North Country (2005)

October 21, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Theatrical

*/****
starring Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson
screenplay by Michael Seitzman
directed by Niki Caro

Northcountryby Walter Chaw North Country is a sensationalistic, pandering film that crafts from a landmark legal case a cinematic martyrdom the equivalent of Christ’s and Joan of Arc’s rolled up into the noble, trembling lips of Charlize Theron (who once had the temerity to chastise the press for focusing on her appearance in Monster whilst wearing a see-through, painted-on size-4 gold dress). I’m not decrying the stunt-casting of a statuesque blond in the role of the tiny Minnesotan mine worker the life upon which this film is ever-so-loosely based, nor am I begrudging, per se, the natural instinct of Roger Ebert and the Academy to foam over turns like this from starlets undergoing extreme make-unders. No, what I really don’t like are movies like North Country that fudge humanity in all its ugliness and imperfection so tragically that the real issues of the picture end up looking like one of those glossy fashion mag covers Theron will grace as she embarks on her promotional turn. According to the world of North Country, it’s not terrible enough that awful things happen to a real live person–no, awful things have to happen to Mother-freakin’-Teresa.

Doom (2005) + Stay (2005)

October 21, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, Drama, Germany, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, UK

DOOM
½*/****
starring The Rock, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike, DeObia Oparei
screenplay by David Callaham and Wesley Strick
directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak

STAY
*½/****
starring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Ryan Gosling, Janeane Garofalo
screenplay by David Benioff
directed by Marc Forster

by Walter Chaw For a split second, the clouds part and I think I’ve kenned a glimmer of an idea in Andrzej Bartkowiak’s video game adaptation Doom that doesn’t involve homoerotic gun worship or ripping off everything from Aliens save its humanity. Semper Fi, gung ho, muscle-bound jarhead Sarge (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) takes it upon himself to order his own mini-Mai Lai because he’s a stickler for details, and his stock marines balk to varying degrees of morality-inspired mutiny. Suddenly, and just for that split second, Doom of all things becomes Casualties of War (and, in fact, literalizes that film’s tagline of “In war, innocence is the first casualty”), and although what’s leading up to the moment isn’t that great, I was ready to roll with this totally unexpected, thought-provoking tickle. Alas–it flees like hope so often does, leaving fifteen minutes of semi-gory first-person perspective to simulate the first-person perspective of the video game (marking this as the first–and probably last–time someone thought that ripping off Uwe Boll was a good idea), ending with the sort of mano-a-mano showdown between its warring alpha males that everyone’s seen enough of by now.

Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005); The Boogeyman (1980)/Return of the Boogeyman (1984); The Fallen Ones (2005) – DVDs

October 18, 2005Posted in1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Romania, ZERO STARS

HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD
*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Lance Henriksen, Katheryn Winnick, Christopher Jacot, Doug Bradley
screenplay by Carl Dupre
directed by Rick Bota

The Boogey Man
½*/**** Image B Sound B
starring Suzanna Love, Ron James, John Carradine
written and directed by Ulli Lommel

RETURN OF THE BOOGEYMAN
ZERO STARS Image D Sound D
starring Suzanna Love, Kelly Galinda, Richard Quick
directed by Deland Nuse

THE FALLEN ONES
** Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Casper Van Dien, Kristen Miller, Geoffrey Lewis, Navid Negahban
written and directed by Kevin VanHook

by Walter Chaw The only genre that boasts more direct-to-video fare than horror is porn, and since we haven't quite reached the point of quiet desperation needed to begin reviewing porn, find here a smelted cheddar of four dtv horror features (actually, The Boogeyman got a theatrical release in 1980, though I can't understand why): the eighth film in Clive Barker's venerable horror octology, Hellraiser: Hellworld; The Boogeyman and its second sequel, the legitimately straight-to-video Return of the Boogeyman; and Kevin VanHook's The Fallen Ones. The only thing that binds them together, of course, is the general disrepute of their genre, doubled by their status as never having secured "legitimate" distribution–but, what with us teetering on the eve of the major studios embarking on a grand experiment in franchising their licenses for direct-to-video treatment, now seems as good a time as any to give these films a look. First we had a couple of Wild Things sequels, then The Sandlot 2 and a Carlito's Way prequel, and soon Single White Female will follow in the Disney footsteps of producing DVD cheap product for fast returns and an eternity gathering dust and puzzled glances in drugstore dollar bins. It's the equivalent of turning Idahoan runaways into crack whores before discarding them for the next small-town beauty led astray.

Trauma (1993) + The Card Player (2004) – DVDs

October 17, 2005Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Dario Argento, DVD, Horror, Italy, Mystery, Thriller

Dario Argento's Trauma
**/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras B-
starring Christopher Rydell, Asia Argento, Laura Johnson, Piper Laurie
screenplay by Dario Argento & T.E.D. Klein
directed by Dario Argento

Il cartaio
**½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras A
starring Stefania Rocca, Liam Cunningham, Silvio Muccino, Claudio Santamaria
screenplay by Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini
directed by Dario Argento

by Walter Chaw Listening to Dario Argento himself call Trauma "classic Argento" shakes the validity of author intentionality. The man's a legend, but he has no idea about the qualities that used to shine in his own work, and what comes clear for a fan of the "Italian Hitchcock" after a screening of Trauma is that the thrill is gone. It's one of those George Lucas situations where if it were anyone else shitting all over the legacy, there'd be a violent hue and cry instead of this collective embarrassed averting of gaze–a cheap ripper that steals scenes whole from better Argento flicks without a commensurate level of understanding of how to use them. Was a time that Argento redefined the slasher flick in the same way that countryman Sergio Leone redefined the Western; that Argento (like American rival and doppelgänger Brian DePalma) was appropriating bits and pieces from Alfred Hitchcock and rejuvenating them in films exhilarating for their willingness to do absolutely anything to anyone at any moment. Once lawless, Argento's pictures feel inconsequential now. Light and aimless.

Cold Blood (2005) – DVD

October 11, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, DVD, Horror, Thriller

Freez'er
**½/**** Image B- Sound A- Extras B
starring Barnes Walker III, Carrie Walrond, John L. Altom
written and directed by Brian Avenet-Bradley

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Cold Blood is a movie that's almost there–that exhibits a surplus of ingenuity even when its artistry falters. Its rather obvious starting point is a man named J.M. (Barnes Walker III) who's just killed his cheating wife with a baseball bat; the predictable apparitions and paranoia follow suit as he flees to the countryside to hide the body. But though the film never finds the metaphor to fit the conceit (and suffers from some amateurish acting), it does have a couple of clever twists and interesting beats up its "Telltale Heart"-redux sleeve.

Crash (2005) [Widescreen] – DVD

October 10, 2005Posted in2000s, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

*/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B-
starring Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito
screenplay by Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco
directed by Paul Haggis

Crash2005cap

by Walter Chaw In peeking under the satin-slick bedclothes of the latest crop of high-falutin' liberal diatribes tarted-up with matinee idols and compromised ideals, one finds that whatever the trappings of sophistication, we're still making Stanley Kramer movies, all of grand speeches and peachy endings. Seems to me the common denominator among the Interpreters and Constant Gardeners and Lord of Wars is a good unhealthy dollop of white man's guilt, that could-be beneficial malady that afflicts the affluent and socially well-established once in a while so they'll pay lip service to Africa, and race, and class. (Just as long as it has nothing to do with actual activism.) They're issues considered phantom offices at which to give and then leave with a sense of closure at best or, at the least, a feeling that all the tempests in the world are fit for a teacup you can put away somewhere in a mental cupboard. Race as a fable, Africa as a fantasy–and the last reel interested in beautiful, rich white people falling in love; I think about Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels and a couple of challenges presented therein to white, privileged, "morbid rich" filmmaker Sully, played by Joel McCrea: "What do you know about trouble?" and, later, "I have never been sympathetic to the caricaturing of the poor and needy, sir." To which Sully responds: "Who's caricaturing?"

It’s All in the Thumbs: FFC Interviews Mike Mills & Lou Taylor Pucci

October 8, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

ThumbsuckerinterviewtitleOctober 9, 2005|With wistful "it" boy Lou Pucci turning cartwheels on the berber carpet and his Thumbsucker director Mike Mills horsing around in a way more fraternal than paternal, I suddenly found myself in a conference room with a couple of guys who have no use for "cool." What I vetted from these unaffected souls not caring in the slightest what I thought of their rumpus room acrobatics was this sense, undeniable, that they couldn't care less that I was even there–and less still what species of banal question I had ratting around in my proverbial pet carrier. But it wasn't arrogance (I've been around that a lot–been the arrogant one, too, if tales told out of school are to be heeded): it was something more like fatigue driven to the grist of blithe indifference–that feeling you get during finals week when you realize that after a semester's worth of fear and tension, you just don't give a good crap anymore.

The Legend of Zorro (2005)

October 8, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Mexico, Romance, Spielberg, Theatrical, Thriller, Western

½*/****
starring Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rufus Sewell, Nick Chinlund
screenplay by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
directed by Martin Campbell

Legendofzorroby Walter Chaw It's Amblin Entertainment's version of Once Upon a Time in the West, which only serves as a reminder that it's been too long since the last time you saw Once Upon a Time in the West. Martin Campbell's dedicatedly underwhelming The Legend of Zorro goes through the motions of knock-off action sequels like this with a tired fidelity and–until a semi-sadistic conclusion–a squeamishness about enemy casualties that smacks of that peculiar morality for which there's ever an acceptable way to portray mindless carnage to the kiddie set. I'm not saying your moppets should be shielded from the ugliness of the world, I'm saying that should they witness someone getting pushed off a thirty-foot tower into a cactus patch with the tip of a sword, they ought not be shielded from the consequences. By the umpteenth time Campbell uses the classic "A-Team" tactic of showing the bad guys crawling away from a scene of mayhem in a slow-motion, "Hey, no harm done" shot, you don't feel comforted by the innocuousness of the thing so much as coddled for being a ninny who doesn't understand that more harm's done in assuring your kids that frenetic swordplay never results in somebody getting hurt.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

October 7, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Family, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, UK

***/****
screenplay by Steve Box & Nick Park, Mark Burton and Bob Baker
directed by Nick Park and Steve Box

Wererabbitby Walter Chaw Perfectly innocuous even though it's (very) occasionally mildly naughty (a pair of melon jokes, a makeshift fig leaf labelled "contains nuts"), Aardman's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (hereafter Were-Rabbit) doesn't break a lot of new ground in the claymated pair's misadventures in serving up a workmanlike tale of love, loyalty, gardening, gadgets, and misguided medical experimentation. It takes an unusually long time to get started, for one, re-establishing the best-pals relationship between cheese-loving, jug-eared inventor Wallace and his faithful mutt Gromit (theirs is an Inspector Gadget/Brain sort of dynamic) with the kind of leisurely pace that feels more like a valedictory procession than something born of necessity. "Wallace & Gromit" cartoons have, after all, become a standby on the festival circuit, functioning as buffers between films and the palette-cleanser in all-shorts programs. But it's that very function, as the whimsical interstitial, that makes a feature-length presentation just a charming diversion that outstays its welcome ever so slightly. Unlike its feature-length predecessor Chicken Run, there isn't the bite of satire in Were-Rabbit–no light shed on the British social caste system and, likewise, few inroads made in the traditional love vs. status romance. What coalesces is an appreciation for the craft involved in realizing the picture and a suspicion that you're going to be hungry again in about an hour.

Oliver Twist (2005) + Kings & Queen (2004)

October 5, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Czech Republic, Drama, Esoterica, France, Romance, Theatrical, UK

OLIVER TWIST
**/****
starring Ben Kingsley, Barney Clark, Leanne Rowe, Mark Strong
screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on the novel by Charles Dickens
directed by Roman Polanski

Rois et reine
***½/****
starring Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Maurice Garrel
screenplay by Roger Bohbot, Arnaud Desplechin
directed by Arnaud Desplechin

by Walter Chaw Roman Polanski is an architectural director. By that I mean he moves his camera in careful, constructed motions, and the characters he places within these movements are best when they seem restrained by them, oppressed by the presence of the director in a way similar to Hitchcock’s protagonists. Indeed, Polanski at his best (Repulsion, Knife in the Water, The Tenant, Rosemary’s Baby, Macbeth, Chinatown) makes films that Hitchcock might have made: alight with social revulsion, weighted by claustrophobic set-pieces, and thick with subtext. But Polanski at his worst (Bitter Moon, The Ninth Gate, Frantic, Pirates, Tess) betrays a tendency towards the frenetic–an unbecoming manic energy that leans towards the childish instead of what I think is the intended demoniacal. Polanski close to the vest is Polanski at his best, and when midway through something tending towards mediocre like The Pianist, he erected a literal wall within which to restrain his antihero (tellingly, the best Polanski protagonists are acted-upon)–that architectural boundary allowing the director to regain his footing, if only for the last part of the film.

Red Cockroaches (2003) – DVD

October 3, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Cuba, Drama, DVD, Sci-Fi

**/**** Image B Sound A- Extras B
starring Adam Plotch, Talia Rubel, Diane Spodarek, Jeff Pucillo
written and directed by Miguel Coyula

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover You have to give Red Cockroaches full props: it takes a no-budget budget, some half-understood ideas, and a whole lot of ingenuity and almost pulls off a movie. Alas, “almost” is as far as I’m willing to go, because the film never really understands what the hell it’s trying to say. Though it manages to make you forget its neophyte director’s sex fantasies and complaints, it’s more suggestive than articulate and gets your hopes up only to dash them with noncommittal execution. I have no idea where its combination of Blade Runner dystopia, Polanski perversity, and Sundance relationship drama was supposed to go, and it’s to writer-director Miguel Coyula’s credit that he can keep you praying that he isn’t going to take any sophomoric turns. Alas, he does, and Red Cockroaches does, and your rental night is done for.

Mirrormask (2005)

September 30, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, UK

**/****
starring Stephanie Leonidas, Gina McKee, Rob Brydon, Jason Barry
screenplay by Neil Gaiman
directed by Dave McKean

Mirrormaskby Walter Chaw Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean are responsible, between the two of them, for one of the seminal works of fiction from the 1990s: a run of comics called "The Sandman" (the success of which moved the World Fantasy Awards to forbid the comic medium from again winning that prize) that proposed a new mythological pantheon, "Endless," to hold sway over the vicissitudes of the world's belief systems. For as long as it lasted, it was an astonishing demonstration of post-mod pop art; with Gaiman writing the text and McKean providing the cover art, the two would collaborate on stand-alone series (like "Violent Cases" and a short run of "Miracle Man"), children's books (Mr. Punch and The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish), and now a feature film and illustrated screenplay, Mirrormask, which finds Gaiman scripting and McKean behind the camera. I wish I could report that the results are more than murky, derivative, and hard to see. Taking place primarily in a digitally-created environment (à la Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), it looks, unfortunately, a lot like it was shot on last-generation digital video–even the non-fantasy portions of Mirrormask deliver the kind of grimy, ugly picture that Robert Rodriguez makes with his children. With a film version of "The Sandman" languishing in near-permanent hiatus, it's a shame that this first cinematic product from two of that project's major players is such a disappointment.

TIFF ’05: Dear Wendy

September 26, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, Denmark, Drama, Esoterica, Film Festivals, France, Germany, Romance, TIFF, UK
*½/****starring Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Michael Angarano, Danso Gordonscreenplay by Lars von Trierdirected by Thomas Vinterberg by Bill Chambers It's a classic catch-22: Dear Wendy reveals that Jamie Bell was born to play Billy the Kid, but it probably also squanders his chances of doing so. As Dick, the orphaned son of a miner, Bell dons Michael J. Fox's effeminate cowboy duds from Back to the Future Part III and transforms the town's social lepers into a gang of gun fetishists known collectively as the Dandies; director Thomas Vinterberg and screenwriter Lars von Trier give us the gay burlesque version…

Clueless (1995) [Whatever Edition] + Dead & Breakfast (2005) – DVDs

September 26, 2005Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Horror, Musical, Romance, Teen, Zombie

CLUELESS
*/**** Image A Sound B Extras B-
starring Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd
written and directed by Amy Heckerling

DEAD & BREAKFAST
**/**** Image C+ Sound B Extras B-
starring Ever Carradine, Portia de Rossi, David Carradine, Bianca Lawson
written and directed by Matthew Leutwyler

by Walter Chaw Clueless is the pinnacle of a certain kind of smarmy teensploitation/Classics Illustrated vogue that saw Shakespeare (10 Things I Hate About You) and, in this case, Jane Austen (i.e., Emma) squeezed through the sausage mill of swatch-guards and Prada bags. It's the Shrek school of satire: mythological creatures made to act out master-plots in unfunny, unimaginative ways in stock mythological landscapes. In place of literal trolls, find euphemistic trolls in Alicia Silverstone and Brittany Murphy, posed opposite one another as after/before shots of one-trick lightweights. (So light is Silverstone, in fact, that her most recent attempted comeback was essentially as this character ten years later in NBC's prophetically-named "Miss Match".) The only interest in watching this relic in its new, ten-year anniversary "Whatever Edition" (also prophetically-named) is in trainspotting current sitcom stars in what, in retrospect, is a piece of work every bit as smug and self-loathing as Pretty Persuasion or Saved!.

TIFF ’05: Heading South

September 24, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Canada, Drama, Film Festivals, France, TIFF
Vers le sud***½/****starring Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal, Ménothy Cesarscreenplay by Laurent Cantet & Robin Campillo, based on short stories by Dany Laferrièredirected by Laurent Cantet by Bill Chambers Heading South (Vers le sud) represents such a departure from the milieu of Laurent Cantet's previous film (2001's brilliant psychological thriller Time Out (L'Emploi du temps)) that you can't really say it rounds out a trilogy he started with Human Resources. Nevertheless, it resumes his fascination with people in transience, people who've erected complex façades to avoid the repercussions of personal or professional failure; Cantet's pictures are screwball comedies played…

TIFF ’05: Wassup Rockers

September 23, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, Teen, TIFF
**½/****starring Jonathan Velasquez, Francisco Pedrasa, Milton Velasquez, Usvaldo Panamenowritten and directed by Larry Clark by Bill Chambers These days, when I think of Larry Clark, I think of Stephen Wiltshire, the outsider artist profiled in Oliver Sacks's An Anthropologist on Mars. Diagnosed with autism early in life, Wiltshire soon after began doing immaculately detailed sketches of animals before moving on to buses and eventually cityscapes. So advanced was Wiltshire's technique at such an early age that Sacks and co. were fascinated to learn that his talent came pre-evolved: as a child, he drew like a grown-up, but he drew like…

TIFF ’05: All the Invisible Children

September 20, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: John Woo, Directors: Ridley Scott, Directors: Spike Lee, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Italy, TIFF

Fest2005children**½/****
directed by Mehdi Charef, Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, Jordan Scott and Ridley Scott, Kátia Lund, Stefano Veruso, John Woo

by Bill Chambers Named after an initiative of the Italian Development Cooperation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that supports Unicef and other global charities, this omnibus project assembles seven short subjects about children from a handful of world-class directors, all of whom were instructed to locate their contributions in their home and native land. Poverty seems to be the unifying theme until Jordan and Ridley Scott's vaguely autobiographical segment, which sticks out like a sore thumb but subversively suggests that if All the Invisible Children proper has any lessons to impart, they revolve around the auteur theory. Having never seen a film by Mehdi Charef or Stefano Veneruso, I don't know how closely their episodes hew to their previous work, but I can tell you that Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, the Scotts, Kátia Lund, and John Woo tread familiar ground in a borderline egotistical fashion.

Proof (2005) + An Unfinished Life (2005)

September 20, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Mystery, Theatrical

PROOF
*½/****
starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis
screenplay by David Auburn and Rebecca Miller, based on the play by Auburn
directed by John Madden

AN UNFINISHED LIFE
*/****
starring Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez, Morgan Freeman, Josh Lucas
screenplay by Mark Spragg & Virginia Korus Spragg
directed by Lasse Hallstrom

by Walter Chaw Gwyneth Paltrow sops through nearly every frame of John Madden's Proof with the sturdy dedication of a Method actress swallowed whole by a red-rimmed wet blanket. It's not a performance so much as a dip into her own navel, which, while not the worst fate I can imagine, is certainly not very interesting to watch. I find that contemporary American arthouse fare, thrilled to sift its way to the bottom of a mystic grain silo in a stately, lachrymose manner where the corn is alien, bears no relationship to any reality I've ever known–its sole purpose, at least to the extent that I can glean, to vet some collective desire to win the Good Will Hunting/A Beautiful Mind lottery by pretending to be really good at math (a fine excuse, after all, for being barmy).

TIFF ’05: The Myth

September 18, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, China, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Film Festivals, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, TIFF
½*/****starring Jackie Chan, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Kim Hee-seon, Mallika Sherawatscreenplay by Stanley Tong, Wang Hui-ling, Li Hai-shudirected by Stanley Tong by Bill Chambers The Myth, or: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Turdbath. Sabotaging a potential comeback by trying to catch a wave (not unlike the myriad has-beens in the music industry who jumped on the disco bandwagon), Jackie Chan dips a toe in the unfriendly, nay, hostile waters of the wu xia genre recently revitalized by the likes of Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou. Although The Myth is cruddy-looking (HD's fine for George Lucas excretions and Robert Rodriguez fantasias, but it has…

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005)

September 16, 2005Posted in****/****, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Tim Burton, Family, Theatrical

****/****
screenplay by John August and Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson
directed by Tim Burton & Mike Johnson

Corpsebrideby Walter Chaw A self-contained, melancholic, dulcet little ode to love and sacrifice, Tim Burton's stop-motion Corpse Bride is also a sly stab at class systems, a knowing tribute to both the Hammer horror run and the Universal monster tradition, and another of Burton's evocations of German Expressionism. As fairy tale, it rivals his Edward Scissorhands, as underworld fantasia, his Beetlejuice, and as classic studio-bound horror, his Sleepy Hollow–in many ways, in fact, Burton's return to the stop-motion of his breakthrough short Vincent (and his co-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas) feels like a figurative homecoming to the technique that suits him best. William Blake described an "infernal method" in his theory of creation wherein the artist touched every page of every print of his work to infuse it, ineffably, with the hand of its creator, and so stop-motion, with every movement manipulated painstakingly by the human hand, is infused with a Romanticist's idea of (possibly Satanic) vigor. It's animation that gives the term its "soul"–there's something vital about Corpse Bride that has nothing to do with its story, and watching it, you come to the realization that the reason so much of Burton's work feels airless or dated (or that his stars are so perverse) is that his way with puppets translates only uneasily to his way with actors.