If you've ever even been slightly curious about Tim Burton, that ultimate disconsolate son of suburbia who's been inviting us into his gleefully bent movie worlds for 27 years now, rest assured your interest will be sated by the show dedicated to the director at the Museum of Modern Art. Opening on November 22nd, it is an almost ludicrously complete assemblage of Burtoniana.

Just about everything one could think of has been matted and framed, up to and including the nascent director's adolescent doodles and prize-winning poster ideas. The director gave the museum curators the full run of his house and assorted papers; they turned up such early gems as a hand-written high school paper titled "Humor In America" ("Types of jokes I've heard and seen: Pollock [sic] jokes (ethnic jokes), Knock-knock jokes, Insults, Stories, One liners, Elephant jokes, Puns...") and this anti-litter poster, which adorned garbage collection trucks in Burton's native Burbank, California, after he won a Keep Burbank Beautiful competition.

A lot of the drawings on display date from the time Burton spent working at Disney, just after attending CalArts. Apparently, while animating such projects as The Fox And The Hound, Burton found he needed a less treacly creative outlet, and badly: most of the sketches from this period betray a mordant sense of humor and the same dark view of humankind that he would later explore in his feature films. Strangely, these images whipsaw between the grim and the twee. Men and women are portrayed as gothic grotesques, or the drawings hinge on kind of sweet little visual puns: a stringy-haired, football-headed woman tugging a string between both ears gets the caption MENTAL FLOSS, for example. Another drawing features two bunny rabbits with baskets of eggs, one saying to the other, "We've been telling the kids the story of Christ all these years...Well, I think they're old enough now to know what Easter's really all about."

The gallery is crammed with material. (Evidently the excavations of Burton's home proved fruitful.) In addition to the sketches and the high school coursework, there are sculptures — seven of which, in the museum courtyard, Burton made specially for the show — movie props, costumes, posters, Polaroids, and assorted notes such as would please the most dedicated connoisseur of arcana. In one corner, Burton's 1983 adaptation of Hansel and Gretel — screened by the Disney channel exactly once — plays. In it, a Japanese brother and sister outsmart a wicked witch with candy cane rhinoplasty who lives in a house that looks like a quivering, pink tongue. There's also a gingerbread man character who talks to Hansel even as he eats him up. "If you think I'm tasty, and you want my body, come on take another bite," taunts the pastry, to the rhythm of "If You Think I'm Sexy."

Visitors enter the exhibit through an immense mouth that hangs, red carpet-tongue extended; in the black-and-white striped corridor behind, Burton's animated shorts play on flat screens. (At the other end, presumably somewhere in the gallery's stomach, is a room lit by UV light, where Burton's blacklight paintings on velvet are displayed.) It is a curatorial choice that seems to cleave to the crowd-pleasing side of things. It's anyone's guess why the curators thought Burton's work needed such a loud proclamation of its difference from typical museum fare as a jagged-tooth orifice; it looks like the sort of thing one might encounter at an amusement park ride.

The man himself described the process of having his work turned out for display as "surreal" and "an out-of-body experience." He remembered to thank the exhibition sponsor, the ridiculously renamed SyFy — "I'm a sci-fi kinda guy" — only at the very last second.

The exhibit includes a life-sized statue of Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands, as well as this sketch of the character.

Artifacts from Beetlejuice include this sculpture, a yellowed copy of The Afterlife newspaper ("ECTOPLASM LEAK AT PLANT NUMBER 9" "EXORCISM RATE SOARS"), and Burton's own hand-written notes about the project, which compare it to that other well-known "extreme four character conflict," Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. In the nearby Mars Attacks section, there are latex severed heads and a gigantic painting of Martian anatomy. Sweeney Todd has a wooden box and an engraved set of cutthroat razors.

Batman is represented by various latex cowls, and Batman Returns merits the inclusion of Michelle Pfeiffer's whipstitched catsuit.

In a class composition Burton completed on September 27, 1974, at the age of 16, he imbued an ordinary trip to the doctor for a checkup and a tetanus shot with a sense of heavy foreboding. "There was a ghoulish smile on his face," wrote Burton, "like he enjoyed sticking the needle in my arm."

Tim Burton has stuck the needle in the moviegoing public's arm for nearly 30 years — by the looks of this show, thoroughly enjoying himself in the process. Long may he continue.

Tim Burton At MoMA [MoMA]

The happy happening will go down at the massive, 800,000 square foot Anaheim Convention Center and will feature all things Disney, including much lauding of Tim Burton's highly anticipated — we can't wait! - Alice and Wonderland. While that's all well and good, Disney president and chief executive Robert Iger hopes the event will help persuade "very ardent" fans to flock to the company's wide-ranging products:

We live in a world where digital communication enables people to express their opinions about things to a much broader set of people. We call it the combustion of digital world of mouth... Their ability to communicate with others is unlike anything we've seen at any time before.

Translation: "We want to make sure the little buggers don't use twitter against us, as they have others." Yes, the D23 Expo may sound simply like a company-specific Comic-Con, but it's far more than that: it's so much more than that. Disney crazed masses can also join "a high-end, elite-level access" fan club.

So, what does membership cost you? $75-a-year. Now, tell us: who on this green planet of ours, in this recession of ours, would shell out that kind of money simply to get into a glorified trade show that doesn't feature comics?

[Image via Getty]

Not that Burton has ever shied away from computery technologies (see: the whole set of Sleepy Hollow) but for some reason we were hoping for something a bit more organic with this one. Maybe that he'd take a cue from Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are and go for a more tangible, earthy magical realism.

But, no, instead we get actors wandering around in front of a green screen, everything stretched and warped to look weird, man. Depp's Mad Hatter sounds and looks great, but everything else leaves us feeling a bit empty.

But maybe this is just an early preview (thing doesn't come out until next March) and the look will get a bit more polished and lived-in. Here's hoping.

But that's no reason not to be intrigued by the newly released teaser for 9, a feature-length expansion of Shane Acker's Oscar-nominated 2005 short that boasts both men as producers and Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover as the voices of dolls threatened by some toy-hungry winged evil. The spirit implied here is that of the unlikely wasteland savior immortalized in WALL-E, yet without the cooing and didacticism; instead, enjoy the elevator-rock soundtrack entitling the title character to a more bombastic self-discovery of the fledgling Burton/Bekmambetov ilk. Not bad, but we'll still take take Delgo any day.

• '9' [YouTube]

boomp3.com

Sure, they might be successful and talented and, at times, capable of brilliant work, but aren't Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter taking the whole "eccentric artist" look one step too far? There's a difference between looking crazy and looking like a bum from Santa Monica who is bundling up for a long winter's night. One has to wonder if their child will rebel by embracing sports and wearing clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch.

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

Angelina Jolie
Category: Best Actress, for A Mighty Heart's Mariane Pearl
Snub-O-Meter: 6 Nose-Thumbings (out of a possible 10)
Why They Deserved It: Jolie's widely heralded turn in the harrowing role of wife to real-life journalist Daniel Pearl had all the earmarks of an Oscar-worthy performance, including an accent and makeup-assisted physical transformation.
What Might Have Happened: Like the general public, voters dismissed Heart with the rest of this year's post-9-11 downer crop.
Unspoken Factor: Persisting Academy fears that she'd blow creepy kisses to her brother from the podium.

Sean Penn
Category: Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, for Into the Wild
Snub-O-Meter: 9 Nose-Thumbings
Why They Deserved It: Following in the path of Academy favorite Clint Eastwood, beloved actor Penn's transformation into a director and screenwriter of quintessentially American dramas seemed complete with Wild.
What Might Have Happened: An overcrowded and particularly outstanding director field, an unlikable protagonist, and an underlying sentiment that the movie really wasn't all that great.
Unspoken Factor: Period epics beat self-righteousness every time.

Judd Apatow
Category: Best Original Screenplay, for Knocked Up
Snub-O-Meter: 3 Nose-Thumbings
Why They Deserved It: His raunch-and-heart formula, of which Knocked Up is the perfect example, has conquered the hearts of critics and the masses alike, ushering in a crop of the most laugh-out-loud funny American comedies since the days of Caddyshack and Stripes.
What Might Have Happened: Academy members still skew old, and fail to find humor in crowning baby heads and freaking out over chairs in a hotel room while on mushrooms.
Unspoken Factor: La Heigl.

American Gangster
Category: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
Snub-O-Meter: 8 Nose-Thumbings
Why They Deserved It: An epic crime drama directed with a sure hand by Hollywood giant Ridley Scott, set in a period not that long ago, but almost impossible to get right: The '70s.
What Might Have Happened: Start with Denzel sleepwalking through a role he never seemed quite sure how to play, and all the "enh"-factor dominoes seemed to tumble accordingly.
Unspoken Factor: Naked chicks filling bags of heroin, however tastefully shot, never really screams, "Oscar!"

Tim Burton
Category: Best Director, for Sweeney Todd
Snub-O-Meter: 10 Nose-Thumbings
Why They Deserved It: One of the most visually imaginative directors of our time, Burton proved he could chew precisely the amount he sought to bite off with his stylish, cohesive adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical masterpiece.
What Might Have Happened: The Academy doesn't get starry-eyed for Sondheim the way Tony voters might. Too much singing. Too much blood. Not enough meat.
Unspoken Factor: Sacha Baron Cohen's stuffed package.

· In response to their former evening news anchor's $70 million lawsuit, CBS basically calls Dan Rather a crazy old coot desperately trying to keep his name in the press. [Variety]
· WGA strike picket line ubiquity Katherine Heigl will star in the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth for the re-teamed (see above re: re-teaming joy) writers and director of Legally Blonde. [THR]
· Tim Burton partners with Disney for two 3-D films, Alice and Wonderland and Frankenweenie, sure to become instant classics for fans of hallucinogenic substances. [Variety]

TIM Burton has been told to tone down the gore in the screen version of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," starring Johnny Depp. The suits at Warner Bros. "became a tad squeamish when they viewed grisly footage of blood splashing across the set as Depp slits the throats of his customers," London's Daily Mail reports.

In another scene that has the studio on edge, a 10-year-old boy feeds human body parts into a meat grinder to make meat pies. The movie, co-starring Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, opens in December.

We feel their pain. If only they had the handy guideline of a script, or a successful stage run of the musical on which the movie is based, to help them understand what might be coming. Still, this could be the birth of a new era of creative revisionism; as soon as Les Miserables is officially deemed "too French, too depressing, and too much fighting," we can look forward to a movie-musical adaptation of it that tells the story of a Beverly Hills girl who's upset that she can't get the newest Sidekick, and the Silver Lake boy who fights to get her one.

• A Bloody Mess [PageSix.com]

· Baltimore.metromix.com (hey—sometimes you need to step outside the bubble for perspective), provides a guide to dressing like some of your favorite tabloid regulars. A handy addendum to our recent tips on celebrity mother-daughter costuming, it offers helpful hints for those still wracking their brains for an idea. Example: "Matthew McConaughey and Lance Armstrong. What you'll need: A buddy dressed like you—that is, shirtless, or as near to it as possible. Optional accessories: Spandex in some form, bike helmets, a 'Jake Gyllenhaal.'" [Baltimore.metromix.com]
· Our gadget-gorging sister-site Gizmodo has compiled a highly entertaining "Monster Halloween Roundup," including a link to 3Wishes, where you can buy the Slutty Hogwarts costume prominently pictured, and enjoy an evening of having your fellow party guests greet you with an enthusiastic, "Hello, Hermi-aye-yai-yai- yai-yai-yai-yai- yai-yai-yai-yai!" [Gizmodo]
· The honorary Mayor of Hollyween (or is he its Jack Skellington?), Tim Burton, takes the LAT on a nostalgic tour of the favorite Hollywood "haunts," sites that inspired and informed many of his future classics, including Hollywood Toys & Costumes and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. [LAT]

"It's the completely opposite situation," Par's co-prexy of production Brad Weston said. "We intend to make the movie with Tim and Jim, and the fact they are meeting later this week to continue working on the script shows our intent to go forward. We wanted to get to the right place creatively and financially, and through our relationship with DreamWorks, this picture switch was made easy and seamless. Everybody is still fully committed to making this happen, and now we can do that without spending money on a weekly basis for pre-production."

See? Everything is totally fine! Things could deteriorate at the "script meeting" later this week, however, when Paramount emperor Brad Grey suggests that each side rip out a page, write down a figure representing what they think the budget for the film should be, then try to determine what a fair compromise between the talent's "$150 million" and the studio's "fuck you" proposals might be.

• Burton takes rain check on Par pic [Variety]
• What's A Guy Got To Do To Get A $112 Million Comedy Made In This Town? [Defamer]
• See Dick And Jane Go Overbudget [Defamer]

But the movie's five main children are still white. Just before the movie opened, NEWSWEEK asked Burton if he'd considered diversifying the cast. "We did, actually, but if you start to do it, it's like what they would do at the end of certain sitcoms—they would suddenly try to make them interracial, and it was, I found, more offensive," Burton said. "It was the politically correct thing to do and it rang false."...From his reading of the book, Burton says, he saw Charlie as an "ordinary" kid.

Now that the issue's been raised, we can't help but notice a disturbing pattern emerging. Beetlejuice? White. Edward Scissorhands? Uh huh. Ed Wood? Yup. And we think you already know what Caucasian horror to expect from Corpse Bride.

• Movies: The Color of 'Charlie' [Newsweek]