Is Tim Burton Just 90's Kid Nostalgia? PLUS: The State of Film Criticism
A few links to tide you over. [2/1/2024]
A certain generation of film lovers consider Tim Burton one of the most distinctive American directors of all time. This is mostly due to juvenile tastes. His distinctive visual markers combined with a filmography of kid’s movies make him an ideal auteur for those who have never heard the word auteur. But Tim Burton is more than Baby’s first director. He’s a certain generation’s Tumblr mood board, Hot Topic’s money cow, and entry one on Henry Selick’s hit list. With ’90s kids and ’00s culture nostalgia seeping into every aspect of pop culture, Burton has found canonization among many important, and frankly far better, directors of his generation. It’s time to take a look back at the history of the stripe-obsessed director and determine whether or not he deserves a place in the hall of fame that AI-generated filler will eventually steal from.
This article can be read in full at the link below:
Film Criticism At War!
If my Tim Burton piece has no interest to you, have a look at something I haven’t written at all! The well-named Jacob Savage wrote a piece called “The Unbearable Fakeness of Film Reviews” for Tablet Magazine that I think deserves a great platform. The cultural/political writer gives a perfect condemnation of several of the problems with the all too formulaic and populist reviews of today. Though he takes down a few of my beloved favorites like The Fabelmans and Barbie, Savage’s main points about the state of film criticism at large echo my own. In fear, we are losing everything that makes criticism so important, and more pieces like this one should be touted for being well-written takes on truthful, nonformulaic opinions.
You can read Savage’s article at the link below.