(An expanded version of my rant can be found at Time.com)
You Broke My Heart, Fredo Johnny Depp.
This is just tremendously disappointing. How can you do this to me? I’m your biggest 40-something white female/former preschool teacher/college administrator fan. I feel aggrieved. I feel personally affronted. I feel like the 1950s wife who put her husband through business school and raised a passel of his crummy brats only to watch him run off with a Hooters waitress. I feel like Michael Corleone in the Godfather when he figures out his own brother was the traitor.
I feel like you’ve asked a lot of your fan base over the years is what I’m saying. It’s not that we can’t appreciate a challenge (Ed Wood, for example, a personal favorite). But… how can I put this so you’ll understand, John Christopher? We’ve put up with A LOT over the years. We’ve been patient. You’ve coasted on your Gilbert Grape pass for, what? 15 years? We’ve weathered your increasingly infantile and grotesque movie choices, feasting gratefully on the dry crumbs you’ve tossed our way. A Chocolat here, a Finding Neverland there. We’ve made peace with the dress-up costumes and the black eye liner (even though it seems like a lot of ‘look’ for routine day use). We even tolerated your bewildering epoch of domestic bliss with the meth-toothed french common-law woman. All because…remind me? Oh, right. You were an immensely talented and attractive actor at one point.
But honey, this is just a bridge too far. You need to cut the apron strings with your enabler, Tim Burton, take a bath and see a hair stylist, lose the blue-tint eyewear, and make a romantic comedy with Rachel McAdams. Please text me ASAP to set up your life coaching sessions. I’ll give you a discount. (Or we can barter services, if you prefer.)
Johnny: send Erika a signed copy of “Dead Man” and then wait for things to cool off a bit. And consider that she may have a point: perhaps “Dark Shadows” is a good time to say adios to Burton and look for a good romantic comedy. What? You’re thinking Kathy Bates? I don’t know how Erika’s gonna take this…
Dear Peter/Johnny,
Not well, that’s how. Trying to cool off… thanks for writing!
Erika, you know I am an enormous fan of yours from way back when these brilliant musings were the meat of regular old emails originating in an off-beat neighborhood in the mid-west, BUT I am simply unable, at this moment, to give up on JD. His Pirates of the Carribean oeuvre – though not any kind of acting stretch – have put him on the radar of the younger generation – who LOVE him and while I agree 100% on the unpleasantness of the creepy Tim Burton perseveration, I keep hoping he’ll break loose to make a later life Gilbert Grape performance. He does seem to need a fire lit below him. Johnny, take Erika’s comments to heart, you’re losing the fan base who remembers and appreciates your enormous talent, please take this as a wake up call to buckle-down, straighten up, and/or flight right theatrically. All the best, EL