Tim Burton's macabre visual masterpiece

There are few precious animators out there still interested in the art of stop motion animation. Fortunately, Tim Burton got a lot of them together to make a wonderful little movie called "Corpse Bride." \nThe film follows a nervous groom voiced by Johnny Depp as he screws up the nuptials at his wedding rehearsal and accidentally betroths himself to a dead body (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter) out in the woods. Burton then takes us on a patently Burton-esque tour of a claymation underworld, not unlike 1993's "A Nightmare Before Christmas." Pretty cool stuff. Kids will like it most, but you'll like it, too. It's kind of enjoyable to take the macabre and make light of it, and Burton realizes this.\nStop motion animation takes time and patience, as every shot requires a repositioning of the set. You've got to stop, change facial expressions, move arms, legs, background pieces; anything and everything that moves has to be moved by hand. And that's not easy. But it's come a long way. \nAnybody remember Ray Harryhausen and his amazing stop motion features "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans"? Well, "Corpse Bride" may be the realization of all those arduous hours choreographing a skeleton army sword fights and Colossi battles. It's a dying art form, and interviews with both cast and crew imply they're not trying to revitalize the genre, but rather send it off in a grand way.\nThe DVD release of the film, predictably, has a couple of featurettes on the painstaking animation process that show how the idea is finally realized on film. But it doesn't really matter that you know its coming; who needs a surprise on every DVD they own? The "Corpse Bride" special features give you a crash course on what it's like to make such a quirky little movie.\nAmong other things, it's got the film's trailer, a little blurb on what's it like to be Danny Elfman and score films for a living, and an inane crowd pleaser with two frames; one showing the animation and another showing the actors providing the voices in-studio. People enjoy that kind of stuff. Therefore, it's on the DVD.\nAll in all, the only reason you should shell out money for "Corpse Bride" is if, you know, you like the movie. I say there's something wrong with you if you're buying a copy of film for its sweet little extras, but there's no harm in admitting that the sweet little extras on this DVD are worth watching. But, more importantly, so is "Corpse Bride." Check it out.