Since I was on my own for the evening, I opted to expand my Oscar movie-viewing horizon by entering the realm of Best Animated Feature. Being a childless 20-something, it's been awhile since I've actually seen any Best Animated films (I'm guessing the last one was Finding Nemo, which makes me feel both old and like I need to watch that movie again because, my God, it's perfection). Aaaaanyway, I'm also not too proud to spend a Friday night watching a kids' movie, and since my date was my corgi Charlie, it seemed like the perfect fit.
Frankenweenie is a new take on the Frankenstein story, where mad scientist Victor is a brilliant but lonely boy whose best friend is his dog Sparky. When Sparky gets run over by a car, Victor is inspired by his crazy science teacher to try to reanimate him. When word of his successful experiment gets out, all of the kids in his class (including an Igor-esque hunchback named Edgar) attempt to recreate it for the school science fair.
In my mind, there are two types of Tim Burton movies: Good Tim and Bad Tim. Good Tim usually involves integrating some really dark idea (a Frankenstein monster of a dog, a robotic man with scissors for hands, a long-slumbering vampire back from the dead) into bright, sunshiny, perfect suburbia. Bad Tim usually murders some beloved story from my childhood (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland). This was Good Tim in its best form. It was dark, it was funny, it had a sweetness underneath. The mannerisms of the stop-motion dog, both alive and as a "monster," are perfection, clearly the product of somebody who has spent a lot of time around dogs and loves them. More than once in the movie, I looked over at Charlie and found myself making ridiculous promises if he happened to get hit by a car and I happened to develop any sort of knowledge or skills in science overnight.
And as with most Burton films, what took it over the edge were the little side jokes. When Victor visits Sparky's grave in the pet cemetery, he passes a gravestone with a familiar cat's face on it, complete with X's for eyes, with the epitaph reading, "Goodbye Kitty." And it wouldn't be a Tim Burton movie without either Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder or Catherine O'Hara in it and he managers to get two of the three.
Having not seen any of the other nominees for Best Animated Feature yet, I can't say whether I think this movie will win or not. But I won't be disappointed if it does.
Updated Oscar Viewing List:
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
The Sessions
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugarman
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