Even though this story on Celebrity Freakshow is supposed to be a joke, the central idea behind it made me think about this issue I have with the works of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.

It’s been bugging me ever since the recent debuts of the trailers for their upcoming films Alice In Wonderland and The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassas. Both films look highly imaginative, a quality sorely lacking in mainstream Hollywood these days. But am I alone in feeling a bit deflated at the sight of non-stop quirkiness? Is the weirdness inherent in the works of these two directors purposely imaginative, or simply on purpose?

The trailer for Parnassas shows Gilliam returning to the fantastical realms he explored in films like The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen and Brazil. It is to Gilliam’s credit that these films are highly original works, full of creativity and whimsy.  But watching the trailer for Parnassas is like seeing a highlight reel of Gilliam’s past works – hot air balloons, distorted perspectives, stilted performances, and chilly adventures.

To be fair, aside from Time Bandits, I’ve never really connected with any of Gilliam’s films. He’s a bit like the Pink Floyd of movies – technically brilliant, intellectually compelling, but cold and unengaging. And for me, that emotional chilliness ruins my enjoyment of the spectacle Gilliam usually provides. His films are like looking through a Viewmaster at amazing sights; you can marvel at them, but you cannot experience it for yourself as well as the person who took the picture.

As for Burton, I think it’s fair to say that his weirdness has become a crutch, a filmmaking tic that he has yet to overcome. I appreciate the man’s creativity, but his recent obsession with remakes and reimaginings has become tiresome. Burton’s creativity has become a brand – “SEE TIM BURTON’S TAKE ON THIS BELOVED TALE!!” – rather than a filmmaking statement.

Nothing makes me roll my eyes more than the recent trailer for Burton’s upcoming Alice In Wonderland. First of all, the trailer was all Johnny Depp, even though he plays a relatively small part in the true story. The Johnny Depp thing has also become tiresome; it’s time for Burton to work with someone else for a change. But the look of the Mad Hatter feels like Burton screaming out – “Look at how bizarre this is!” Even worse is the design of the Queen, played (of course) by Helena Bonham Carter. You can almost hear Burton telling the design department, “let’s make her head really big. That’ll be CRAZY!”

I have not really loved a Burton film since Ed Wood, which is easily his best. The closest Burton has come to reaching me since then is Big Fish. The rest of his films in the time period are technically excellent nonsense. But notice the two films I mentioned are mostly reality-based films that contain only whiffs of Burton’s ever-present eccentricities. That is why Burton making films like Alice In Wonderland bugs me a little bit. The guy has tremendous talent, and the ability to move audiences emotionally. But Alice In Wonderland is nothing more than a quirk-fest, designed to let Burton be weird. The film has nothing to say except “look at all the crazy shit whizzing around!”

Both Gilliam and Burton are talented directors and remarkably gifted visionaries. But both suffer from an excessive quirkiness that drowns their films. I don’t expect either director to make a romantic comedy any time soon, but is it too much to ask for them to reign in their excesses a little bit and produce works that actual human beings on Earth can relate to in some small way?