Corpse Bride

Think of this as a preview to when I come back....

Corpse Bride is a lovely movie, one of Tim Burton's finest in the field of his animated works. The story follows a young man named Victor who is set to marry a girl named Victoria, but through a serious misunderstanding and pure accident he marries a corpse. Yes, a children's movie with serious necrophilic undertones that is still charming and quite lovely. Go figure. The first thing I gotta say is the animation is excellent, with gothic and german expressionist buildings, great use of color, and wonderful cinematography. It does have a few songs, and they are all good but my favorite song in the movie has no singing in it, it's a simple piano duet but it's just awesome. A clever aspect of the film you will notice very quickly is the use of color. In the land of the living it's almost monochrome in color with shades of blue, while the land of the dead is colorful with vibrant greens, and pinks, and violets. It's mixed very well and states that the land of the living well...sucks. It's drab, it's boring, and colorless but the underworld rocks it's like a party everyday down there, with lots of fun and interesting characters! Character wise it does good, it's not perfect but you can tell they tried, with almost everybody's favorite character being the titular corpse bride, Emily. She's just a sweet, caring, lovely girl, and has a good sense of humor. Obviously she has the most character development and personality in the entire movie, you really latch onto her quick and care about her situation all throughout the movie. And...she deserves to be with Victor! I don't hate Victoria, I really don't! She's a nice, normal girl, I have nothing against her but Emily and Victor just make a better couple. They're a good couple together! You wouldn't think so but you enjoy their relationship and want them to go the distance. Now for the other characters there's not much to say, but there are three in there that are my favorites, we got Michael Gough as an all wise skeleton and how could you go wrong with that? Michael Gough is awesome. Then we have Christopher Lee as a priest, it's a short role but he still commands such a presence. And last but not least is a maggot who sounds like Peter Lorre. I'm not on drugs or anything, that exists in the movie. This has always been an enjoyable movie for me because of how much charm and lovely things are in there, plus it has some great dark humor I mean I laugh my ass off at parts, it's kind of hard not to. All together, it's a lovely little movie well worth a look if you have the time.

Well that's it for today. Tune in tomorrow for a different and unexpected damn good movie.

Batman Returns

This is a...bad movie? All throughout my years of living, people say it's not a good film. At best it's a guilty pleasure, and I love this movie!

Maybe I'm one sick, dark, freaky bastard but I love this movie! It's a friggin' awesome Batman movie and it was the third Batman film I ever saw and I was, I'd say about 4 years old when I saw it. And it didn't scare me except for one part near the end, and the very sexual potrayal of Catwoman didn't phase me at all. I wouldn't say it is a superior succesor to the first Batman film, but still a really good sequel. Major props to the casting department in this movie! Obviously we got Michael Keaton (Yay!) and Michael Gough back, but sheer genius casting when it comes to Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito. Could not pick anyone better to play Catwoman and the Penguin, I don't know why it just seems like they were born to play these roles. Oh, and how could I forget? We got Christopher Walken in this movie too! Just as awesome as ever, and he's in the movie quite a bit too. You could tell Tim Burton had absolute free reign and could do whatever he wanted with this movie, it has his signature brand of bizzare and darkness with a backdrop of Christmas in Gotham that surprisingly fits well with it all. I just love the thought of Gotham during winter, this gothic city covered in snow and it seems lovely to me. The music done once again by Danny Elfman is great, and has that creepy Christmas thing going on very much like in Nightmare Before Christmas but still it's own original score. Now I have no doubts that this is indeed a very dark, very adult film even though I viewed it at such a young age. The plot really shows that in it's scenarios, and it goes like this, it's Christmas time in Gotham and the Dark Knight has his hands full this season. A crime gang in the style of a circus troupe is raiding the city with the Penguin as the leader, but yet he is much more than a one note villain. I greatly admire the sense of humanity they put into his character with him being abandoned by his parents because he was deformed, wants to know where he came from and what his real name is, and be incorporated back into normal society. That's amazing how much character development he has! Meanwhile a corrupt buisness man by the name of Max Shreck tries to help Penguin become part of human society and even get him in office to help further his career. Unfortuantely, he kinda...kills his assistant and she is brought back to life by cats and becomes Catwoman. It happens. So now the Batman has two villains to combat to save the city he loves, while also having a relationship albeit a love-hate relationship with Catwoman. Fantastic, took more source material from the comics, put their own spin on it, and made it genuinely entertaining! Bravo Tim Burton. Seriously how can people hate this movie? It's strange and vastly different from any other comic book movie you have ever seen in your life but it's still good! We get many more badass scenes of the Batmobile and Batman laying some serious beatings on dudes, oh and I didn't bring this up but Keaton's Batman straight up kills people. Not like every single time, but it happens. More so in this movie than the last one, it is scary although amazingly awesome. Like there's this scene where this clown goes kamikaze on Batman and he cuts the bomb off of him and knocks him out, and he sees this big bad mamajama and he tries to punch him, and it doesn't work then he pins a live bomb on him, punches him down a hole, and walks away as the bomb explodes. Sweet Jesus. That was fraking great! Hell yeah! See I told you I was a sick, twisted bastard. But tommorow, we get to THE movie that introduced me to the Batman and made me a fan ever since. Yeah, that movie was my first Batman movie and made me the die hard fan I am today.

Batman (1989)

I'm Batman.

And with those two words, Michael Keaton proved everyone wrong. This was actually not the first Batman movie I ever saw. It was my fourth actually believe it or not, but it is my favorite. Yeah, more so than The Dark Knight! It just screams Batman to me in the comic book sense, I enjoy the fact that comic book films are being realistic but it comes from a medium that is FAR from being realistic. Now obviously this movie was made in 1989 when the Batman comics were very dark and serious, moving away from the Adam West potrayal of the Batman. This is a time period when you know, The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke were examples of the Dark Knight. And it shows in this film. Dark and gothic setting, terrific character acting, an amazing score by Danny Elfman, and the best Batman and Joker in my opinion. I mean, my dear sweet God how do you pick better casting as the Joker than Jack Nicholson? He's been practically playing the role his whole damn life! He is creepy, he is funny, he really does steal the whole show even from Michael Keaton. And he is the best Batman...live action wise. Kevin Conroy has been Batman for over 20 years, and for good reason. But Keaton is THE Batman to me. If I had to guess what Batman would be like, it would be Keaton's potrayal. And most people don't realize he is a comedic actor first and Batman second and his humor shows in the film. He's quirky but he just does a funny and real potrayal of Bruce Wayne. And people petitioned against him! Because they saw him as a comedy actor and nothing else so it made his performance that much greater. Danny Elfman's score is the best Batman soundtrack I have ever heard and I own it, and the Prince songs while very product of the times are fun, and how strange is this? Prince just passed away and I just so happened to have a film with his music in it to review and I planned this long before his unfortunate passing. They're good songs and they work really well with this Joker potrayal. Now plot wise, it's pretty basic but it has a lot of commendable points. The Batman is pretty much an urban myth cracking down on the criminal underworld of Gotham City while avoiding arrest by the Gotham City Police. During one of his nightly patrols, he knocks a gangster into a vat of chemicals giving birth to the Joker who soon declares war on the Dark Knight and starts to terrorize Gotham. And, as the director Tim Burton put it, it's a battle of the freaks. The film has almost too many excellent choices in acting, directing, etc. so I will just give you the absolute best one. And it's why Batman is Batman, and while I praise the discussions in The Dark Knight this sums it up so well in such a short time. Not even 2 minutes. And the reason it works so well is in how Keaton potrays Bruce Wayne, it fits so well to the character. I could talk a good long while about this movie and all the inner workings of what makes it so good but I will merely task you with watching both the 1989 Batman movie and The Dark Knight from 2008. And I will let you criticize both and come to your own conclusions. I'm of a mind to make some mookie, and I'll see you tomorrow.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Most people always argue is this a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? I say it's a blend of both but at heart it is a Christmas movie, and it may have to do with the little fact that Christmas is in the title!!

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a stellar piece of work created by Tim Burton based off of the story he wrote by the same name. It follows several ghoulish inhabitants of Halloweentown, specifically Jack Skellington who has grown tired of Halloween and is searching for something new. He soon finds several mysterious doors in the woods and stumbles across Christmastown where he is fascinated by everything and decides to make the holiday his own. This is without a doubt a Christmas movie, because Jack discovers Christmas for the first time and delves into why he enjoys it so much and why he wants to make a Halloween themed Christmas. This movie is just awesome, the characters are unforgettable, the animation is amazing, I don't even have to touch on the music by Danny Elfman since almost everybody has heard it and enjoys it. Hell I could sing the whole thing right now, I am that much of a fan of this movie. It's a wonderful movie and I always watch it around Christmas time, it resonates with you because of the characters and attempting to dissect and understand Christmas and the film succeeds incredibly so at that. If you haven't seen it I strongly suggest you do so. And ironically, this is a Christmas movie you watch when you want something different from other Christmas movies, very much like Jack who wants something new and different besides ordinary Halloween things. That is a sign of how good a movie is when it can connect with audiences without them even seeing it. Give it a watch, and have fun making Christmas.