Tim Burton

Tim Burton

Fill in the gaps in this biography of Tim Burton

Tim Burton was  born in 1958, in the city of Burbank,California.

He remains without question one of the most original film makers working in the movie industry today.

Indeed, his talent and originality have kept him at the top of the profession where he occupies a very special place, somewhere between the mainstream and the avant-garde, in that region of cinema occupied by artists ______ worldview is _______ unconventional that it attains popular appeal.

In 1989, Tim Burton directed the hugely known Batman which, although his less personal film, was one of the most famous movies of all time and gave him unprecedented succes in Hollywood, considering the originality and adventurousness of his earlier films (for example Beetlejuice in 1988).

Edward Scissorhands (1990), another hit, saw him at the peak of his directing powers and established a fruitful working in partenership with actor Johnny Depp who played in his 2005 film version of Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and who became one of his most esteemed parteners since their first film together.

In 1992, Batman Returns was a much darker film than the original, a reflection of how much cinematographic freedom Tim Burton had won (it is said that Warner Bros were reputedly unhappy with the final result).

And even in his film Ed Wood (1994), his loving tribute to the life and work of the legendary ‘Worst Director of All Time’ Edward D. Wood, Jr., was a box-office disaster, it got some of the best critics of Burton’s career.

In fact, Tim Burton is famous  both for his dark, quirky-themed movies like Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, or Dark Shadows (2012) and for blockbusters such as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland (2010), one of his most  famous films, which became the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

Burton has directed 18 feature films as of 2014, and has produced 12 as of 2012  (among which the very nice Chrismas tale called The  Nightmare Before Chrismas in 1993).

All in all, Tim Burton’s films consistently challenge the spectator’s mind, push forward the industry of filmmaking and bring to life previously unthinkable characters/ movies (like Edward Scissorhands).

Taken as a whole, his work resides on the confrontation between the fantastic and the thriller, and the consequences of these two worlds intermingling.

Big Fish, Burton’s 2003 effort, is no different. And meanwhile , somehow, it is not really the

same.

On the surface, it would appear to have all the aspects of a classic Burton film: a magic screenplay, fairy-tale characters, flights of imagination, forces of nature (as well as the supernatural), far-fetched situations and vastly imaginative visual style and imagery. The movie is, in fact, entirely packed with fanciful episodes that it begins to feel like a loose adaptation of The Odyssey, told from the mouth of an aging character named Ed Bloom, a story-teller and dreamer who sees the world with beautiful eyes.

No Guns Allowed

It feels like just yesterday I was made the post about Snoop Lion's song "Lighters Up" and relating it to one of the four notions. And yet here I am again with a diferent song from Snoop "No guns allowed". But before we talk about the song I will tell you a little bit about the the various artists that made this song. First off is Snoop which is a famous rapper who comes from California, he started his career as a rapper but then became a reggae singer and now came back to rapping, so even if in this song he sings I am going to refer as him as a rapper. The second rapper in the song in Drake, Drake is also a very famous rapper from Toronto that is much younger than Snoop and even if they are both rappers they don't have the same rapping style , Drake's style is trap rap and Snoop's style is egotrippin' rap. And last but not least, the chorus singer in Cori B. , she actually is Snoop's daughter and this song is their second collaboration. 

Now let's talk about the song, their is one main message that the artists want to forward , and this message is that they want peace. But their are also some other messages that are also very important.

In the first verse, Snoop says "Money makes a man and that's a crime" , this small verse is actually very important because it's one of the secondary messages in which Snoop wants to critizise the fact that society doesn't consider poor people like real people just because they are poor and treat them like dirt and THAT'S A CRIME.

To understand what comes next we have to remember that Snoop has had a gang affiliated carrer in which guns and violence where part of his daily life. But now that Snoop has 3 children he doesn't want them to have to grow up in a violent world as he did ( let's not forget all the east coast - west coast gang wars there was at that time).Then Snoop says to put the music up because he needs to hear his toughts , for Snoop music is not only a way to express yourself but also to relax and to think about your problems.When Drake takes over he raps about the shootings in Toronto ( where Drake was born) and about the two kids, Shyanne and Joshua that where killed in the shooting. Drake dedicated a tweet in their memory and in the song he expresses how sad he was when he learned about the shooting but couldn't go to Toronto to console the families of the victims.

This song can easily be related to the "notion of progress" because the song is about social progress and not only between the rich and the poor but mostly about peace , because it is something that almost everyone wants but that is very dificult to acheive.

Pop art exhibition

Today I'm going to talk about the "Pop art Myths" exhibition that took place from June 10 to September 14, 2014 in the Thyssen- Bornemisza Museum located in Paseo del Prado, 8, Madrid. Even if the exhibition is no longer available in the museum , you can still visit it virtualy on their official website.

Paintings from many artists where present at the exhibition, some are not very famous but some others are the most famous of the pop art movement such as Andy Warhol and Liechtenstein who are not only the most famous but also the most present artists in the exhibition . These two artists' paintings are simple but very interesting, some such as Look Mickey, 1961 painted by Lichtenstein or Double Mickey Mouse,1981 by Andy Worhol. These two paintings are very simple but in the same time have hundreds of interpretations.

As a senior student in literary studies I think Pop art is a very interesting movement , which doesn't mean that all the paintings are masterpieces but most of them are really interesting, In the Thyssen museum exhibition, there was a painting that really caught my eye, Still Life #·34, 1963 painted by Tom Wesselmann.

Still life #34

1963

Tom Wesselmann

Aquavella Galleries

This painting was painted with a regular technique which is acrylic and collage on panel , but what I think is special about this painting is it's shape, it's circular with a 120.7cm diameter. I think the size tells us a bit a about the painting before we see it, because the paintor didn't chose a precise size he just cut a circle on panel and painted it , also with the fact the painting is round unlike others that are usually rectangular. The fact that the painting is round and it's bright colors is what made this painting get my attention at first but then after looking at it for several minutes it is also what is painted that interested me a lot. The pear, the milshake, the cigarret pack, the Coca-cola, the nuts and the flours are all daily american life objects but which one by one make nothing but together they form a (in my opinion) very beautiful painting which maybe doesn't really have a secret message that it wants to forward exept that with daily life objects we can make something amazing. After all I think that's pop art's main objective, to show that anything can be transformed into art, from daily life objects or habits to comics.

If you live in Sydney, Australia and you want to check out a pop art exhibition , well YOU'RE IN LUCK because for $20 you can see the exhibition in the Art Gallery NSW until March 1st 2015. 

Hope you liked my review and hope to see you soon in a new review. Cherio!