Last night I got dragged out of the dorm by my roomie and her boyfriend to find dinner and see Corpse Bride. We got tickets for the 10:20 show, which was quite a bit later than we needed it to be, since we were eating dinner two stores down and it wasn't even 8:00. But, better safe than sorry. I'll skip on describing dinner. It was build-your-own stir-fry; sort of like Mongolian Barbeque, only not all-you-can-eat. Needless to say, by the time we finished we had a bit less than two hours to waste before the movie. So we wandered up to Virgin. Big mistake. The last place in the world I needed to go while I still had a cushy pre-book-purchase bank account balance. At least I escaped with only two CDs (Stars' Heart and the Weakerthans' Reconstruction Site. Both very good.), though I almost picked up Anansi Boys (I'd forgotten it was out already! I suck as a fangirl!) and volumes 1 and 2 of the FMA manga (they were on sale!). Come to think of it, I've probably also already missed Neil Gaiman's signing in Chicago, but I figure I already had him sign my copies of Neverwhere and American Gods, I don't need to pester his poor signing-hand again. Rumour has it my roomie and her friends are planning a trip of most evil movie-going proportions at the end of this month, in which we (as I immediately invited myself along when I heard about it) will watch both Mirrormask and Serenity. I'm more worried about making it to that than I am about harassing Neil himself again. Hooray for living in Chicago where we'll actually get to see Mirrormask early!
So, after bemoaning the fact that my current Amazon wishlist (made up entirlely of DVDs of TV shows I need to watch) is over $500 in addition to all the CDs and books and anime/manga I need to buy and wandering up to the Hershey's store to waste even more time, we went to see Corpse Bride. (I can't believe that functions as a sentence). It was good, especially considering the state movies have been in this year...
Overall, it was a good movie. Not as good as I wanted it to be. For one, it felt rushed. I imagine people have pointed that out before, though. It was only 75 minutes or so... there was so much more that could have been put into the plot. I don't think enough time was really given to develop the way the characters felt about each other. There was entirely too much "love at first sight." I'm going to blame the fact that I didn't like many of the songs on the fact that sometimes I find musical movies a bit jarring. I don't know, though. Nightmare Before Christmas didn't bother me at all that way. I think Corpse Bride would've functioned much better without the songs. The one telling the story of the corpse bride worked well. Oh, and the small parts that involved people playing the piano were lovely, beautiful, and I loved them.
I guess I sort of saw the colour and brightness of the underworld as a predictable move. But what a strange one. It doesn't really signify anything in the movie, since in the end Victor doesn't stay there anyway. It was a lively place but... I don't know, something about that pseudo-symbolism just didn't sit right. I guess, since those undead aren't at rest... What with Emily disappearing into butterflies once she's content about things... See? Plot needed more time. There were a lot of good visual jokes, but just as many of the one-liners seemed forced to me. Hrm. I'm cynical, though. Getting worse lately, too, since I need to warm up my criticism for a year of being a possible English major.
Oh, and this is an incredibly interesting write-up on the way geek-types (or fandom types, same thing only different) tend to speak. I'm not sure how scared I should be that so much of that is true about me. I hope my nerdy behaviour and speech patterns don't scare people. Hehe.
(Hmm... still not sure I like the colour scheme this way. But I was getting the distinct feeling that white-on-black was slowly killing my eyesight.)
So, after bemoaning the fact that my current Amazon wishlist (made up entirlely of DVDs of TV shows I need to watch) is over $500 in addition to all the CDs and books and anime/manga I need to buy and wandering up to the Hershey's store to waste even more time, we went to see Corpse Bride. (I can't believe that functions as a sentence). It was good, especially considering the state movies have been in this year...
Overall, it was a good movie. Not as good as I wanted it to be. For one, it felt rushed. I imagine people have pointed that out before, though. It was only 75 minutes or so... there was so much more that could have been put into the plot. I don't think enough time was really given to develop the way the characters felt about each other. There was entirely too much "love at first sight." I'm going to blame the fact that I didn't like many of the songs on the fact that sometimes I find musical movies a bit jarring. I don't know, though. Nightmare Before Christmas didn't bother me at all that way. I think Corpse Bride would've functioned much better without the songs. The one telling the story of the corpse bride worked well. Oh, and the small parts that involved people playing the piano were lovely, beautiful, and I loved them.
I guess I sort of saw the colour and brightness of the underworld as a predictable move. But what a strange one. It doesn't really signify anything in the movie, since in the end Victor doesn't stay there anyway. It was a lively place but... I don't know, something about that pseudo-symbolism just didn't sit right. I guess, since those undead aren't at rest... What with Emily disappearing into butterflies once she's content about things... See? Plot needed more time. There were a lot of good visual jokes, but just as many of the one-liners seemed forced to me. Hrm. I'm cynical, though. Getting worse lately, too, since I need to warm up my criticism for a year of being a possible English major.
Oh, and this is an incredibly interesting write-up on the way geek-types (or fandom types, same thing only different) tend to speak. I'm not sure how scared I should be that so much of that is true about me. I hope my nerdy behaviour and speech patterns don't scare people. Hehe.
(Hmm... still not sure I like the colour scheme this way. But I was getting the distinct feeling that white-on-black was slowly killing my eyesight.)