Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Starring (the voices of): Johnny Depp, Emily Watson, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: Tim Burton
The film: The battle for this year's best animated feature film Oscar looks to be a cracker. There's Japanese wizard Hayao Miyasaki's fabulous Howl's Moving Castle; Nick Park's laugh riot, Wallace & Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit; and this engaging operatic effort from the maverick master Tim Burton.
The Corpse Bride is a sly nod to the memory of Hollywood special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen who thrilled audiences with his work on kitsch classics such as Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and One Million Years B.C. (1966) - his name even appears on the piano played by shy groom-to-be Victor Van Dort.
And it shares with Harryhausen's work, not only the stop-motion style of animation that was his calling card, but a sense of the bizarre - and the utterly entertaining.
Burton has always been the odd sock in the pile - with a few misses (Mars Attacks!, Planet of the Apes) along with the hits (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood). Here he lets his imagination run riot again, and while he shares the director's chair with animator Mike Johnson, this Corpse has all the Burton hallmarks (hence his moniker in the titles).