Separated at birth?

Johnnie Depp, in an accidental (?) homage to Michael Jackson in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,

and...



Audrey Tautou, French star of the irritating cute Amelie.

A note about the Michael Jackson thing. A case could be made that it's deliberate. Tim "No Man Can Take From Me the Title Most Overrated Director" Burton has tied a few threads together for marketing purposes. First, he has Mr. Depp in a foppish top coat, with silky jet black hair, pasty white makeup, and -- how you say -- a voice lacking a certain level of testosterone. Does not the Factory bring to mind a kind of Neverland for chocoholic kids?

Which brings us to Burton's casting of Freddie Highmore, the British child actor who played Peter in...wait for it...Finding Neverland, which also starred Johnnie Depp.

How shrewd this is will soon be revealed in the box office listings in the trades. If this remake of the 1971 Gene Wilder classic flops, as all men of good will should hope, someone should remind Mr. Burton about what exactly Michael Jackson was accused of, and, in the grand tradition of O.J. Simpson-style innocence, acquitted of.

Seize the Dei readers are warmly encouraged to send along other Separated at Birth pairs.