The Mayans said that the World would end in 2012, December 21st in fact (so don’t be buying any Peacocks gifts vouchers), but those pesky Aztec ripoff neglected to mention that one the signs of the upcoming Apocalypse would be Helena Bonham-Carter not starring in a Tim Burton film.

And here we are, like the nose on your plain face, looking right at the factual evidence that Bonham-Carter is going to be elsewhere when they film ‘Big Eyes.’

Instead of the massively haired weirdo, Burton has picked the insufferable Reese Witherspoon and the equally insufferable but slightly more fanciable, Ryan Reynolds to play the parts of indie artists, Margaret and Walter Keane respectively.

For those who don’t know and can’t be bothered to look on Wikipedia, the Keane’s are responsible for some of the scariest artwork, and surely an inspiration for Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s face. Massive, doe eyed women wearing clown leotards, or lying down next to tigers.

Whether you’ve heard of them or not makes no odds, because we doubt anyone will be going to see this film. There’s no Bonham-Carter in it, is there?!

The film depicts the court case where Margaret disputed the claims her husband, Walter, made about their paintings. Turns out that Maggie had allowed Walter to use his name to sell them but when it came to their divorce, she wanted them back. To prove to a judge that she was the true creator of the scary looking paintings, she knocked one up whereas he cried off claiming that he had a sore shoulder.

Loser.

The whole film sounds dreadful doesn’t it, like it should be Legally Blonde 5: The Peroxide Is Starting To Make My Hair Fall Out.

What’s more important is where will Bonham-Carter be during the filming? Probably stashing weapons grade uranium into her hair and smuggling it out of North Korea. Or continuing her research into antibiotic resistant influenza in the Burt Cave.

Tim Burton! He’s kooky isn’t he? He’s probably got stuffed animals in his house! And rugs that smell like goths. And loads of hairspray for his sticky-up haircut. And Helena Bonham Carter. He’s got one of them.

Sadly for our Tim, he looks like a hybrid of ukulele loving Tiny Tim and Tim Curry. Isn’t that weird. Tim looks like a cross between two other Tims. We’d crowbar Timothy Dalton, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Tim Westwood in as well, if we could be remotely bothered.

Anyway, Burton is going to team-up with non-Tim, Josh Brolin, to make a new version of ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’. Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp are probably going to be in it too because they’re in every pissing film Burton ever made. Ever. Ever ever ever ever.

If you’re insultingly stupid and don’t know the story of Quasimodo, let us fill you in.

Quasimodo is a pig of a man. He’s got a gigantically deformed head, wears rubbish clothes to cover his hideous hunchback and, for a job, he rings bells in the Norte Dame cathedral in Paris. Paris is in France.

Of course, being pigshit ugly, Quasimodo doesn’t have much luck with the ladies. Sadly for Lord Quas, he falls in love with a very beautiful gypsy called Esmerelda.

Quas goes on to play for Newcastle United and Liverpool and Esmerelda, of course, featured in Channel 4′s vaguely racist ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ wearing a gown so heavy that it turned her knees into something resembling a ground up paste of grit and butter.

There’s been many, many adaptations of ‘Hunchback’, with Disney buffing it up into a pointless sheen, leaving out of the fat-tongued fun of shouting “ETHMUHRELDUUUR!”

Anyway, Tim Burton is probably chuckling to himself while sat in a darkened room, pretending that he lives in Victorian Britain while Josh Brolin is… well… he was that Brandon kid in Goonies. Whatever.

Either way, this film is probably going to be a fat load of gash which Tim Burton die-hards will lap-up. Well you would wouldn’t you? Goths haven’t had much to do since their music scene died in the mid ’80s.

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Tim Burton drags us down the rabbit-hole kicking and screaming in this adaptation of the children’s book Alice In Wonderland, managing to take away any of the wonderment that many may have felt for this beloved tale.

You would think that the pairing of Burton with Lewis Carroll‘s famous series would be a film of visual splendour, but Burton’s approach here is to suck any life out of this Wonderland, and many of its inhabitants too. Visually, its reliance on special effects makes this world seem artificial and Burton’s unique aesthetics look uninspired. You never feel that you are walking around this world with Alice and her chums.

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) could do with a lick of life herself, with the standard Burton turn-on for making his leads look like they have an iron deficiency – but Alice matches this with a lack of personality as well. She coasts through the film with this mystical absentness, attributing much of her surroundings to a bad dream and constantly never reacting to the situation with any real conviction. Much of this film rests on her shoulders and it isn’t long before the weight has crushed poor Wasikowska.

Not that she is the main draw here – my god – let’s not forget that this movie has Johnny Depp in it. Yes, it’s that wacky bed-fellow of Burton, turning up looking like some weird 80’s Madonna music video, while wearing Carrot Top’s pubes on his head. His performance is eccentric to the point that any fascination you may have once had for the character is quickly forgotten. Depp even supplies a comedy Scottish accent at times – because it worked so well for Mike Myers in Austin Powers.

The film does have its moments; mainly in the form of The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), whose inflated head and matching ego find the right balance between being a menacing beast and a humorous addition to the world of Underland. It seems too that Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas got the memo, making both the Cheshire Cat and the Tweedle twins captivating in their small amount of screen time.

You may think we are skirting around the plot here and in honesty we’re not – it is just there is no plot to talk about in the first place. There is some guff about Alice fighting some dragon and finding her way to The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), but it’s pretty irrelevant, taking second fiddle to Depp and the unimpressive visuals.

The White Queen herself floats around pointlessly with the plot, Anne Hathaway playing her as if walking on air and talking like she’s on the edge of sexual climax – it makes for excruciating viewing.

When Alice finally confronts the dragon on a CG chessboard, the conclusion feels so out of place with the world. The final battle is Burton just regurgitating every other unsatisfying Hollywood climax but with his added visual pretentiousness. Throw in a moral message that is as confused as the audience and you have one of the most disappointing films in recent years.

And if you thought that the 3D would assault you senses, then wait until you hear the closing credits song by Avril Lavigne – clearly Wonderland’s most horrific creation.

‘Spray Rating: 2/5

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Hey Geri Halliwell, what do you think about the new pictures of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s new movie adaptation of Alice In Wonderla… oh.

We’ve made a terrible mistake.

Helena Bonham Carter should learn swordfighting quickly, because if Tim Burton is tapped to direct Pirates Of The Caribbean 4, she’ll have to be in it.

Oh, didn’t we mention? Tim Burton might be directing Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. It’s just a rumour for now, but Disney is thought to want to retain Burton’s services after he’s finished with Alice In Wonderland if Pirates Of The Caribbean director Gore Verbinski gets bored of it all.

Of course, hiring Tim Burton for Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 might seem like something of a risk, but it really isn’t – after all, Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 went on for about 15 hours and couldn’t have made any less sense if it was an East European claymation film about the inside of a twig, so there’s genuinely nothing that Tim Burton could do that would bugger the series up any further.

God, but Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 was rubbish, wasn’t it? It genuinely had nothing going for it – it was overlong, over-complicated and pointlessly saddled in its own mythology. Between Johnny Depp doing his funny run for the millionth time, Keira Knightley‘s continued assumption that she’s funnier than she actually is and Keith Richards‘ cameo as a terminally-ill walnut, audiences everywhere were praying that someone would take the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise outside and put it out of its misery.

But it made money so, somewhat inevitably, there’s going to be a Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. It was always on the cards, what with Johnny Depp’s publicy-confessed kinship with Captain Jack Sparrow, but now it’s official.

Just the other week Johnny Depp signed a deal promising him more money than there actually is in the world to star in Pirates Of The Caribbean 4, and it’s all go. Except for one thing – who’ll direct Pirates Of The Carribean 4?

Chances are it’ll be Gore Verbinski, the director of the first three movies, but given that he’ll probably strangle himself to death on all the film’s ridiculous storylines within the first fortnight of pre-production, Disney has lined up an alternative in the wings – Tim Burton. Cinemablend reports:

If there is a single director who could make people excited for a fourth Pirates movie, it has to be Burton. He’s done so many amazing movie with Depp already, and might have the ability to make the new franchise as fresh and exciting as it was when the first movie came out. After all, Tim Burton is already making a movie for Disney, and if Alice in Wonderland is going well, you can see how they’d want to hang on to him.

Tim Burton might not be the obvious choice to direct Pirates Of The Caribbean 4, but it could definitely work. After all, with Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and the new Alice in Wonderland movie, Tim Burton has proved that he can make idiosyncratic family movies.

True, with Planet Of The Apes Tim Burton also proved that he could make films almost as bad as Pirates Of The Caribbean 3, but let’s try and put that out of our minds for the time being.

In fact, we’re positive that Tim Burton is going to make one of the best films of the series in Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. That’s because either Sacha Baron Cohen or Russell Brand is apparently being lined up to play Johnny Depp’s brother in the movie, and either of them would be a good foil.

But more importantly, though, Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 is going to be great because Orlando Bloom‘s probably not going to be in it. With that in mind, Uwe Boll could direct Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 with his arse on a set made of runny shit and it’d still be better than any of the others.

Read more:

Scoop: Tim Burton Might Direct Pirates 4 – Cinemablend

You always know what you’re getting with a new Tim Burton film – Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, resignation that the movie won’t be as good as Edward Scissorhands.

But one thing you you don’t get is big-faced actresses in the middle of slightly humiliating personal meltdowns. Well, you do now, because Anne Hathaway has just signed up to star in Tim Burton’s new adaptation of Alice In Wonderland.

In Alice In Wonderland, Anne Hathaway will play the White Queen – a pretty young woman who looks a bit stupid because her boyfriend pretended to be chums with the Pope to con strangers out of millions of dollars and then ended up in jail because of it. We have no idea why Tim Burton wanted Anne Hathaway for the role.

Anne Hathaway needs to take her mind off everything at the moment. Sure, she might be earning some Oscar buzz for her turn in Rachel Getting Married – primarily, from what we can tell, for looking a bit sad in a movie filmed on a handheld camera where everyone mumbles a lot – but that hasn’t stopped people talking about her personal life.

It wasn’t so long ago that Anne Hathaway split up with her boyfriend Rafaello Follieri right before he was arrested for defrauding people by playing up his connections to the Vatican in a dodgy property scam. Even now, during the promotion for Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway only gets asked questions about what it’s like to have a big wanker for a boyfriend.

So it’s only natural for Anne Hathaway to want to get away from all that – and she’s planning to do that by starring in Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland movie – a movie that will also star Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. And nobody else. Probably. BBC News reports:

Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter are to star in Tim Burton’s Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, according to US media. The Hollywood Reporter says Brokeback Mountain star Hathaway will play the White Queen while Burton’s fiancee Bonham Carter will play the Red Queen. Burton’s take on Lewis Carroll’s novel is slated for release in March 2010.

It almost seems as if Anne Hathaway is deliberately trying to make as many different films as she can. She’s done kid’s films, romantic comedies, indie movies, arthouse movies, summer comedies and, in Havoc, badly-advised movies about nothing where she got to take off her top and pretend to have a wank. And now she’s doing a Gothic fantasy adaptation of a beloved novel.

Wonderful – that only leaves straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal action movies and porn on Anne Hathaway’s movie genre checklist. And we do love Steven Seagal. But what’s Alice in Wonderland actually going to be like?

Well, since Alice in Wonderland is a Tim Burton movie that stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, it’s probably fair to describe it as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason. Or, if you’re feeling kinder, Sweeney Todd but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason. Or, if you’re feeling kinder still, The Corpse Bride but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason.

Unless in Alice In Wonderland people do break into song for no reason. In which case we’re all buggered.

Johnny Depp, let this be a warning – star in too many Tim Burton movies and there's every chance that Tim will knock you up and make you force out one of his Burton-babies sooner or later.

Just ask Helena Bonham Carter, who – after appearing in every Tim Burton movie made this millennium – has just had Tim Burton's baby girl. Details on Helena Bonham Carter's baby girl are scant at the moment, so it's not known if Tim Burton managed to film the birth or. Let's hope he didn't, since Johnny Depp would have been contractually expected to follow the baby by crawling out of Helena Bonham Carter's gore-soaked ladybits, only to jig around the maternity ward covered in blood and amniotic fluid singing a pretty little song about how nice it is to get your hair cut.

Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton have just had a baby. There's nothing spectacularly shocking about that since Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton told everyone that they were having a baby back in August – although we now know that the Bonham Carter Burton baby is a little girl, as opposed to a boy or one of those massive double-mouthed black and white striped sand-worms from Beetlejuice, which we think could have been a possibility.

But that's about it – nobody knows what Helena Bonham Carter's baby is called yet. And since Bonham Carter and Tim Burton famous live in separate houses next to each other with adjoining doors, nobody really knows what the baby care situation will be either, although logic dictates that they'll just plonk the baby in a corridor and take turns getting her when she cries too loudly or the smell of baby-poo becomes too overwhelming. It's what we'd do, anyway.

That wasn't really addressed in the baby statement from Helena Bonham Carter's slave, and more's the pity. But what was said was this:

"They are absolutely delighted they have a daughter. It's a lovely Christmas present for the family."

A lovely Christmas present, yes, but not a Nintendo Wii, which is what we hear Tim Burton really wanted – as such, we hear that Tim Burton is sulking because Helena didn't manage to squeeze one of those out from her tumpsy like he asked.

However, the baby couldn't have come at a better time for Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton, because it's happened days after each of them received Golden Globe nominations for their respective work on Sweeney Todd – Tim Burton is in the running for Best Director while Helena Bonham Carter has got a nod for Best Actress.

But it doesn't matter if either of them win their Golden Globes at all, because their new baby girl is the biggest award of them all. A big fleshy award that shits everywhere, cries a lot and in 20 years't time will constantly feel guilty for never calling them. Which puts it roughly in league with a National Board Of Review award.

Read more:

It's a Girl for Bonham Carter and Burton – E! Online 

hecklerspray doesn’t have a Christmas tree – we have a hobo wrapped in tinsel standing in the corner of our 2^nd floor lobby. We let him sit down 15 minutes every two hours, pay him in heat and he knows not to touch our vending machine buttons if he’s not at least wearing a mitten.

Seriously, that’s how diseases spread. 

We’re not the only ones who celebrate an unconventional holiday. Lance Bass likes to cover his trees in some sort of spray-on ham. We made that up. Gary Coleman plays Deck the Halls on a wide variety of musical saws and cat skulls. We made that up. Tim Burton drapes his tree with dead babies.

We didn’t make that up.  

Tim Burton has been dating Helena Bonham Carter for years. They have a kid together, they live next door to each other, and we even heard they have one of those tin can/string phones set up connecting the two properties. What we’re saying here is they are totally long term.

Point is – if anyone knows Burton’s weird holiday decorating tendencies, its Carter. She said:  

"Tim decorates the Christmas tree with dead babies and slime balls and things. It looks lovely and glittery from afar, and then as you get closer, you realise it's rather gory.” 

We don’t think anything’s wrong with that. Our kitchen is tiled entirely in dried hamsters, which really makes us feel a kinship with Burton. We’d feel more of a kinship if Winona Rider ever had a foetus cut its way out of her in an Edward Scissorhands sequel.  Put down your cow intestine tinsel and hop to Burton. Let's get it out for Christmas. 

Read More: 

Helena Bonham Carter's Slime Christmas – Monsters & Critics