Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Premise: After an unsuccessful day selling Avon products door-to-door, Peg Boggs (Dianne Weist) decides to call on the gothic mansion at the top of the cul-de-sac. In the mansion, she finds a young man, Edward (Johnny Depp), with scissors for hands (shock!), and she brings him home with her. Edward's attempts to fit in the suburban mold ensue, from topiary to hair design to falling in love with Peg's daughter, Kim (Winona Ryder).

You know when you read or hear of those reviews that claim some film makes you remember "why it is that you go to the movies"? For example, the way critics felt about Cameron Crowe's 2000 rock ode, Almost Famous?

That's what this film did for me. As I had mentioned, I was stuck in the land of perpetually crap movies, and I began to wonder why I bothered blogging about them.

I had thought I would find a revival/reprise when I went home for Thanksgiving, but my mom no longer gets a wackload of movie channels.

I chanced on Tim Burton's (director, for those of you who are new) bizarre combination of suburban nightmare and gothic fairy tale on Sunday, and I was so blessed to find it again.

Burton takes a lot of slack for not being a "story-teller", and he also is the recipient of a fair number of off-the-wall comparisons. Burton doesn't rely on dialogue to sell his stories (Depp utters a scant 169 words), and there's never a need for an expositionary character. So much the better I say. Burton relies on visuals to convey his meaning in a combination of chirascuro and comic book, and the viewer is the richer for it.

For me, the only comparison worth making is to the Grimm Brothers. I think they would count Burton a kindred spirit if they only knew him.

Caroline Thompson (screenwriter), in her first screen offering, clearly represents what Burton had in mind when he conceived Edward. Her screenplay, pithy and often silent, is a caricature of what we fear and recognize in suburbia. In a way, the suburban plane is the new forest of the fairy tales of old. It is instantly recognizable as the source of power, mystery, and trepidation.

In the role that helped establish him as a serious actor, as well as establish a relationship that many would claim is Burton's film representation of himself, Depp exudes childish intensity and single-mindedness. The costume does a lot, but Depp runs with this opportunity to relieve himself of his pretty face. Depp once claimed that he trusts Burton so completely as a director that he would do anything that Burton asked. Burton should count his luck stars that he could inspire such loyalty from an actor with such breadth.

Weist sparkles as woman completely awed by the negative results of doing the right thing; Alan Arkin is hysterically flawed as her Darrin Stephens-esque husband; O-Lan Jones practically steals the show as the zealous Esmeralda; and even Ryder isn't annoying.

If the rest of the film melted away tomorrow, I would have the same feeling about it if I were left with one scene: Kim dancing in a combination of man-made snow, plastic, and glitter while Edward sculpts the ice, perfectly complimented by Danny Elfman's haunting and much imitated score.

As Rolling Stone summed when the film fist debuted, "pure magic."