In Contention

Tag: Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride

  • Celebrating 25 years of Burton/Elfman collaborations

    In the “sign me up now, please” category today is a recently announced boxed set of Danny Elfman’s music collaborations with filmmaker Tim Burton.  I first heard about the limited edition set via the New York Times in a piece that went up on the Arts Beat blog yesterday.  It featured a video with Burton and Elfman discussing the monumental “Batman” score — talk about grabbing my attention.

    Anyone who knows me knows what role that 1989 superhero extravaganza played in my film-going youth.  But the idea that there might be some extra, never-before-heard material waiting in a vault somewhere?  Giddiness.  Pure giddiness.

    But it’s not just “Batman” stuff.  The set celebrates “the 25th anniversary of the ingenious collaboration” between the two singular artists, reads a press release that went out today.   “[The] numbered box set of 1000…collects expansions of the 13 original scores that Elfman has composed for Burton’s iconic films” and is “a newly produced library of 16 CDs each packaged with artwork by Burton, adding up to more than 19 hours of music.”  Wow.

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  • Best in show 2005: the year in superlatives

    It’s time to really round out the year and offer up my picks for awards in 2005.

    In addition to the typical categories – which finally see their winners announced today – you’ll find some other fun arenas for awards citation. Call it a mish-mash of MTV-Awards-type kudos and other frequently heralded categories we find time to time in various critics’ awards and precursor ceremonies.

    No one is better at this sort of thing than Nat Rogers over at The Film Experience, so I recommend you all take a look at his Film Bitch awards when he dishes them out in the coming weeks.

    These will likely be my last extensive thoughts on the awards season this year, barring any brief comments I may or may not make here and/or there. There will, of course, be one final predictions update before the end of the year.

    It feels good to wrap everything up before Christmas vacation, I have to tell you. But the Oscar season is by no means over, so I’ll be diving right back in once 2006 finally rolls around.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Chicken Little” (***)

    Walt Disney Pictures' Chicken LittleDisney’s first fully computer generated in-house animated feature opens next Friday, and in a Fall season that seemingly brings with it a new disappointment each and every week, I have to consider this little gem a breath of fresh air.

    I won’t dip into hyperbole here. “Chicken Little” is what it is: a swift animated venture aimed at kids with brief attention spans, fit with enough mature giggles thrown into the mix to keep the parents engaged. Though at its heart the film is quite “grown up,” dealing with parental issues of believing in one’s child that make it more pertinent for a family movie-going experience than most animated features.  The film is still a frothy delight that at the very least reaches the bar for which it aims. That’s saying a lot this year.

    Taking the well-known fable of “Chicken Little” and her claims that “the sky was falling” after being conked on the head by an acorn, the screenplay –- from writers Steve Bencich, Ron Friedman and Ron Anderson –- expands on the myth.  It weaves a rather comprehensive moral into the mix that goes far beyond the mere warning against exaggeration and ill-informed conclusions the 300-year-old tale proposes.

    This was an enjoyable experience on many levels –- even in a crowded Westwood theater surrounded by talkative and fidgety youngsters. The voice talent is of considerably high quality, most especially Zach Braff, who pumps a lot of emotion into the title role (the gender of the character was changed to male early in the process), and Gary Marshall as Buck Cluck, Chicken Little’s struggling father who wishes he had the answers his dearly departed wife had in the realm of guidance.

    That’s right, the film even deals with single parenting -– right under your nose.

    I’d prefer not to write too much because analysis of something like this isn’t valuable. You’ll take from it what you will and the themes are easy enough to pick up on without a critic or columnist hammering them home for you. But while it may not be as inspired or as inventive as “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride,” “Chicken Little” is a very charming addition to the pantheon of 2005 animated film product.

    (I should add that I was not, nor was the crowd, able to experience the “digital 3-D” technology utilized by the film at this screening, but I’m intrigued nonetheless and may just have to give it a shot once the film opens.)

  • SHORT TAKE: “Corpse Bride” (***1/2)

    Tim Burton's Corpse BrideI saw Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride” in Westwood tonight, and it’s one of the most enjoyable films of the year. Recalling strands of “Beetlejuice” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” the film’s witty screenplay combines with a bombastic Danny Elfman score and a heightened level of production value to make for Burton’s best endeavor of any sort since 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, and perhaps since 1994’s Ed Wood.

    The film tells the story of Victor and Victoria (voiced by Johnny Depp and Emily Watson respectfully) and the deceased bride-to-be (Tim Burton’s own bride, Helena Bonham Carter) that comes between them and their arranged marriage.

    Burton draws upon his cast of collaborators for a who’s who of voice talent. Amongst the contributors are Albert Finney, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, and Elfman, with Tracy Ullman and Joann Lumley to boot.

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