Tim Burton

"Dark Shadows,"which hit theaters on Friday, not only revives long-dormant vampire Barnabas Collins, it also brings back some giggle- and cringe-inducing fashions of the early 1970s. Leisure suits. Mirrored aviator sunglasses. Bell-bottoms, chunky sweaters, macramé jewelry. These all contrast with the stand-up collars, cravats and capes worn by Johnny Depp as Collins. Costume designer Colleen Atwood was more than up to the challenge after numerous previous collaborations with director Tim Burton (her efforts for the director's"Alice in Wonderland" earned her a 2010 Academy Award)

UNDERRATED 'The West Wing' : As we careen into election season, there was something so soothing about seeing some of President Josiah Bartlet's Cabinet reconvene for a wittily self-aware PSA about walking (and, if possible, talking, in keeping with series creator Aaron Sorkin's signature style). Though there are laughs in the pointless political jockeying of "Veep" and its predecessor "In the Loop," we could use more of the Bartlet administration's ambition and good intentions.

They don't call it "Tim Burton's Dark Shadows," but they might as well have. Nominally based on the cult favorite 1960s daytime soap opera, this film has much more to do with what goes on inside director Tim Burton's head than with any TV show, no matter how beloved. In fact, "Dark Shadows" is as good an example as any of what might be called the Way of Tim, a style of making films that, like the drinking of blood, is very much an acquired taste and, unless you're a vampire, not worth the effort.

"Dark Shadows,"which hit theaters on Friday, not only revives long-dormant vampire Barnabas Collins, it also brings back some giggle- and cringe-inducing fashions of the early 1970s. Leisure suits. Mirrored aviator sunglasses. Bell-bottoms, chunky sweaters, macramé jewelry. These all contrast with the stand-up collars, cravats and capes worn by Johnny Depp as Collins. Costume designer Colleen Atwood was more than up to the challenge after numerous previous collaborations with director Tim Burton (her efforts for the director's"Alice in Wonderland" earned her a 2010 Academy Award)

While most of us have Christmas on our minds, Universal Studios Hollywood is already planning for next Halloween. > Halloween Horror Nights 2011: Review | Photos | Celebrities   Universal has been conducting an online survey to gauge fan interest in 50 movie and television properties as potential haunted maze themes for Halloween Horror Nights 2012. The annual post-Halloween poll offers fans a glimpse into what could be on the horror horizon at Universal.

On the eve of the opening of his retrospective at LACMA, Tim Burton will be on hand to sign copies of his book "The Art of Tim Burton" and the exhibition catalog. The exhibition, "Tim Burton," which opens Sunday in Resnick Pavilion, features 700 objects — puppets, maquettes, ephemera and costumes — and various two-dimensional works — drawings and storyboards — amounting to a feast for fans of the film auteur's distinctive and singular vision. Pavilion for Japanese Art at LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Noon-2 p.m. Sat. Free.

A nightly dance party created as a last-minute diversion to entertain idle hordes waiting for a wildly popular attraction at Disney California Adventure has turned into an ever-evolving mainstay that might just become an accidental institution. PHOTOS: Mad T Party at Disney California Adventure The new Mad T Party scheduled to debut this summer at the Anaheim theme park replaces ElecTRONica, which replaced Glow Fest, which was designed to give visitors something to do back in the summer of 2010 while waiting hours upon hours to watch the instant hit "World of Color" water show.

If, as William Carlos Williams wrote, "The pure products of America / go crazy," where does that leave Tim Burton, a pure product not just of America but also of Southern California, land's end of our national phantasmagoria? Hollywood, maybe, where Burton ? born in Burbank, raised on TV and the films of Ray Harryhausen, educated at the California Institute of the Arts ? landed in the late 1970s. Or London, where he now lives with the actress Helena Bonham Carter and their two kids.

If you're going to tumble down a cinematic rabbit hole with a filmmaker, who better to go with than Tim Burton? The director who has brought Willy Wonka, Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands to the screen now takes a crack at the surreal characters of Lewis Carroll in a film, opening March 5, that may be titled "Alice in Wonderland" but is more like a sequel, with its title character (portrayed by Mia Wasikowska) making a return visit to the land of tea parties and talking cats.

The line for autographs snaked eastward down Wilshire Boulevard on Saturday afternoon, even though representatives from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art warned that some fans waiting in line to meet Tim Burton, the artist and filmmaker who's the subject of the museum's new exhibition, would probably go home disappointed. The scene outside had the hallmarks one might expect — patrons carrying black umbrellas, dressed in pinstriped or Gothic-inspired finery or even more elaborate costumes.

They don't call it "Tim Burton's Dark Shadows," but they might as well have. Nominally based on the cult favorite 1960s daytime soap opera, this film has much more to do with what goes on inside director Tim Burton's head than with any TV show, no matter how beloved. In fact, "Dark Shadows" is as good an example as any of what might be called the Way of Tim, a style of making films that, like the drinking of blood, is very much an acquired taste and, unless you're a vampire, not worth the effort.

Susan Stroman, the Broadway powerhouse who has won five Tony Awards, will direct and choreograph "The Producers" at the Hollywood Bowl in July, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will announce Thursday. The musical is familiar territory for Stroman, who staged the original show on Broadway at the St. James Theatre in 2001 and directed the movie version in 2005. "The Producers" is scheduled to run July 27-29 at the Bowl. No cast has been announced. Based on the 1968 Mel Brooks movie, "The Producers" tells the story of a theatrical impresario and an accountant who try to get rich by securing investments for a guaranteed Broadway flop, "Springtime for Hitler.

A lot can change when you're in the reincarnation business, and with Tim Burton's upcoming "Frankenweenie," which opens Oct. 5, that means resurrecting a beloved live-action 1984 short film about a boy named Victor and his live-then-dead-then-live-again dog Sparky as a feature-length, stop-motion animated film. What's staying the same is the movie's evocative black-and-white look, a stylistic choice that the film's makers say became one of the more unintentionally hard-won artistic rewards on this 21/2-year-long production.

A nightly dance party created as a last-minute diversion to entertain idle hordes waiting for a wildly popular attraction at Disney California Adventure has turned into an ever-evolving mainstay that might just become an accidental institution. PHOTOS: Mad T Party at Disney California Adventure The new Mad T Party scheduled to debut this summer at the Anaheim theme park replaces ElecTRONica, which replaced Glow Fest, which was designed to give visitors something to do back in the summer of 2010 while waiting hours upon hours to watch the instant hit "World of Color" water show.

While most of us have Christmas on our minds, Universal Studios Hollywood is already planning for next Halloween. > Halloween Horror Nights 2011: Review | Photos | Celebrities   Universal has been conducting an online survey to gauge fan interest in 50 movie and television properties as potential haunted maze themes for Halloween Horror Nights 2012. The annual post-Halloween poll offers fans a glimpse into what could be on the horror horizon at Universal.

Here's one small, unscientific bit of evidence that LACMA's Tim Burton retrospective has drawn a different audience than the museum's usual crowds — look at their forearms. "I've seen more tattoos here in the last five months than I have in all my years at the museum," said Jason Gaulton, coordinator of LACMA's Muse program for younger art patrons. On Saturday, the Burton exhibition breaks the fourth wall as it inspires Muse's annual costume ball. This year, the Halloween ball, aimed at Muse's audience of twenty- to fortysomething art fans, features experimental music and performance art that elaborate on the dark fairy-tale qualities of Burton's work.

From Beetlejuice to Batman, from Ed Wood to Willy Wonka, the characters that Tim Burton has brought to movie screens are notable for their dark idiosyncracies and macabre weirdness. Burton's goth universe, at once disturbing and oddly inviting, will land at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in an exhibition featuring artwork tied to his movies as well as original drawings, sculptures and other works created throughout his career. The show is scheduled to run May 29 to Oct. 31, 2011.

Whatever Tim Burton wants, Tim Burton gets. And for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which opens Friday, the iconoclastic director requested real squirrels -- 100, to be exact -- for a pivotal scene in the nut-sorting department in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The 100 squirrels are perched on tiny stools where they evaluate each nut by both scent and sound.

"Laura" Price played Gene Tierney's title character's oily playboy fiancé Shelby Carpenter in this 1944 noir classic. "Edward Scissorhands" Price plays a kindly scientist who created a young man with scissors for hands in Tim Burton's 1990 hit. "Theatre of Blood" In this 1973 British horror comedy, Price plays the ultimate ham actor, who murders the critics who ridiculed him.

Kathryn Leigh Scott describes her cameo in Tim Burton's feature version of the cult-favorite, 1966-71 ABC daytime soap-vampire romance "Dark Shadows" as the film's "ah-ha" moment. Scott starred in four roles on the influential soap — the precursor of such popular vampire TV series as "True Blood" and the "Twilight" books and movies. She played the waitress from the wrong side of the tracks Maggie Evans, who falls in love with a tortured vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), as well as Josette du Pres, Lady Kitty Hampshire and Rachel Drummond.