We've yet to see a trailer for Tim Burton's upcoming Dark Shadows, a film remake of the campy horror soap opera from the late '60s, but we do have the first look at Johnny Depp's very angular look as the protagonist, Barnabas Collins, a vampire who has spent 200 years buried alive before breaking out to take on the fast-paced world of the early '70s.

May brings with it a new batch of cultural standouts. Cannes you dig?

● Condom makers decide to get into the extra-small water balloon business, make extra small condoms for 12-year old boys. [The Awl] ● Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter may be Tim Burton’s next project; Fran Leibowitz may be Martin Scorsese’s. [GNews, Playlist] ● Schnabel, Johns, Murakami, Koons, Hirst, Kapoor and Marden are the wealthiest living artists. [Art Info] ● Mercedes Benz commercials about to make you start tearing off your clothes in search of a tall, dark, handsome jerk, as Mad Men’s Jon Hamm signs on to do the car company's voiceover work. [NYTimes]

The AA definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We studiously apply this concept to our personal lives, our careers, and our little pill problem, but when it comes to films, we toss it out the window in a fit of regressive self-destruction. How many of you saw Corpse Bride in the hopes it would blow you away? Sweeny Todd? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Big fucking Fish? The shameful list goes on. What gives?

It always seems like art is dying doesn't it? Some snooty patron is always in the wings, clucking, "Oh! The Death of Art! It's weighing down my heart!" And if she were to amend her furious clucks with an anecdote about that person who hilariously lost her footing and fell headlong into a multimillion-dollar Picasso, tearing a gash through the painting's center, she'd be right. But we all know these patrons: Always in the wings snacking on crudites and never quite combing the galleries as you'd expect. They exist solely to hate. And even admonish the endeavors of would-be artists who've crossed over from other careers. We can only hope that the twin visual art forces of Tim Burton and Bob Dylan inspire them to shut up.

There are two things director Tim Burton seems to have given up on: making films based on his own material (Edward Scissorhands, Beetle Juice), and making films without Johnny Depp (Big Fish, Planet of the Apes). No one ever grieves over the latter trend, but damn it’d great if he were to take another crack at an original story. Although it seems unjust to disparage the lion’s share of Burton’s oeuvre, I’ve never felt his adaptations quite measured up to the earlier, self-conceived works -- though perhaps an exception could be made for Ed Wood. In any case, I’ve been crossing my fingers for years now in the hopes of something homegrown, but it looks like I won’t be getting my wish anytime soon. At a Friday press conference for the forthcoming The Young Victoria, producer Graham King made the announcement that the next Depp-Burton collaboration would, as previously rumored, be an adaptation of the 60’s gothic soap Dark Shadows. Yay?

I’ll admit straightaway that my take on Tim Burton’s show at MoMa is biased for two reasons. One was the crowd. I’ve been regularly attending the museum’s openings a couple years now, but have never seen the rank-and-file turn out like they did on Wednesday night. There were 20 times as many people as there were for say, Monet’s Water Lilies, and the long wait in a blue-lit corridor (which doubled as some hideous fiend’s esophagus) eventually lulled me into thinking I was waiting for something far more Space Mountain than museum exhibition. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- I like Space Mountain -- but after all the jostling with strangers, I expected an exhilarating ride.

● Carine Roitfeld debunked fashion faux-pas tradition by re-wearing a Tom Ford YSL Fall ‘03 skirt to London Fashion Week. [Fashionolgie] ● Looks like Disney is planning to roll out some serious fashion as a tie-in to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. A Disney rep teased that the “collection will include a number of surprises that will connect fashion conscious folks to the whimsy of 'Alice In Wonderland.’” [LAT] ● Molly Sims takes on Brooke Shields’ Latisse eyelash extension commercials in a Funny or Die video, calling their eyelash extension product Lashisse like a "penis pump" but for women. [FunnyorDie]

● Things didn’t go smoothly for Jon Gosselin at his MGM-sponsored pool party; the single dad of eight was heckled by partygoers over his bald spot, his weight, and his love of Ed Hardy. [Radar] ● Sandra Bullock has some dating advice for all you single gals. The queen of rom-coms advises stalking the object your affection like they’re prey, but just make it look innocent. [Showbizspy] ● Audrina Patridge is the next Hills castmate to leave the Hollywood stucco nest, saying that it feels like she’s “graduating.” [Us]

● Amy Winehouse’s father Mitch pretended he had a terminal illness last year to scare his daughter out of her drug addiction. Suffice to say, it didn’t work. [Yahoo] ● Kourtney Kardashian regrets getting breast implants at the age of 22, saying if she had researched the body-alerting decision, she would have never gotten them. [PopCrunch] ● Lauren Conrad wants her best-selling book, L.A. Candy, to become a movie in the ultimate art imitating life imitating art, as the book is a fictionalized version of LC’s TV persona. [MTV]