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Spanks Tim Burton and Philip K Dick! Anybody familiar with both Burton and Dick will understand why I referenced them with respect to this movie. Burton (Beetlejuice and Ed Wood) has a gift for surreal-yet-mundane situations and characters that are somehow endearing but his weakness is his plots...they stink, but we forgive him. Dick was the master of the reality-within-reality-within-reality story that could by turns uplift, terrify, and haunt, as seen in such film adaptations as Bladerunner, Total Recall, and Minority Report. Characters and relationships are strong in Dick's work, but his plots too tend to be weak, but his work will always endure despite this. Kaufman's magic gift is how he works to create a terrific balance between plot and character. It's so much fun to catch myself rooting for the characters in this story..story..STORY!! Kaufman and Gondry make it look easy, but if it weren't for Burton and Dick, they wouldn't have anybody to spank.