I love this photo, especially the rakish tilt of that bow tie. It was taken last week at the Venice Film Festival (by me, of course -- I forgot to tell you I went to Venice last week...)



Anyway. Tim Burton was honored with a huge award for the body of his work. Actually, you can see that the award is not in itself "huge".  I think he could easily carry that home. It's the honor behind the award that was huge.

Loyal readers of not only this lofty blog, but of a lot of the stuff I've written (and/or babbled on about while drinking -- oh, wait, I forgot; I only drink alone. I must have been babbling on to myself then -- no wonder my audience was so spellbound) over the last fifteen or so years, will no doubt recall that not only am I a die-hard Tim Burton fan, but a couple of his movies literally changed the course of my life. I know it seems like life-changing movies should be made more by directors like, I don't know, Elia Kazan or John Huston, or people (men, actually) like that. So go figure. But it is really true.

No, Pee Wee's Big Adventure didn't change my life, but it is one of my all-time favorite movies that I still know by heart.  I think it's a masterpiece of non-animated animation, sort of like a Pixar movie but with actual people. (You know how when you see a Pixar movie and think, "God, this looks real"? When you watch Pee Wee, you think, "God, this looks like a Warner Bros cartoon.")

Well, congrats to Tim Burton. I think that's really swell. (If you want to know more about my life-changing movies, you'll need to drop by while I'm on a bender and see if the topic comes up during my long, rambling monologue. It probably will.) (I am so just kidding about the drinking, gang -- two's my limit these days.)