Sock Puppet

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2008)

If a life in film is a a relationship with a being, then this is the shoes. They're handy, and only seem necessary when not dreaming.
But they're not what gets you anywhere.
I consider this Tim Burton's best film. That stop animation thing was more successful, but its too artificially goofy. This is more real and the idea is to straddle the line between homage and distanced observation. Its the only one that I think works, though "PeeWee" comes close. But that's because that whole movie is in its tone. Here, the movie is centered in the beings involved and how they relate to the films they are making, which of course happens to be the same relationship the characters and actors have with the movie we are watching.
Its because it is a real movie, with arcs, three acts, and an end that works. Burton isn't so picky about these things in his other projects and none has all three.
I wonder why no one holds him to this value, of building a film from the inside out. He needs someone to guide him away from merely starting with tone, and Elfman honks.
There are two folds here. The first is obvious, a self-described quirky filmmaker making a film with wit about an unintentionally quirky filmmaker making what he sees as serious films. The second is the "Shadow of the Vampire" bit about Landau's Lugosi. Its something of a wholly separate thread, handled with a different tone in all dimensions.
Meaningful narrative needs tension, and I am increasingly convinced that in cinema that requires two different whole personalities. It seems better if those wholenesses have their own cinematic space, as it is here.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.