Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride arrives on Home Video today, just in time to capitalize on the morning’s announcement of the film’s Oscar nomination. Warner Bros.’ comically macabre stop-motion musical was not among the year’s top-grossing animated releases, but should come alive at retail with a little help from the Academy. Stop-mo fans can also pick up director Will Vinton’s Clay-animated The Adventures of Mark Twain and John Roecker’s Live Freaky! Die Freaky!, a rock musical featuring the voices and music of such top bands as Green Day, Good Charlotte, Rancid and Blink 182.
Corpse Bride stars Johnny Depp as the voice of Victor, a young man who is whisked away to the underworld and wed to the mysterious title character, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter. While the Land of the Dead proves more lively than his Victorian England, Victor must find a way to get back above ground to his fianc’e, Victoria (Emily Watson).
DVD special features include a behind-the-scenes documentary titled Inside the Two Worlds, an in-depth look at how the animators approached their characters, a featurette on the film’s creator titled Tim Burton’Dark vs. Light, an exploration of how the voice cast helped bring the animation puppets to life, an inside tour the puppet workshop, pre-production galleries, a featurette on how composer Danny Elfman Interpreted the film’s two distinct worlds and a music-only track.
Released in September of last year, Corpse Bride earned just $53 million in North America and took in nearly $117 million worldwide. Those who missed it at the theater will surely be checking it out on disc prior to Oscar night. The DVD retails for the suggested price of $28.98.
In the Will Vinton tradition, 1984’s The Adventures of Mark Twain employs claymation to combine stories from more than four books by the legendary scribe. Actor James Whitmore (The Shawshank Redemption,TV’s The Practice) provides the voice of Twain, who pilots an interplanetary balloon with the goal of finding Halley’s Comet and crashing into it, thus fulfilling his destiny. It’s up to stowaways Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher and Huck Finn to convince him that he still has much to offer the world and that the human race isn’t so bad after all. Along the way, they use a magical time portal to witness the historical events that inspired Twain’s works. The MGM/Sony release lists for $14.94.
Live Freaky! Die Freaky! (2003) is a stop-mo curiosity featuring the voices of such rockers as Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Tim Armstrong from Rancid and Operation Ivy, John Doe of X and Jane Wiedlin from The GoGos. Actress Asia Argento (George Romero’s Land of the Dead), daughter of horror filmmaker Dario Argento, also lends her voice to this musical comedy that has Charles Manson returning to lead survivors of war and ozone depletion in a futuristic world. The DVD features commentary by director John Roecker (Disease is Punishment) and Billie Joe Armstrong, a deleted scene, storyboards, a music video and the behind-the-scenes featurettes Making Puppets Speak, Desert Footage and Soundtrack Rehearsals and Recordings. The Genius/Wellspring release comes with a soundtrack CD and lists for $29.98.
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