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 Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter give voice to the characters in Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride. (Foto: 2005 Warner Bros. Ent.) |
Tomorrow, if the planets are aligned properly in the cartoon universe, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride will be nominated as best animated feature in the Academy Awards.
Also tomorrow, Burton's magical musical will be released to DVD. It arrives in separate full (why bother?) and widescreen editions (don't compromise this visual feast).
Stylized in the manner of The Nightmare Before Christmas, heightened with Danny Elfman's moody cabaret and jazz songs and populated with great voices from Johnny Depp as the shy hero to Helena Bonham Carter as the doomed dead girl, Corpse Bride is a marvel of its genre.
It is also interesting for its emotional tug-of-war. The film, which Burton co-directed with Mike Johnson, is layered with dark, demented visions that push and pull the effervescent romantic themes into odd shapes.
The DVD comes fully loaded, except for the absence of a commentary. But Burton participates in the featurettes and we learn about the puppets, the music and the filmmaking techniques. The lyrical highlight is watching clips of voice recordings, with Burton directing, while a split screen shows the final animation for each session. Albert Finney and Depp, especially, fascinate us here.
REFORMING THE SKANK: Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes adapted from the Jennifer Weiner novel, is a morality tale about two sisters. One is dowdy and responsible (Toni Collette), the other is a trashy party girl (Cameron Diaz). They share one attribute: The same shoe size. Shirley MacLaine plays their long-lost grannie. As usual with Hanson, character development is crucial. While this is a lightweight flick, it is charming and, layered beneath the hijinks, there is a journey to redemption.
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The DVD, in separate full and widescreen editions, is out tomorrow with limited yet sparkling extras. My fave is the visit with "acting seniors" -- a clan of vibrant eccentrics who populate the seniors home as extras. Their quips about the Hollywood process are priceless.
ZZZZZZZ: With Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones back in the saddle, with swords in hand, The Legend Of Zorro picks up the swashbuckling saga as California votes on joining the United States. Martin Campbell's movie is a lush, visually arresting movie with spectacular action stunts. With Rufus Sewell cast as the villainous French prat, it is also a crushing bore with a stupid story that threatens the revival of the Zorro mythology.
The DVD is out tomorrow in a so-called Special Edition, in separate full and widescreen versions, with a self-congratulatory lineup of extras. Campbell leads a commentary and also explains away the deleted scenes. Two multi-angle scene deconstructions, with the rehearsal, shoot and final cut shown simultaneously, are interesting. Best of the four featurettes is Playing With Trains, in which WETA Workshop head Richard Taylor takes us down in scale to the miniature train process.
CORPORATE MELTDOWN: The next time some vacuum-packed politician says he wants to run a government like a business, screen the savagely brilliant documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. It might shut him up.
Narrated by Peter Coyote and based on the book by investigative journalists Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, Alex Bigney's film blows open the Enron black box. We see, in detail and in layman's language, the process of greed, arrogance, deception and corruption that led to the collapse and bankrupcy of this company. In a deregulated, free-market economy, the Enron fiasco demonstrates how robber barons exploit politician alliances -- in this case, with the Bushes -- and then destroy the American Dream.
The widescreen DVD, out tomorrow, is jammed with great extras, including Gibney's commentary, deleted scenes that fill in missing chapters, more time with the authors, bitterly funny stuff that satirize the corporate crooks, cartoons, the original Fortune magazine articles and a Where Are They Now? featurette that updates court proceedings.
CUDDLY COMEDY: The British romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral is now a dozen years old and seems to grow in stature as it matures. Mike Newell's film is back on DVD in a Deluxe Edition with more making-of documentaries. There is also that delicious 10th anniversary commentary that teams Newell with writer Richard Curtis and producer Duncan Kenworthy. Listening to these guys chattering away is as amusing as the movie itself, and keenly informative if you want the friendly inside scoops.