Tim's Toons: Corpse Bride, ten years later

Tim here. This past week marked the tenth anniversary of the festival premieres of two very different stop-motion animated features. We've recently chatted a bit about Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, so other than reminding you that it exists, and it's still delightful a decade on, I will pass it by in silence. Instead, I want turn everybody's attention to Corpse Bride, or if you prefer - the boys in marketing clearly did - Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. The second movie's reputation has gone off in a very different direction over the last ten years: while Were-Rabbit remains a touchstone of sorts thanks to its iconic stars, I'll bet that a good number of you just thought, "Huh, Corpse Bride, I forgot all about that".

That’s not unfair. Revisiting it for the first time in most of that same decade, I found it to be visually inventive, and dangerously rushed as a narrative: based on a Russian folk tale of a young man who accidentally weds a beautiful dead woman, the films never quite shakes the sketchy structure of a fable.

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H8teful Eight vs Black Mass: Character Posters

Manuel here bringing you two sets of character posters that are sure to adorn plenty of dorms soon. White, red and gray is in, apparently, as the new posters for Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film The H8teful Eight (am I doing th8t right?) and the Johnny Depp-starrer Black Mass show:

Click to embiggen (or see them individually here)

We probably knew these were coming for the Tarantino flick (whose trailer we discussed in all its gif-tastic glory), but I can’t be the only one surprised that we’ve got such stylish character posters for that Whitey Bulger flick. When discussing its trailer, we talked about whether this might be the film to bust Depp out of its rut or further bury him in prosthetically-enhanced performance purgatory. Jury is still out, though not for long as the film opens September 18th. We have to wait a bit longer for Tarantino's latest which is waiting until Christmas to be unwrapped.

Click to embiggen (or see them individually here) 

So many male actors! Only Leigh and Johnson offer some much-needed actressing at the edges to both casts. Which set gets your vote?

Yes No Maybe So: Johnny Depp and Yet Another Hairpiece in 'Black Mass'

Margaret here... Johnny Depp is struggling -- as much as anyone who commands a ten-figure salary and goes home to a private island can be said to be struggling. His last real hit was the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2011, and it's been even longer since critics have had much nice to say about one of his performances. He's looking for a comeback, and it looks like he may have one in Scott Cooper's Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass, due later this year.

Warner Brothers recently debuted footage of Black Mass at CinemaCon, and the buzz was very positive. The first official trailer was released not long after, which means we can now weigh in on whether the people who are starting to throw the O-word around are on to something, or just experiencing the power of low expectations.

trailer and YNMS breakdown after the jump 

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Link-sync for your life!

Silver Screen
Pajiba on the way the media is handling Kristen Stewart's current love life. Somehow I had missed this story (cuz I don't care about celebrity dating) but this is a joy to read.
MNPP Apparently this new movie Beyond the Reach features Jeremy Irvine in states of undress for basically the whole movie but all I can think watching him run barefooted in the desert is what I felt watching Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner sprinting across ice in the nude: OUCH
Grantland Mark Harris on all the Wonder Woman  movie creative shuffling, director and script(s):

I use the word “movie” reluctantly because right now, Wonder Woman is certainly not one: It is a release date (June 23, 2017), and it is a promise to stockholders (as the third of 10 upcoming connected DC Universe films that are meant, between 2016 and 2020, to show that DC can play on Marvel’s field), and it is a recognizable — albeit dusty — title. Right now, that’s all it is. It’s certainly not a movie in the sense of being an entertainment product that starts with an idea and then results in a script that is good enough to attract a director and stars.

MNPP has a great costume design suggestion for Ewan McGregor now that he's been cast as Lumiere in Beauty & The Beast
Shadowplay revisits Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) on Bluray. I loved those Harryhausen movies when I was a wee bairn
Cartoon Brew here's a new contender for Best Animated Feature this year - The Boy and the Beast. Kidding - they don't really like anime and there's no US plans just yet
In Contention reports from Cinema Con with breathless response to a clip of Johnny Depp in Black Mass 

The Rock with a little TayTayOther Screens & Surfaces
The Snap talks Lip-Synch Battle which is fun if you ask me: the complete Hathaway vs Blunt episode is glorious and The Rock doing Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" --what has been seen cannot be unseen. Louis Virtel compares it to RuPaul's Drag Race and finds it considerably lacking. I myself find their goals and souls as shows so different as to only see comparison in the extreme basics (i.e. people move their mouth to other people's recordings)
IndieWire TV's obsession with remakes, revival-sequels (Hello, Fuller House) may well end the Golden Age
Playbill Lily Tomlin wants to do a new one woman show. Yes please.
Boy Culture remember these Raoul Bova kisses Madonna commercials? I didn't! So cute
EW Daredevil renewed for season 2 with a slight change in show runners (basically an exit and a promotion)
Comics Alliance Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood, who play former lovers and badass SHIELD agents may lead the Agents of SHIELD spin-off. Two-part question. 1) Since they're the best part of the existing show this side of Ming Na Wen, you sure you wanna hobble your still creatively struggling original? 2) You already have a spin off of sorts (Agent Carter) which is better than the original show. Why not pour resources into that?

Amy Schumer is back
...and it is a glorious thing. Here are two sketches getting attention right now, "Football Town Lights" a Friday Night Lights spoof as hilarious indictment of rape culture and "Last F**kable Day" guest starring Tina Fey, Patricia Arquette and Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Hollywood sexism and ageism. Cue the think pieces en masse -- never mind they're already all over the place.

Finally...
The Eisner Award Nominations (basically the Oscars of comic books) have been announced and it's a great year for female driven series especially the celebrated title Ms. Marvel. I find it strange that they don't have a superhero specific category since comic books have changed so much to include so many types of stories but if you're looking for traditional superheroes Hawkeye, Batman, Daredevil. Elektra, and Silver Surfer were represented in some way or another with a nomination or two.

a page from "The Last Mechanical Monster"Sadly, it's really hard to find solid info about the Eisner Awards. Many webpages are out of date and they don't have their own as far as I can tell so it's difficult to know which series have been nominated previously. Obviously they aren't followes as rapturously as other awards! I'm always personally most curious about the webcomic prize because I always want to do one and I rarely get anywhere (sigh). Those nominations are as follows -- I'm only familiar with Nimona but it's pretty great, so I'll be sampling these others.

• Bandette by Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover
• Failing Sky by Dax Tran-Caffee
• The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies
• Nimona, by Noelle Stephenson
• The Private Eye by Brian Vaughan & Marcos Martin

Linking & Housekeeping

Pajiba Strange news. Johnny Depp did not report to work as planned. Work being continued cashing in of his 2003 brilliance as Jack Sparrow. What is afoot?
Interview on the evolution of Chlöe Sevigny
Comics Alliance tiny Ant-Man billboards. Here's to clever marketing !
Cleo have any of you seen Adventure Time? Thinkpieces on this animated show intrigue
Attitude Giorgio Armani urges you to not dress so "gay"!
The Kenneth in the (212) was The Former Bruce Jenner inspired by Belinda Carlisle?
Instagram meet Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel's son
Towleroad RuPaul recap. Conjoined twins extravaganza

All the FUN of a serious and rare medical condition without the humanity and decency that even American Horror Story provided

Cool Projects
Cinematic Corner is hosting a "White Swan Black Swan" blog-a-thon -- now through the end of the month - which looks at dual personae. 
Nick's Flick Picks has gathered his own secret TBA jury for a screening/retrospective of the entire Cannes Competition lineup of 1995 from the utterly gorgeous Shanghai Triad through the Palme D'Or winner Emir Kusturica's Underground to the provocation that was Kids. Ambitious! 
Antagony & Ecstasy continues reviewing reader requested films (this time it's Evita) for a donation to the American Cancer Society. I urge you to all do this. It's a great cause and Tim is a great critic. He's doing a few reviews for fellow TFE staff (including me) in June.

True Story
Sunday night I dreamt that Meryl Streep had died suddenly and unexpectedly. The nightmare was so real that when I woke up Monday morning i was in an absolute panic wondering how I could possibly write about such a loss and feeling bad about every time I complained that she said yes to everything rather than carefully picking her projects. The nightmare was so real that I immediately googled Meryl Streep and was greeted by happy news instead of sad. La Streep was actually in the news that very morning but for funding a screenwriting workshop for women over 40.  Whew and Awesome. And what The Dissolve said...

Whatever we did to deserve this woman, it wasn't enough.

71 Days Until Magic Mike Matt XXL
More character posters keep emerging.. so here's Matt Bomer. With Horn, Pettyfer, and McConaughey absent this time around, does he get an expanded role? In addition to being ridiculously pretty, he's said to be a very nice fellow in real life as told to us by actress and co-star Kathy Deitch.

TFE News
Apologies  that 'April Showers' never got off the ground this month as a returning blog feature, though they definitely fell from the sky. Overplanning, TFE's great sin! But that won't stop up from committing it again and again. 

TO CLOSE OUT APRIL: Sci-Fi / Artificial Intelligence theme week, Broadway stuff (Tony nominations in just one week), 9 to 5 party (tomorrow night - join us for some mowie wowie) a couple of Campions (In the Cut & Bright Star) and the completion of the April Foolish Oscar Prediction charts. No really. Stay tuned.

COMING IN MAY: The Orson Welles Centennial, 1979 Smackdown and Sidebars, and finally some 2015 movies to be excited about, discuss, and get us back to the movie theaters including: Mad Max Fury Road, Avengers Age of Ultron, Far From The Madding Crowd, Hot Pursuit, Saint Laurent, The D Train, Pitch Perfect 2, Aloha, and Tomorrowland.