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The Burton/Depp Film Festival

Retrospective of the work of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp

March 6, 2010

By Adam Rosenberg

Johnny Depp may be one of the more gifted actors working in Hollywood, but he's also among the strangest. He's no Gary Busey - that particular brand of insanity can only belong to a single person lest the universe collapses in on itself - but Depp carries with him a long history of high-profile antics and controversial statements nonetheless. Then again, anyone with a resume which includes Platoon, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Donnie Brasco (to name just a few) is entitled to a few personality quirks.

And then there's Tim Burton. To date, few directors have been able to reign in the great, heaping mass of Odd that is Depp like Burton has. They simply "work" together, each feeding off of the other's unique sense of stylized filmmaking. Of the six films they've collaborated on, all are imbued with an eerie sense of unreality. Join us then on the eve of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street's release for this broad overview of the two-headed monster unearthed whenever Depp and Burton are placed in a room together.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

The Story in 50 Words or Less: Girl meets Boy with scissors for hands. Scissor Boy accidentally cuts Girl, angering scumbag boyfriend Anthony Michael Hall. Scumbag AMH turns town against Scissor Boy and beats Girl, so Scissor Boy stabs him in the heart. The end.

Depp as the Unlikely Hero: Edward Scissorhands is an artificial being, not so different from Dr. Frankenstein's monster. The first thing that most people will likely notice about him is that there are scissors where his hands should be. Edward also appears to have a pretty heavy S&M fetish, as he is always seen wearing a shiny black leather skintight jumpsuit with silver buckles.

Setting: Surreal 50s-style small town, complete with manicured lawns, beehive hairdos and That Old House on Top of the Hill.

Best Cameo: Vincent Price, as the man who created Edward Scissorhands. He can make anything awesome, even this melodramatic mess of a film.

Dumbest Plot Point: Audiences find out at the end that Edward's work creating ice sculptures in the attic of That Old House on Top of the Hill is responsible for the snow-covered town below it as his ice shavings blanket the landscape.

That Which is Not Spoken: Edward Scissorhands is one of Burton's most overrated films.

See More: Celebrity Spotlight HQ | Film Festivals | Johnny Depp | Sweeney Todd | Tim Burton | Anthony Michael Hall | Edward Scissorhands | Vincent Price