TheRetroCritic

I try to find 10 cool things about Tim Burton's Planet Of The Apes .

I review Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow for Horror Month.

Review available on the new website .

We talk about the upcoming Dumbo remake on The Big Rewind .

Released in 1992, Stay Tuned  was a dark comedy about a couple who gets sucked into a demonic satellite dish before being forced to survive living inside various TV shows from Hell as their kids try to help them back on the other side. John Ritter is Roy Knable, a couch potato loser husband who is too addicted to television to notice his marriage is falling apart and Pam Dawber plays his much more successful wife Helen. One day, Roy meets the mysterious Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones) who offers him a free trial for a new TV with a brand new satellite dish. Roy accepts and, soon enough, he and Helen find themselves stuck in all kinds of twisted shows from westerns to gameshows, even cartoons. The concept for Stay Tuned is very silly but also very clever as it provides a lot of opportunities for social satire and creative scenarios, not to mention hilarious puns (Fresh Prince Of Darkness, Wayne's Underworld etc.). It's easy to see why Tim Burton was once attached to this project

I try a Japanese Wonka bar.

My ongoing quest to get "good" at Beetlejuice on NES continues... For Part 1: CLICK HERE

Time to give the Beetlejuice NES game another chance. It's showtime!

I talk about Tim Burton's latest. Along with a few other recent releases.

Yes, Miss Peregrine has a song now. Enjoy. Song For Miss Peregrine by TheRetroCritic

Tim Burton returns with Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children , a new movie based on Ransom Riggs' popular Young Adult novel. The plot, which involves monsters, bizarre teenagers, suburbia and time travel certainly seemed like an ideal vehicle for the director. Asa Butterfield is Jake, an ordinary suburban kid who, one night, finds his grandfather (played by Terrence Stamp) dying with both his eyes missing. Following the path outlined by the late old man's bedtime stories, Jake travels to Wales with his father where, supposedly, he would find the school for oddball children he'd heard so much about. Initially disappointed by what he finds, he eventually stumbles upon one of the students who leads him to the school which happens to be purposely stuck in a time loop. Jake meets the rest of the pupils including an invisible boy, a girl who can float, a kid who spits out bees and a super-strong little girl, among others. It's easy to see why Burton would be k

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE HERE In this 26th episode, I discuss episodes 7 and 8 of  Gotham  Season 2 and I continue to explore Roddy McDowall's  Batman  audiobook. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher and Player FM) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE HERE In this 25th episode, I discuss episodes 4, 5 and 6 of  Gotham  Season 2 and I check out Roddy McDowall's Batman audiobook. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher and Player FM) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

In this first episode of Pitch , director Tim Burton meets with a studio executive to discuss his re-imagining of Planet Of The Apes back in 2000. Based on a... sort of true story.

I talk a bit about Disney's new live-action sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass .

I play a little bit of Batman Returns on the Sega Genesis. And rant along, of course.

One of the most fascinating unmade Hollywood movies has to be Superman Lives , a 90's Superman movie which would have starred Nicolas Cage as the DC hero and would have been directed by Tim Burton of all people. The Death Of Superman Lives is a crowdfunded documentary which finally gives us a better idea of what that film would have been like. This is, of course, not the first time a documentary has spilled the beans on a film that never was: very recently we had Jodorowsky's Dune and, a while back, Lost In La Mancha which focused on the making of Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote . With interviews from the likes of Kevin Smith, Tim Burton and eccentric producer Jon Peters, director/interviewer Jon Schnepp, through valid questions, nifty animated visuals, previously unseen test footage and artwork, translates a project which was often dismissed as a silly idea and a deserved failure into a comic-book movie epic like no other. After the underwhelming Superman Returns and th

Tim Burton's latest, Big Eyes , tells the true story of 1950's-60's artist Margaret Keane and her relationship with then-husband Walter Keane in what is the director's first biopic since Ed Wood . Though the film does explore Margaret's (Amy Adams) art and its popularity, the focus here is on how Walter Keane's (Christoph Waltz) appropriation of his wife's work changed her life in a time when women had little say. After Margaret allows Walter to take all the credit for her big eyed creations (despite a clear initial reluctance), the become something of a sensation and the couple's lifestyle improves radically over the course of only a few years but the cost of giving up her artistic rights become too much for Margaret who is soon forced to live a lie. Tim Burton directing Ed Wood made perfect sense: a big fan of horror and sci-fi B-movies, the man behind the likes of Sleepy Hollow and Mars Attacks!  wanted to pay homage to another hugely enthusiast

What's this?! A movie that's both perfect for Christmas AND Halloween, not to mention a treat for Burtonites and Oingo Boingo aficionados? What. Is. This? It's The Nightmare Before Christmas , of course. Henry Selick's stop-motion Disney classic based on the gothic surrealism of Tim Burton who contributed the story and the characters while Danny Elfman not only took on the music and the lyrics but voiced the Pumpkin King himself, Jack Skellington, during the songs with Chris Sarandon on voicing duties the rest of the time. The film quickly became a Christmas and Halloween tradition since its plot cleverly merged both holidays in a unique way without coming off as overly gimmicky. After a thrilling opening number, "This Is Halloween", which introduces us to Halloweentown and its spooky inhabitants (vampires, witches, you name it), we finally meet Skellington, the bony showman who has been making the best out of every single Halloween, wowing the to

After the ridiculously fun Mars Attacks! , Tim Burton soon went back to sci-fi with his very own "reimagining" of a classic and famously did not exactly charm critics and audiences with 2001's Planet Of The Apes , a film widely regarded as his worst effort to date. Even if Dark Shadows and Alice In Wonderland got just about as much crap upon their releases. The sad thing is that, although this Planet Of The Apes has a few things going for it, it's a hard one to defend seeing as it gets so much wrong. Not even just in terms of how it differs from the original story but as a film in general. To start on a positive note, however, I should point out that the film sets itself up rather well with a terrific score by the ever-reliable Danny Elfman and the best ape make-up effects in probably any movie. The all-star cast, which includes Charlton Heston himself in a cameo appearance, disappears under those effects and that makes it much easier to buy the whole talking