Something 4 The Weekend by Paul Bullock

Necrophiliacs rejoice! Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride is here at last!

Welcome ladies, gentlemen and film fans everywhere to entertainment manchester's weekly feature 'Something for the Weekend'. Every Friday, we deliver to you the best (and, in the interest of balance, worst) of this week's new cinematic releases. If, as Forrest Gump once might have said were he a film fan, cinema really is like a box of chocolates, then think of us as your mini-menu, steering you away from the coffee creams and towards the Turkish delights of the movie world.

The Big Picture

This week, Tim Burton returns to the realm of stop motion animation, the notoriously time-consuming technique which has produced arguably his most enduring film to date: A Nightmare Before Christmas. Sure Burton has hit dizzy heights with live action flicks like the Batman films, Edward Scissorhands and, most recently, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but his now iconic A Nightmare Before Christmas and the early short Vincent – both stop-motion films – are naturally given to the off-kilter, other-worldly feel his films so often deliver, affording Burton the chance to unfurl his manic fantasies without the hindrance of the real world to hold him back. So it's no surprise to see that twelve years after Nightmare, Burton is set to emulate the gothic majesty of Jack Skellington and co with The Corpse Bride.

Set in the same kind of dreamy, vaguely Victorian Gothic nether-world we’ve come to expect from Burton, The Corpse Bride follows Vincent Van Dort (Johnny Depp, seemingly conjuring the same limp feyness he brought to Sleepy Hollow's Ichobad Crane) who while practising his wedding vows in some nearby woods, stumbles and slips the ring onto Emily, a corpse who lives in the Land of the Dead. She, understandably, is quite pleased to find herself newly betrothed, but Victor is unsure - as you would be marrying a dead person.

Of course, the film is destined to be a huge box-office hit, not only being the latest Burton/Depp collaboration, but also because of its Nightmare Before Christmas connections. Now, at the risk of becoming vastly unpopular (and it should be noted at this point that I do love the film), Nightmare is, through no fault of its or Burton’s own, on it's way to becoming very, very soulless. I pine for the days when the adventures of Jack Skellington were still relegated to a single 12.30am showing on Christmas morning. When it was a film which your parents were more than a little uncomfortable letting you watch. When you could hum the songs on the bus and not have a chorus of mini-Goths behind you joining in. In short, I long for the days when it was still a cult film, going against the grain by being a Christmas flick that didn't make you want to hurl like you've had too many sugary sweets.

Gradually, though, this once cult film has grown to such gigantic proportions that it can hardly be called a cult at all any more. Everyone loves it from your Gran to that slightly dodgy goth next door. Fine, I say. I'm not one to get all protective, screaming 'I was hear first' when a film I love become popular. In fact, I like nothing more than when a truly great film becomes embraced by the general public, rather than just a small niche. But sadly, the meteoric rise of NBX (as it has now been dubbed) has caught the attention of marketing men and the almighty dollar has flashed bright and true in front of their beady little eyes.

So now, for a film which is essentially against the commercialisation of Christmas, it has become homogenised, packaged and sold relentlessly by those business-suit types who so often fill out the bad guy roles in Burton films. Now goths who would normally try to rebel against Mummy and Daddy by wearing black and listening to grown men shout alot, have softened up and instead buy themselves Jack Skellington backpacks, Sally candlesticks, and Oogie Boogie mugs. And thus, the hero who brought the true meaning of Christmas to Halloween Town with a song in his heart and a toy snake in his sack has become as synonymous with the death of the festive season as shops putting up their decorations in June. Oh well...

Still, The Corpse Bride should avoid such pitfalls. In the same way in which Burton reacted against the mass-marketing hysteria of Batman with the freakish fetish-wear of Batman Returns, Corpse Bride seems to be an equally drastic departure – after all, dead ladies don’t really look too good when spilling out of your Corn Flakes in miniature toy form.

Gladly, the film has been generally warmly received, with even the high-brow Sight and Sound singing its praises. However, intriguingly, Total Film is less positive, noting that "advances in animation during the past twelve Pixar-dominated years have taken away much of Nightmare's ropey charm". Is Corpse Bride dead in the water, or will it rise like a phoenix from the flames? Judge for yourself from today…

Also Playing...

If, as Christians have been trying to persuade us for ooooh... the last 2,000 years, there really is a god then I wouldn't be surprised if He is right here on Earth disguising himself as a comedy icon named William James Murray.

Ghostbusters, Scrooged, Kingpin, Ed Wood, Groundhog Day, Rushmore, Lost in Translation, The Life Aquatic...the list of Bill Murray classics goes on. Sure he may not have created the universe in seven short days, but he did break Robert De Niro’s nose during the filming of Mad Dog and Glory, and if that’s not enough to earn him a place on the pantheon of biblical greats, I don’t know what is. St Bill? I think so…

But of course, in the interest of balance, there are two sides to every story. Many accuse Murray of being a one role performer. That he has simply taken the acerbic wit of Peter Venkman, a role which made him such hot property in the mid-80s, and transposed it into a different character in each role, gradually adding increased mid-life crisis with every year which ticked by.

While it's certainly tough to completely refute such an allegation - there are obviously certain key traits which have stretched from Venkman to Lost In Translation's Bob Harris and all in between - it is simplistic to entirely agree with it. Like a fine wine, Murray has aged as a person and an actor. He's married, had kids, divorced and, well, broken Robert De Niro’s nose. Unlike many of today's more sheltered actors, he's been out and experienced life in all its highs and lows and he pours every ounce of that experience into every role he plays.

Take Lost in Translation, for example. The best of Murray’s recent renaissance, there's a moment of sheer transcendence in Sofia Coppola's film where Scarlett Johansson rests her head on Murray's shoulder. Unsure what to do, clearly having feelings for this young woman, but being committed to his wife and child back home, Murray's face is a picture of a man split. He knows he shouldn't but he clearly wants to react, to put his arm around her, kiss her, something. And in a moment of sheer cinematic magic he...sits there. Nothing. No movement. No dialogue. NOTHING. Nothing, that is, but the movement of his face muscles contorting ever so subtly in melancholic sadness at this young woman representing all the chances in life he missed.

When written down, of course, the scene loses much of its subtlety, coming across rather like a Mills and Boon novel. But on film, the scene flies - and it's all down to Murray. It's little wonder that he cut his teeth on the comedy circuit, because his talent is indebted not to your Marlon Brandos, your Paul Newmans or your Robert De Niros, but to the Chaplins and Keatons of this world. His is the purest kind of acting, acknowledging that cinema is a visual medium and running with the idea that a picture can speak a thousand words. This subtlety is exactly why so many disregard him as a comedian simply recycling the same role over and over again – on the surface there’s not much different going on. But beneath, there is a world of pain, echoed by Murray’s subtle, silent acting.

Murray's latest, indie-god Jim Jaramusch's Broken Flowers, sees him playing Don Johnston (no, not the one from Miami Vice, note the 't') who decides to track down a collection of old flames after receiving a letter alleging that he has a son. Superficially, of course, it suggests the same mid-life crisis movie Murray is getting nowadays. But with the ever-unique Jaramusch directing and the trailer boasting a scene involving Murray drinking at a tea party with a little girl (bless), it's sure to be another puppy dog eyes special from the master of misery.

Half-term rears its ugly head this week, so in a bid to get ‘da kids away from bus stops chugging bottles of cheap cider and into the cinema, two kiddie friendly flicks are heading our way. Firstly, the latest film to hop on the superhero fun bus is Sky High. Featuring Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston, it takes a comedic (but presumably loving) look at the world of superheroism, blending the high-school idea of X-Men, the derring doo of Superman and the teen angst of Spider-Man. Whether or not this tale of the son of the world's greatest crime fighting duo trying to impress his parents can blend the requisite heart with enough laughs to justify its existence remains to be seen, but the critics have, by and large, embraced it as a light and fluffy diversion.

Meanwhile, Emma Thompson dresses up like an old wart-filled hag in Nanny McPhee. It feels like the trailers have been assaulting us at the cinema for months (rather like that abominable H&M ad), but this Mary Poppins-esque tale looks to be a charming romp for the whole family featuring none other than Angela ‘Murder She Wrote’ Lansbury – so students are sure to dig it as well. Check it out from today.

Next week: Zorro takes a break from anachronistic car ads to return to the big screen in The Legend of Zorro, pointless sequel Saw 2 promises more blood than last year’s taut original and indie of the week comes in the form of Thumbsucker. It has Keanu Reeves playing a dentist. Woah…