Today in Secret Shames: Avril Lavigne’s “Alice” on the Alice in Wonderland Soundtrack February 19, 2010

I’m sure there are all sorts of initial reactions to the news that Disney’s planning to release a companion album inspired by money Tim Burton’s Alice and Wonderland featuring songs by the likes of Robert Smith, The All-American Rejects, and Avril Lavigne.  Perhaps “Wicked awesome!” is one of them, but I instead fell into this camp:

Really, at first I was terribly confused.  But then I got to thinking about it some more, and I realized that this album is synergizing marketing genius.  Possibly the most synergizing marketing genius.  EVER.

If there’s ever been an album tailor-made to the market of Hot-Topic-shopping youth culture that isn’t a soundtrack to one of the Twilight movies, this is without question it.  The only thing that kids these days love more than feeling feeling misunderstood while working on their homemade Edward Scissorhands costumes is listening to Tokio Hotel (also on Almost Alice, duh) while feeling misunderstood and working on their homemade Edward Scissorhands costumes.  Oh, and let’s not forget pretending being in a love triangle with a werewolf and a vampire.  YUMMO.

Anyways, given how I’m an adult who doesn’t paint his nails black and keep all his shit in an Edward Cullen trapper keeper or a Nightmare Before Christmas backpack, I’m probably not the target demographic for this video for Avril Lavigne’s “Alice.”  Still, I am both ridiculously stoked for Alice and Wonderland and also man enough to admit that I still have at one time had “Sk8er Boi” on my iPod, so obviously we need to discuss said music video:

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland Is Going to Be Out of Control Amazing December 16, 2009

I’ll be completely frank: even though I previously had my doubts about Tim Burton’s latest, the reality is that I never needed this past summer’s face-meltingly fantastic teaser trailer to get me excited about his upcoming Alice and Wonderland.  No no, this image is far more than necessary:

SOLD!!!  This image has three things that I unabashedly love: overly-ornate-to-the-point-of-camp costume details (it’s a gay thing), Anne Hathaway (also a gay thing), and killer red lipstick (it’s a Black Narcissus thing; so, in other words, yet another gay thing).  People of a more discerning taste would likely only have their interests raised by such and image, but people of a more discerning taste would probably steer clear of such cinematic gems as Powder Blue and Orphan, so why would I want to associate with those people?  Those people sound like such assholes.

All digressions aside, it’s safe to say that Alice in Wonderland‘s latest trailer will have even people of a more discerning taste excited because–quite honestly–it’s as though Disney just kept throwing money at Tim Burton to ride his crazy train ’til he reached Bonkerstown, which is to say that it looks totall awesome.  Just look at this beaut:

Damnit! The Alice in Wonderland Teaser Just Melted My Face! July 22, 2009

A little while back I’d expressed my concern about the current state of Tim Burton’s career and my growing unease that his best year’s as a director were behind him.  I’ve obviously spoken too soon because the teaser trailer for Alice in Wonderland has exploded all over the internet like an awesome bomb, and WHOAHBITCH will it melt your face with its awesomeness:  

FACES MELTED!

It was one thing to see the pictures that had hit the internet a few weeks back.  They were great, no doubt, but seeing actual footage–even a minute-and-a-half of it–is an entirely different beast of pure, visual ferociousness.  Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter is even more fabulously deranged than those first images would have let on, Tweedledee and Tweedledum look like they crawled straight out of an Edward Gorey illustration, Anne Hathaway looks absolutely fabulous as the White Queen, and Wonderland itself looks like some sort of fantastical, demented acid trip.  

Really, I could try and muster up some sour grapes to make a quick cup of bitch wine, but this trailer just had me to giddy to even make the effort.  Really, this is about all I can muster:

Me: Wait until March?!?  YEARGH!!!  That makes me want to poop on your face, Disney!

See?  I told you that I’ve got nothing.  NOTHING!  Now, if you’ll excuse you, I’ve got a face to fix.

UPDATE (7/22): Aaaand of course it’s gone as soon it appeared.  The interwebs giveth, and Disney taketh away.  Now I really do want to poop on their face!

DOUBLE UPDATE (7/24): A higher quality, though non-embeddable, copy of the trailer’s found its way back to YouTube and can be watched here.  Looks like the Disney-lawyer-face-poop crisis has been temporarily averted.

Bestest or Bad Idea?: MoMA’s Tim Burton Retrospective June 15, 2009

Did you hear the breaking science news?  The Museum of Modern Art’s developed a nuclear-grade nostalgia bomb: on November 22nd, they plan to drop a career-wide Tim Burton retrospective, after which scores of movie lovers will be indubitably reduced to smoldering piles of enthusiastic screams and hyperventilation.  Really, every day at the MoMA will look like this:

My breath is quickening, my hands are shaking, and my ears are already bleeding from my anticipatory shrieks!  It’s just.  Too.  MUCH!  GYAH!!!

(…sorry ’bout that.)

Anyways, it’ll feature over 700 pieces (ranging from illustrations to film props and beyond), as well as a retrospective film series, so MoMA’s also discovered the way to beat the recession.  An exhibition this elaborate is going to inspire pilgrimages from the world over, and I highly imagine NYC is going to have to go on Nerd Alert: High ’til April 26th.  I be up on this exhibit like an ornate pattern on Nomi Malone’s fingernails, natch, yet I can’t help adding a splash of Maybeline’s “Conspicuously Cautious” to my Excitement nails.

It’s certainly spectacular to have Tim Burton’s work get such prestigious treatment.  He’s built a career on channeling his darkly whimsical imagination into camp, kitsch, and pop sensibility.  His moviess have a distinct look, and his stories frequently center around the Other as misunderstood protagonist.  He’s parlayed awkward-kid status into an career that transcends niche.  For those of us who were sympathetic to characters’ alienation, Burton built us a home that wasn’t erected in the seedy back alleys of nigh-forgotten cult; we got the warm flicker of celluloid and the buttered-popcorn scent of the multiplex.  Can any other contemporary filmmaker claim such success?  I think not, so YAY!

Plus, let’s not forget that whole film retrospective.  Like most all movies, his filmography will play better on the big screen, but I think a few are particularly well-suited.  Like Batman Returns:

Inspiredly insane performances by Danny DeVito and Christopher Walken?  A Batman movie about a nefarious business man and a twisted scheme to kill Gotham’s first-born children?  The sublime camp pleasure of Michelle Pfeiffer’s vixen-bitch Catwoman?  The undeniable batshit insanity that this was all squeezed into a studio-funded, action-figure shilling summer blockbuster?  Yes, my dears, the 90s were littered with Hollywood’s strange decisions, and Batman Returns was one of the strangest for sure.

But Mars Attacks! probably takes the strange cake: