Corpse Bride

I just saw Tim Burton's Corpse Bride -- our maiden voyage with NetFlix. A few thoughts come to mind:

I was impressed by how he managed to put a new spin on the whole "dead walk the earth" thing. According to zombie movie convention, everyone freaks out when the dead come to town: "Arg! Dead people! Foul spirits!" And then, the twist: "Grandpa!" Suddenly everyone realizes that these people are their dead, their own fathers and mothers and husbands, and suddenly we're a cross between heavenly reunification and The Day of the Dead. It gets you to thinking . . . what was so scary about dead people, anyway? I remember thinking the same thing when I saw The Sixth Sense -- dead people aren't so scary when you remember that they're still people.

None of the press for the movie prepared me for the fact that it's a musical. Maybe because it's only got, like, four songs, which is not quite enough to push a soundtrack CD. (Even Joss Whedon's Once More With Feeling got twice that many songs into a single hour-long show.) In fact, there's a lot about the movie that feels slightly rushed . . . most of the time you're wishing movies were a little shorter, but this one felt like it could have taken its time a little more.

I noticed that there was a voice credit for Deep Roy -- who made his big break doing the Ooompa Loompas in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's really nice to see an actor who just happens to be a midget, instead of midget actor.