I don't mind Burton as long as there@s a point to where his movie's going. I agree that he DOES go down the "look how mental I am!" for entertainment road at times and often when idiosyncratic doesn't suit the story or helps the audience miss the point altogether.
I'd also agree that Ed wood and Big Fish are a couple of really decent films whether they're Tim's is irrelevant, though, as neither are THAT reflective of his work and as such,as a TIM BURTON film I'd go for Edward Scissorhands cos it's got a ton of Burtonisms going on but the central otherworldly Depp portrayal of Edward(great cameo by VP)actually forces the point of the film home and therefore gives the often gratuitous(in many of his other films) oddness a real reason to be going on. It gives the film momentum and direction some of his films lack and makes it rise above the sum of it's, apparently, every day Burton parts.
So, yeah, I think a "best Burton film" argument cannot be answered as they did by trying to find the two films LEAST like a typical TB film-that they're good films is a given here(I might not love them myself but they reach a level of quality)-and I think ES is a better answer because it takes a lot of the usual ingredients but uses them in a story and with a performance which actually make the most of them,need them and rewards both Burton and the audience with glimpses of how these attributes SHOULD have been used more often. His films sometimes feel like they're pastiches of Burton, films made to some audience expectation of what a TB film IS and as EW and BF are just, imho, partly a reaction to and against that from Burton the better films are those where he's the master of what he knows and is so without being self concious. Also, casting Winona as a blonde cheerleader is subversive genius-and I'm cheap like that.
Also, and I'm as bad as ANYONE for it, how come talking film makes us sound like we're all slaves to pretension?