Serenity Bride

I never go to the movie theater, but last weekend I went twice. Twice?!? Some years I don't even get to go twice! The two movies were Joss Whedon's Serenity and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.
Back in the day Midsummer, Foolishknight, Why and myself would play with JD and Anna E.M.. We would play "space" with toy six-shooters and shotguns, Serenity takes those games and makes a movie with them. Very cool to see outlaws in space, slowly realize what is the right thing to do. It's not just a Science Fiction Western (or Space Western) but it's a Space Western meets Kung-Fu meets Zombie movie. Pulling these time specific genres together it makes a very timeless movie, inhabited by the ghosts of various movies and directors. Howard Hawks, master of a hundred genres can be seen in the synthesis-- especially his Westerns like El Dorado. Movies where fast-talking wise cracking white hats shoot down the black hats. Specically the characters Captain Malcom Reynolds and Jayne (and for the few that know Malcom could've been Dawson Jones' twin brother). In the characters of Zoe and Kaylee, I saw John Ford's heroines. Women marked by their nobility and honesty. And in the good ship Serenity is the ghost of the Millenium Falcon. But the real star is Summer Glau playing River Tam. River is part psychic and part psychotic, a spiritual visionary who occaisonally goes off into "raging fury" land. Only character I know of who is similar to her is Fiver from Richard Adams' Watership Down. Visually it may not be as exciting as Star Wars, and it may look too much like a TV show, but it also resembles the Warner Brother movies of the forties and the fifties.

Corpse Bride is also very good, but in its own way. Yes, this stop-animated movie is a bit gothic, and you want to paint your face white and dress all in black, but you'll want to dance in the light of the moon, and learn the piano. The piano plays a very important role in this film. In the beginning Victor plays a piano, Victoria his fiancee speaks to him about how her mother has forbidden her from playing because it is "too passionate." They talk a little longer about music and discover they are in love with each other despite having never met before. Later after Victor accidently marries himself to Emily, the Corpse Bride, and then betrays her, they make peace with each other by playing a duet on an old (dead) piano. The animation is a little creaky but it is part of medium. Very lovely movie and I would recommend it, but think of it as a pre-Christian story; Emily does not live in Hell or Heaven, but in Sheol.

And for those of you who are eagerly awaiting future reviews of movies I've seen this year please be patient. But I should be done by years end (maybe).