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John Robie Sneaks A Peek at SLEEPY HOLLOW Between Frightened Fingers
Hey, all. "Moriarty" here. Harry's a busy, busy man right now, and even though he and I have been working on things here in Los Angeles -- cool things that we are hurrying to share with you -- he's a little busier than I am. So, yes, sleep has finally caught Head Geek and dragged him down. Earlier tonight, some of the AICN LA office made our way to The Paramount, one of my favorite theaters in Los Angeles. I get to go to the Alfred Hitchcock tomorrow, another of my favorites, so I'm a pretty happy Evil Genius this week. One of the people in attendance was John Robie, master thief and dashing millionaire. Besides which side of the law we live on, turns out Robie and I have our newfound love of SLEEPY HOLLOW in common.
Between all the anger and darkness at the movies nowadays, the shouting tirades about life and how to live it, you sometimes get to hear or see something that is so pure in its effort to entertain that it knocks you on your ass. Cynicism, even if it’s hidden, has come to be expected. Sly lines dropped, a character who winks across the screen every so often, something that tells you that the people who made the movie are in on some kind of joke. That attitude has come to be expected, and it sucks.
You don’t have a skeleton, in the midst of fighting Jason, smile to the camera. The world comes crashing down. How can a fantasy work when the people behind it have come up with the action figures and marketing strategy before they even have a script? It doesn’t have to be that way. The films can still be pure. They just need the people making them to understand how to do it. Tim Burton knows how to do it. God he knows how to do it. “Sleepy Hollow,” in all its scary, funny, gorgeous glory, is nothing short of a masterpiece.
If you look at “Sleepy Hollow” with the right kind of eyes it’ll hit you at the part of yourself that’s most electric. The white-hot visceral rush that comes from seeing or doing something great for the first time. The first time you read a book that spoke to you, the first time you won a fight, the first time someone you cared about told you that they loved you. It’s that kind of feeling, that kind of hit, and it’s why this goes far beyond a great couple of hours of thrills. “Sleepy Hollow” is a piece of art, and it is beautiful. It’s the kind of thing that you yearn to share with your friends, the kind of thing that you know you’ll show to your kid someday, the kind of thing where you get tired from smiling for so long because it just gets it all so right.
There are moments here that will go down in the Burton canon, stuff that’s going to be shown when he receives all the lifetime achievement awards in about thirty years. Nothing that can or should be given away, and words would be at a loss to describe just how amazingly cool the images that grace the screen are. Everyone knows the basic story. Plenty has been added here. Ichabod Crane is no longer the scared, cowering man. Even if he were written that way, Johnny Depp is way too smart an actor to play him like that. The confidence that sounds from the soft, angelic Christina Ricci makes her mesmerizing. The Horseman is the only monster in recent cinema who can stand with Universal’s classics of the thirties. In action he’s lightning. His body hunched over, sword at his side, the thump, thump, thump as he rides his horse through the misty, gnarled, brilliantly creepy forest. As the centerpiece he’s a force of nature, the type of dynamo that hardly ever gets realized on the screen anymore.
Yet there’ll be a large camp who just doesn’t get “Sleepy Hollow.” The blood doesn’t look real, they’ll say. Why is so much of this absurd, and why does Christopher Walken growl so much? In Walken lies distinction between people who will dig “Sleepy Hollow” and people who won’t. If you can buy into the great white Walken when you see him slaughtering soldiers during the Revolutionary War, if you can understand by the portrayal of the Horseman where Burton and Co. are coming from, then you’ll have more fun than you can believe with the movie.
If you can see that this isn’t the pop scares of “Scream,” that it’s not the genuine terror of “Halloween,” that it’s not the gothic horror of “Nosferatu,” that it’s something original, singularly Burton, then the movie will work for you. Burton said that he wanted this to look like a Hammer film. If that means anything to you, know that he’s done that and a lot more. The people who started Hammer Films should look at “Sleepy Hollow” like proud parents. It’s a movie far more pure and far more fantastical than you can believe. Don’t get mad that the film doesn’t turn out to be what you expect. Revel in the fact that it is something different, something better. This will go down as a classic. It might not do it right away. It probably won’t. A lot of critics aren’t going to get the movie. They’ll complain about Walken being over the top and the film being too gruesome, they’ll ravage it because the story doesn’t pan out like they think it should, they’ll be put off that the film doesn’t blaze across the screen with a post-modern edge. They’ll all be wrong. They’ve lost their sense of wonder.
We haven’t. “Sleepy Hollow” is brilliant.
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Nov 09, 1999 8:55:04 AM CST
Personally, I always considered Freddy a bona fide successor to
by ilvenshang
even though I don't have much use for slashers on the whole.
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I think that Tim Burton is one of the most creative directors working today. BUT I also thought Terry Gilliam was and he managed to create the skid mark that is Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. I just hope the curse of Johnny Depp doesn't strike again!
After the Astronauts Wife and F&L in Vegas and The Brave, Burton has to be brave to cast Depp. -
You failed to mention that the plot/script/story are the problems, not the blood/Christopher Walken. Walken rocks, the blood is cool, and the look is downright fucking amazing. The problem is the "conspiracy" plot that was tossed onto this short story like a yoke to force a 3-act structure. I enjoyed the movie to no end, it's beautiful and the fight scenes are great, but the whole "plot"-thing is pretty silly. However, the acting, the style, and the fights are dead-on.
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Well, your enthusiam says it all. Just the way that you talk about this movie makes me want to go and see it desperatly. The Love and appreciation of a Good Movie is a Magical thing. -
I personally like cool movies, I dont care what anyone else says
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Now, that said... I haven't really seen too many bad films from Johnny Depp. Hell, the other week my friend and I rented that early 90's John Badham real-time thriller "Nick of Time" just because it had Depp and Walken together (before Sleepy Hollow). And you know what? It was pretty damn entertaining. Much better than that drivel that passes for suspense thriller recently at the fall boxoffice (Double Jeopardy and Bone Collector anyone?) As far as Burton's newest, my guess is that Sleepy Hollow will be a sort of classical style film horror. The type of classical style that Iron Giant can easily slip into because it's animated. I think SH will have a harder time with audiences because that classical style is tough for people to accept in a live-action enviroment. At least since the early 70's anyway... but that's another story. People say that they don't make 'em like they use to. And by mostly that's true now. Because they make them better.
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I'm just as excited to see this flick as everyone else is, and I'm just as disappointed as everyone else that it won't be "...the Tim Burton film we hoped it would be...". But this review seems like a pretty blatant attempt at spin control, or at least an avid Burton fan trying to tip the balance back in favor. Harry, what's your criteria for posting these things?
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That dude's not a publicist. Publicist's are a lot more obvious and this guy's been here forever. Publicists tell longer back stories and, well...it's hard to explain. They set off y'er Spidey Sense.
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I saw an advance screening too and I was luke-warm about it. It's not that we don't understand the film or that we aren't into the "cool" stuff of the film as much. I really liked Mars Attacks and that was just pure campy fun. However, Sleepy Hollow missed the mark. It wasn't that my expectations were of something different because quite frankly I didn't know anything about the film. I just thought that the story and script were flawed and thus, the entire movie was slightly off kilter. It wasn't bad...just sort of cool but a little frustrating at times. I won't go into spoilers but there are some lines that were just plain absurd. Now Mars Attacks had absurd lines but I knew I was supposed to laugh at them. In Sleepy Hollow there were lines I wasn't sure if I was supposed to laugh at or not.
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Stop saying he sucks just because his movies dont make money. Hes not an idiot, im sure he didnt expect the BRAVE to hit paydirt. He chooses the scripts he wants based on his feelings, not on whether it will make him an Entertainment Weekly coverboy. As far as his acting, he ruled in ED WOOD, he ruled in FEAR AND LOATHING (you either get that movie or you dont--i did), and he will rule in SLLEPY HOLLOW. Someone cast him and Ed Norton together please.
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...where the hell can you see a movie for 4 bucks? Damn, I WISH we could have that around here. Even 2nd run theaters near me are 5 bucks. Anyway, the funny thing about these talkbacks is that regardless of the review, the negative feedback and the positive feedback, those who want to will see it, those who don't won't. I, for one, will see it, because I think Tim Burton is a genius at sets and atmosphere, and I have found all his movies entertaining. Sure, they're not particularly profound, but who says they should be. As long as the plot sticks together, it should be good.
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Hello all! Interesting review! I'm very looking forward to seeing this film, will probably do a double header with it and BOND! HOWEVER! Something in this review makes me wary. The fact that some people won't GET it. To me, that means one thing - IT SUCKS. Now, I'm not saying it WILL suck, but look at all the other films people were suppose to/but didn't get. I can't recall any right off hand, but I know there were a lot. Where someone's only defense of the movie was "you didn't GET it, man!". To me, you shouldn't have to GET a movie. You like it or you don't. I hope Sleepy Hollow is good, but I hope I don't have to sit there for 2 hours trying to GET it in order to like it...
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Sure a lot of people hated F&L but I was one that loved it. The point is even if the movie was not your cup of tea because it was to wierd or abstract you can not deny that Johnny Depps portrayal of Hunter S. Thompson was brilliant.
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Personally, I think "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was one of the most enjoyable filmic experiences I have ever had. I fucking love that movie, think it was a lot of fun, and actually had a lot to say. Of course, that's filtered through the fact that I'm a rabid Hunter S. Thompson fan.
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I can understand this guy saying that some people won't "get" it. Many people dog F&L because they don't relate or "get" what is happening. If you have never done or seen any type of drugs, F&L will probably seem like nonsense to you (some who haven't like it, however). I have no problem with people that hate the movie, because I think it was incredibly, bizarrely funny. Benicio Del Toro deserved an Oscar for creating a character the likes of which have never been seen on film before. I think that Gilliam was alluding to the people who would trash the movie in the scene with the "doctor" deciphering what cool, groovy, and hip meant. (as well as why a roach is called that) Burton and Gilliam do not make movies for everyone, they make movies that are extensions of their vision. If people happen to like their visions, then great. I really don't think that they would ever want to make "Double Jeopardy." So if you don't like these guys, fine. But if you feel like aggressively dissing them, just shut it and move along, you are way out of your league.
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