Recently Watched: Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands

I think - but do not accurately recall - that this was the first movie where I really came to appreciate Tim Burton's vision. I know I had watched Beetlejuice before hand and liked it well enough - but this really showed me what he was capable of. It also turned Johnny Depp into a real actor, at least in my view.

Again, although Danny Elfman had worked on other scores prior to this - including the aforementioned Beetlejuice - it was in this film that I first made the association of the guy from Oingo Boingo with the filmmaker who was too dark (until later) for Disney.

You really can't point to just one thing - just one bit of quirkiness. It's the absurd inventions, the oddities in arborculture, the dark, sparse architecture of the mansion, the fable of snow at the heart of the tale, the poking-of-fun at Suburbia with all its pastel colored houses and pastel colored cars synchronized as the menfolk leave for work and return all and all manner of proper wholesomeness hiding a deeply disturbing unnatural and uncaring nastiness that is far darker and far more evil than the Gothic mansion overlooking it all.

The priorities of the Neighborhood vs. that of the inventor and his creation are sharply contrasted, but, despite the fantasy of it all, not unrealistically so. Certainly, there are developments across the country that are identical to the neighborhood below the mansion; sadly, the fantastic part is that there is much less likely to be such an obviously non-homogenized mansion, nor such a gentlemanly inventor and expert on etiquette. The confused child, left on his own, often ostracized by those below him, is, unfortunately quite common. However much they might wish to be a mechanical puppet, however, they are real boys and girls, and are not impervious to the oppression of society.

The bittersweet ending, in truth rather optimistic despite it all, is also quite true to life.

Speedy Mowzales

Mowed the lawn. Took a bunch of extra passes to mulch leaves from last Autumn. That's something that won't happen moving forward because I now have a mulching mower - last year it arrived too late, and I only did a spin around the front yard for fun. Now the leaves won't even gather long and become a problem. Anyway, I did the whole front lawn - which doesn't include the meadow area - and the back lawn.

Time it took, including taking the brush mower off and attaching the lawn deck, was almost exactly 30 minutes. Time spent swapping attachments was probably 10 minutes, because I wasn't thinking straight.

So, maybe 20 minutes mowing time.

As compared to 2 hours or more with a standard mower.