Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

I just finished watching Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.  I just love his stuff.  It is so creepily charming. Or so charmingly creepy.  Take your pick.

The plot (what plot?) involves a hapless young fiancee who practices his vows in the woods and winds up married to a corpse instead of his warm-blooded intended.  But what a cute corpse! Big blue eyes...and blue skin...and blue hair.  And a cute little maggot who keeps crawling out of her ear and popping her eye out of its socket.

What's not to like?

The characters are quirky.  The animation wonderful.  It is typical Burton with its singing and dancing ghouls and skeletons.  You feel for the characters at the same time that you laugh at something going in the background, all the while wondering how this mess can ever be resolved. The worst thing about it is that at one hour and seventeen minutes, it is too short.

Johnny Depp is the voice of Victor Van Dort marking the fifth cinematic collaboration between Depp and Burton.  If it works, don't fix it.

Helena Bonham Carter plays the bride, also fresh from a recent collaboration with Depp and Burton in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Remember when she was considered such a serious actress?

Emily Watson is Victoria, Victor's intended.

This is another in a long line of strange but endearing films by Tim Burton.  I've enjoyed Beetle Juice, Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands.  I was OK on Mars Attacks and Ed Wood.  But now I spot something I have to see:  Stalk of the Celery.  How did I ever miss that?

Comments

[fragileindustries]

I love Tim Burton. My dad had a tiny role in Ed Wood as the bartender who serves Jonny Depp (Ed Wood) a drink at Musso & Frank's just before Depp/Wood meets Orson Wells. Blink and you miss him, but that was the kind of roles he usually got. The lovely synchronicity of the role was that my dad's big screen roles were all in movies that were the late '60's - early '70's equivalent of Ed Wood movies. Made for a dime, distributed to drive-ins (remember those?), shady deals to keep the production running, eventually ending up on Mystery Science Theater 2000. Ed Wood brings back my time with him on the sets of these wastes of celluloid. Ah, the golden age of Hollyweird.