors, who don't believe in his
scientific methods,
the young and passionate constable Ichabod from his urban New York post to
investigate a series of gruesome murders in a rural hamlet.
He stays at the mansion of the richest man of the hamlet,
Baltus, who has a second wife and a teenage daughter, Katrina.
He is informed by the doctor, the reverend, the notary and the magistrate
that a "headless rider" has beheaded three people and stolen the heads.
The townfolks are convinced that the murders are the work of the ghost of a
mercenary that during the Independence War was beheaded and buried
in the woods nearby. A flashback shows us two little girls witnessing the event.
Ichabod has barely arrived that a fourth person is killed, leaving a young boy
orphan. The head, again, has disappeared.
The townfolks look in disbelief when Ichabod examines the corpse using modern scientific devices.
The townfolks, in particular Katrina's fiance Brom, are hostile to the stranger and try to scare him with a fake
headless rider.
The magistrate whispers to Ichabod that the third victim, a woman, was pregnant,
and is chased and beheaded by the headless rider when he is about to tell Ichabod who the father was. The rider than picks up the head with the sword and rides away.
The horseman, however, spares Ichabod's life as if he were not interested in him.
Ichabod is traumatized by the brutal scene, realizing that the story was not just superstition.
At night he dreams of his mother, who was abused by their bigot father and eventually killed.
The orphan and Katrina are the only people to volunteer to help Ichabod
track down the grave of the mercenary, i.e. of the rider.
The orphan tells him that his father witnessed an argument between father and son, the first two victims, owners of a vast fortune.
A witch tells Ichabod where to look.
They find a bleeding tree and inside the heads of the murdered people.
Under the tree is the grave, and they find that the head of the mercenary
has been stolen: the headless rider wants his head back.
Suddenly the heads move and the headless rider emerges.
He ignores them and rides away at incredible speed, chased in vain by Ichabod.
The headless rider breaks into the house of the midwife and his wife who have
a little boy, and mercilessly beheads all three of them.
On his way out, the rider is confronted by Katrina's fiance Brom who tries to
stop him. Ichabod arrives and tells Brom that the rider is not after him but
Brom keeps fighting and is eventually killed, while Ichabod is wounded.
The rider walks away without beheading Brom.
The rider seems to be immortal, having survive the bullet shot by Brom's rifle.
Ichabod has understood that the rider is programmed to kill only some people,
and to take their heads, and that the rider is controlled by someone who has stolen his head from his grave, someone who knows the secret location of the grave, either the witch or someone else.
That night he dreams his mother's horrible death: is father tortured her to
death. He tells Katrina, who is now in love with him, that he was seven years
old and that was the reason that he, Ichabod, abandoned religion and turned to science.
Ichabod visits the notary and the boy discovers his father's satchel in his
house. The satchel contains both a will and a marriage certificate:
the rich man who was the rider's first victim had married the pregnant woman,
who was then the heir to his fortune. The rider killed all the people who
knew this except the notary
Now Ichabod suspects that the rider is controlled by the beneficiary of all
the murders, the next of kin: Baltus.
He will inherit the fortune and there are no witnesses left that a will existed.
Furthermore, Katrina informed Ichabod that her father wants him to leave town.
Katrina sees him hide the incriminating documents.
When she leaves his room, Ichabod discovers an esoteric symbol drawn by
Katrina under his bed and assumes it to be a curse.
Ichabod sees Katrina's stepmother cut her hand while making love to the reverend: she is obviously not faithful to her husband Baltus.
In order to defend her father, Katrina steals the incriminating documents and burns them.
Ichabod is told by Baltus that the notary, terrified, hanged himself and the
townfolks are assembling in the church and want him (Ichabod) out.
The rider appears and kills Katrina's stepmother.
Then he attacks the church, where the townfolks are congregated, causing
panic. The reverend grabs a crucifix and kills an elderly man who is about
to confess some sins. Baltus shoots and kills the evil reverend.
The rider finds a way to grab Baltus with an harpoon and pull him out of the
window and behead him.
Ichabod, who has witnessed the whole scene, thinks that Ichabod is the witch
controlling the headless rider, and decides to leave town.
He is already on a coach taking him back to New York when he sees in a book
given to him by Katrina that the esoteric symbol is not a curse: it protects people.
The case is not solved. He rides back and examines the headless corpse of Katrina's stepdaughter, discovering that cut on her hand was made when the woman was already dead, hence is it not the corpse of the stepdaughter.
In fact, the stepmother just showed up very alive at the house and caused Katrina to faint. The stepmother summons the headless rider to behead Katrina and, while waiting for him, tells Katrina that she was one of the two little girls who witnessed the killing and burying of the mercenary (the other one was the witch met by Ichabod in the woods, and the stepmother just killed her), that she has the skull that controls the rider, and that the one buried as her is actually their servant, who disappeared a few days earlier,
and that the ordeal is her revenge for the poverty to which her family was
condemned by the rich man (the first victim). The stepmother will inherit
everything when Katrina dies.
Ichabod arrives just in time to save Katrina from the rider by climbing into
a windmill and then blowing it up. The rider is immortal so he continues to
chase them through the woods. Conveniently, the evil stepmother shows up,
shoots Ichabod but doesn't kill him,
and loses the skull. The boy hits her with a log allowing Ichabod to grab the
skull and throw it to the headless rider. The rider mounts his head on his
neck, mounts the horse, grabs the terrified stepmother, and disappears into the tree with her.
Ichabod faints.
On New Year's Eve, the three (Ichabod, Katrina and the orphan) take a coach to
New York.
After a remake of Planet Of The Apes (2001)
and the melodrama
Big Fish (2003), adapted from Daniel Wallace's 1998 novel,
Corpse Bride (2005), co-directed with Mike Johnson, is a gothic stop-motion animated musical fairy tale,
set in a 19th-century English village, and one of his most technical accomplishments.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx) Se sei interessato a tradurre questo pezzo, contattami
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Charlie And the Chocolate Factory (2005) is a simple fable and a stylish
divertissment.
Charlie is the child of a poor couple, who lives with his parents and grandparents in a humble hut. Granpa used to work at the chocolate factory owned by the
eccentric Wolka, but one day Wolka closed it, and ever since it has been a
mystery what goes on inside. Granpa would give anything to be able to peek inside. Just then Wolka announces that he is giving away five tickets to five children for a tour of his factory, and that one child will win a special prize.
The first four tickets are announced with much fanfare around the world.
Charlie wins the fifth one and joins the other children at the factory, accompanied by granpa.
Wolka is an odd tour guide, and his factory is a giant amusement park made
entirely of chocolate.
After a series of lushly choreographed musical numbers, that borrow from both
Busby Berkeley's musicals and rock videos, the other four children are
eliminated. Charlie wins the special prize: the factory itself. But upon one
condition: that he renounces his family. Charlie refuses, and Wolka is puzzled
why someone would prefer a family over his factory. The family returns to its
humble life, while Wonka, in a bad mood, can't make good chocolate anymore.
Eventually Wonka understands the value of family and visits his old father.
Charlie accepts the factory, and Wolka accepts Charlie's family.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Federico Morganti)
Charlie e la Fabbrica di Cioccolato (2005) è una semplice fiaba ed elegante divertissment.
Charlie è il figlio di una povera coppia, che abita con i genitori e i nonni in una modesta capanno. Il nonno lavorava un tempo nella fabbrica di cioccolato posseduta dall’eccentrico Wonka; un giorno questi la chiuse, e da quel momento è rimasto un mistero tutto ciò che vi accade dentro. Il nonno darebbe qualunque cosa per dare una sbirciata all’interno. Proprio allora Wonka rende noto che distribuirà cinque biglietti a cinque bambini per un tour della sua fabbrica, e che un bambino riceverà un premio speciale. I primi quattro biglietti sono annunciati nel mondo con molta fanfara. Charlie vince il quinto e raggiunge gli altri bambini alla fabbrica, accompagnato dal nonno. Wonka si rivela una strana guida turistica, e la sua fabbrica un gigantesco parco di divertimenti fatto interamente di cioccolato. Dopo una serie di numeri musicali dalla sfarzosa coreografia, che attingono sia ai musical di Busby Berkeley che ai video rock, gli altri quattro bambini vengono eliminati. Charlie vince il premio speciale: la fattoria medesima. Ma a una condizione: che rinunci alla propria famiglia. Charlie rifiuta, e Wonka è confuso sul perché qualcuno possa preferire una famiglia alla sua fabbrica. La famiglia ritorna alla sua modesta esistenza, mentre Wonka, di cattivo umore, non riesce più a produrre del buon cioccolato. Infine Wonka comprende il valore della famiglia e va a trovare il suo vecchio padre. Charlie accetta la fabbrica, e Wonka accetta la famiglia di Charlie.
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Sweeney Todd (2007) is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical.
After a silly adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (2010), and
after Dark Shadows (2012), adapted from the TV series of horror parodies,
Frankenweenie (2012) was an animated remake of a short that he originally made in 1984.
Big Eyes (2014) is the biopic of painter Margaret Keane.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), the adaptation of Ransom Riggs' novel "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" (2011), first of a trilogy and followed by "Hollow City" (2014) and "Library of Souls" (2015), is a confused mess of a fairy tale which could be simply a boy's wild dream or the delirious imagination of a mentally insane boy.
Jake, a teenager, finds his granpa dying in the forest and for a second sees
a monster behind the trees and a woman who shoots the monster.
The granpa always told Jake about the house of children run by Miss Peregrine
on an island. He told Jake that the children have supernatural powers.
Upon dying, granpa tells Jake to look for the house because it really exists,
except that it is stuck in a day during World War II, in a loop of time.
Upon that day the house was bombed by German planes and all
the people there died, except for Jake's granpa.
Eventually Jake's parents have to hire a psychiatrist because Jake truly
believes in this fairy tale. Jake "heals" in the sense that he starts
admitting that there was no monster and his granpa was killed by dogs, which
is the official version by the police. However, on his birthday he is given
his granpa's final gift: it is a book by the writer Emerson and it contains a letter
addressed to his granpa by Miss Peregrine. Jake convinces his father to take
him to the island, a trip that the psychiatrist thinks is a good idea.
They arrive on the island to find a primitive community that doesn't really
like to socialize. Father and son take a room in the only pub.
In the morning Jake's
father gives a little money to one of the teenagers to guide Jake to the
place where the house of the children used to stand. The guide takes him there
and then abandons him. Jake enters the ghostly ruins and wanders around until
the ghosts of the children start materializing around him. Terrified, he
runs out but falls and hits his head. A girl carries him inside to
Miss Peregrine. Everybody is exactly like granpa used to tell him. The children
have supernatural powers: one flies, one projects everybody's dreams, one has
the head full of bees, one eats from the neck, one can set fire to buildings,
one is invisible, one builds dolls that move and fight.
Miss Peregrine looks at the clock all the time and explains that they re-live
that date of 1940 every single day. She has the power to rewind time, and
she does it every night just when the bombers are approaching in the sky.
They will never age and will be there forever, repeating every day roughly
the same actions.
When Jakes leaves the house, after having disappeared the whole day,
he tries in vain to lie to his father. His father is furious and worried
that Jake is still mentally insane. Jake knows that everything truly happened
because he has taken a picture of himself and Emma, a girl who has fallen
in love with him.
Jake reads a letter addressed to Miss Peregrine by his granpa.
It contains a warning that she needs to find another loop in time.
The following day his father is watching him every second, but Jake sneaks
out from the window and runs to the house again.
Miss Peregrine is hiding something from him. The inventor child, who is jealous
of Jake, takes him to a secret room where a dead child lies. The inventor takes
a heart from a drawer and sticks it into the dead child's chest. The child,
Victor, comes alive and speaks like a robot.
Nobody seems to know who killed Victor.
The girl who is in love with Jake, Emma, takes Jake to an underwater city.
Inside one of the buildings she shows him a safe. The safe contains photographs
and he recognizes one, the leader.
Emma takes Jake to spy on a secret encounter between Miss Peregrine and a monster.
Miss Peregrine kills the monster. Actually, Emma cannot see the monster.
Jake's granpa could see the monsters and Jake can. Nobody else can.
Miss Peregrine tells Jake that the leader thought he had found a way to
live forever outside loops in time, but instead turned people into monsters.
The monsters eat eyes, especially of children, to return to being human.
A woman brings news that the leader and the monsters want to try the
experiment again. The children must leave the house immediately.
Jake leaves the house and his father shows him that a murder has been
committed on the beach. A photographer who just arrived at the island
chases Jake into a cave and turns into the psychiatrist who turns into
the leader. The leader forces Jake to walk with him back to the house
where the children are preparing to leave.
The leader threatens to kill Jake.
The leader wants to cage Miss Peregrine: to save Jake's life, she has to turn into
a bird and fly into the leader's cage.
After the leader leaves, Jake's granpa phones and Jake tells him how much
he misses him. The children barricade themselves.
When the monster attacks, Jake is the only one who can see them.
He is the only one who can defend the children.
The children flee the house just when the bombers are coming.
This time the bombs falls on the house and destroy it: the loop has been broken.
Emma uses her supernatural powers to suck a ship from the bottom of the sea.
Then another child ignites the engines.
They sail to the city nearby.
They find the theater where the monsters have assembled. Only Jake can see
them as monsters. Jake and Emma lure them into an amusement park where
skeletons brought to life by the inventor kid attack the monsters.
The children fight the leader and his associates using their supernatural powers.
The leader/pychiatrist transforms himself into Jake.
The other children see two Jakes and don't know which one is the real one;
but the fake Jake (the leader/psychiatrist) cannot see the monster that is about
to attack them. Ironically, the monster eats the leader's eyes.
Then the children kill the monster and flee.
The children get back into the ship and sail back home, leaving Jake behind.
Jake bikes home and finds his granpa who gives him a birthday gift.
He encourages Jake to go and join the children.
Jake runs to the pier and boards the ship but to get there in the right time
(1940) he had to go through a number of time loops.
Miss Peregrine, meanwhile, is still a bird, albeit free.
Dumbo (2019) is a non-animated remake of Disney's animated film of 1941.
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