TheRetroCritic

What's this?! A movie that's both perfect for Christmas AND Halloween, not to mention a treat for Burtonites and Oingo Boingo aficionados? What. Is. This? It's The Nightmare Before Christmas , of course. Henry Selick's stop-motion Disney classic based on the gothic surrealism of Tim Burton who contributed the story and the characters while Danny Elfman not only took on the music and the lyrics but voiced the Pumpkin King himself, Jack Skellington, during the songs with Chris Sarandon on voicing duties the rest of the time. The film quickly became a Christmas and Halloween tradition since its plot cleverly merged both holidays in a unique way without coming off as overly gimmicky. After a thrilling opening number, "This Is Halloween", which introduces us to Halloweentown and its spooky inhabitants (vampires, witches, you name it), we finally meet Skellington, the bony showman who has been making the best out of every single Halloween, wowing the to

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 14th episode, we discuss the tenth episode of  Gotham , Alfred, Will Smith, Viola Davis and Danny Elfman. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

Shot at the same time as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory , Corpse Bride was Tim Burton's first animated feature as director despite having tried his hand at stop-motion animation before with early short effort Vincent and, of course, The Nightmare Before Christmas , which he produced but didn't direct. Like the title suggests, this one's both very wedding themed and death themed. The plot sees nervous Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) be forced into an arranged marriage with Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) except everything goes wrong, or even more wrong, I suppose, when Victor mistakenly proposes to a corpse he mistook for a tree branch. The corpse in question, bony, maggot-infested Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) accepts the offer and soon drags poor Victor down to the land of the dead to meet her pals. To further complicate things, Victor had taken a shine to Victoria and sinister fellow Lord Barkis (Richard E. Grant) is trying to step in as her husband while Victor&#

What can I say about Edward Scissorhands ? Here's a movie I've probably seen every year since its release: like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Batman Returns , it's pretty much become a Christmas tradition. Already a fan of Tim Burton's back catalogue, this is the film which sealed the deal: Burton had my childhood by the balls and he would never let go without a fight. Since, I grew up and although some of the director's films I've grown to simply like (or feel relatively indifferent towards) rather than blindly worship, Edward Scissorhands is one of those which still feels genuinely special. I mean, modern fairytales of the sort are made pretty much every year these days and, with certain exceptions ( Pan's Labyrinth , Where The Wild Things Are ), actually good ones are incredibly rare. For every Edward Scissorhands there's 10 Gooby s. But what makes Burton's film work particularly well? The marriage of gothic Frankenstein -style B mov