Tag: Tim Burton

Wednesday

Wednesday

(Netflix, 2022)

TV poster: “Wednesday” (Netflix, 2022)

Delightfully kooky teen coming-of-age horror/mystery series. The production values smack of feature filmmaking (iconic costume design and makeup; Tim Burton directs half the episodes). Jenna Ortega makes precocious antihero Wednesday Addams an instant favourite… even before her dance-out to ‘Goo Goo Muck’!

Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride

dir. Mike Johnson & Tim Burton (2005)

Movie poster: Corpse Bride (2005)

Short for a feature film, refreshingly straightforward, and not weighed down too heavily by songs or Tim Burton’s trademark love of the macabre. The darkness in this case works with the story, and the Victorian era stop-motion character design is exquisitely ghoulish.

 

 

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas

dir. Henry Selick (1993)

Selick_Nightmare Before Christmas

Cue the skeleton:

“If Christmas fills your heart with woe, a schmaltz-fest souring your December

maybe you’ll prefer macabre stop-motion Halloween adventures

(but) Disney brings the curse of singing, rhymes so trying, Walt’s will lurking

Elfman’s lyrics don’t deliver Burton’s dark disturbance.”

 

Batman (1989)

Batman

dir. Tim Burton (Warner Bros., 1989)

Burton_Batman

By far the pick of the franchise pre-Nolan — albeit not as funky as Prince’s soundtrack would intimate — the original Batman soared, giving us Jack Nicholson as a whimsically understated over-the-top Joker and Michael Keaton as the most beguiling Bruce Wayne of all.