A Dark Romantic

This weekend, I found myself trekking out to see Tim Burton's latest macabre romance fable, The Corpse Bride. Mr. Burton and I have a longstanding relationship - Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and his two Batman flicks rank among some of my favorite moviegoing memories of all time. I won't unfairly compare it to Burton’s previous stop-motion masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas. It has more in common with those aforementioned live-action movies, anyway, at it's core. Yes - stylistically, it does hearken back to everyone's favorite Nightmare. Johnny Depp's Victor has a body very similar to Jack Skellington and Helena Bonham Carter's flimsy corpse is not unlike Sally's constantly unspooling body. (Her character, Victoria, is also a little like Sally, too. Tee hee...) But this is a love story first. And it's a quite charming little film. Not a classic, but enjoyable and really pretty, if you ask me.

It clocks in plenty short by today's standards (about an hour and fifteen minutes), but it is also a slight story, so to have extended it just for the sake of time considerations wouldn't have been true to the story. And the voices are top notch - aside from the aforementioned leads, Tracey Ullman, Albert Finney, Joanne Lumley, Christopher Lee, and Emily Watson (her role would have so been Winona Ryder's if this move had been made in 1990)) all make some great impressions. Personally, I long for the day when voice actors didn't have to be "names," but with the assemblage of talent on hand, one can hardly complain.

There weren't many songs, and the ones that were sung aren't exactly memorable - at least to me. But Danny Elfman really outdid himself with the score. I could have watched this movie without dialogue and just listened to the music while watching the drama unfold. That's a movie waiting to happen I think. The ending is possibly among the most beautiful committed to celluloid (although I'm pretty sure this was shot digital). Burton's fascination with the dead is nothing new, but he manages here to make it, like before, less about the dead and more about what we miss while we're living. The world above is drab and boring, filled with duties and expectations. The world below bright and colorful and is filled with genuinely happy souls who semm to want nothing but the best for one another. It even has a jazzy little score of it's own to make the difference clear.

One thing I'll say with this recommendation, though. If you've got kids, see the movie first and decide if yours can handle the images. Nothing overtly horrific is there, but skeletons and flesh abound. If, however, your kid is cool enough to get a shout-out to Ray Harryhausen and a worm that looks and talks like Peter Lorre, your whole family should have a devilshly good time.

-J.

This post was sponsored by the Corn On The Macabre Committee.

p.s. Sorry this one was late in the day, but Blogger's been giving me attitude since Sunday and I couldn't post until now. Anyone else having issues?