Chicken Soup 4 The Damned

Corpse Bride

Tim Burton is like Steven Spielberg in that much of his earlier films lacked the kind of drama that could carry a substantial theme. As much as we are entertained by ghoulish children harassing Santa Claus, his "Nightmare Before Christmas" didn't really have much to say, didn't have that intimate something that ties the audience to an epic story.

The 10 years Burton spent developing his latest Corpse Bride however was time well spent. In showing that death is not the end of life, but is life transformed, all the singing skeletons are revealed to instead be celebrating life in all its manifestations. Well done.

The Aristocrats

The early mention that Chevy Chase used to host parties for performances of "the aristocrats" invites you to wonder, "So how boring is this documentary going to be?" But they don't mention Chevy Chase again, and documentaries looking into the intimate clubhouse of stand-up comedians haven't been overplayed yet, so I think it's safe to give this movie a pass.

The joke is no secret: An act is dramatized to a talent agent involving gross lewdness and outright evil. The agent is appalled, asks the name of the act anyway, and learns it's called "the aristocrats." The challenge for the storyteller is in the operatic building of the lewdness and evil, often involving public defecation and violent incest. No one in the documentary says so, but the humor of the payoff is in attempting to shelter the lewdness and evil behind pretense.

This movie is kind of a "Seven Samurai" (or "Magnificent Seven") for stand-up comedy. We need the lesson of pretense, but it's still a joke no one should look forward to revisiting.

Fantastic Four

I COULDN'T TELL IF I WAS WATCHING THE FANTASTIC FOUR OR AN EXTENDED EPISODE OF THIRTYSOMETHING.

LOOK: MILES DRENTELL IS TRYING TO KILL MICHAEL STEADMAN AGAIN. MICHAEL, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP PUNISHING YOURSELF FOR YOUR DEAD FATHER'S BUSINESS FAILURES AND QUIT WORKING FOR SUCCESSFUL EVIL BASTARDS OUT TO STEAL YOUR WORK AND KILL YOU?

LOOK: HOPE IS NAGGING MICHAEL ON YET ANOTHER ISSUE HE'S STONEWALLING. MICHAEL, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE A STAND ON WHETHER THE CHILDREN SHOULD BE RAISED JEWISH OR INVISIBLE?

LOOK: ELIOT'S MARRIAGE IS FALLING APART AGAIN, NOT BECAUSE HE HAS BRIGHT RED HAIR, BUT THIS TIME BECAUSE HE'S MADE OF BRIGHT ORANGE ROCKS.

LOOK: GARY IS ON FIRE. GODDAMN IT GARY, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO SLOW DOWN ENOUGH FOR MELISSA TO LOVE YOU? BY ALL RIGHTS MELANIE MAYRON'S LOVE BELONGS TO ME.

Good movie.

Batman Begins

Batman Begins is the most effective portrayal of Batman. Containing almost none of the superhero model for fairplay and restraint often satirized, or of the technologically jumped-up outlaw hunted by a Gotham he's sworn to protect and defend, instead we are given a man presenting himself to predators as a supernatural demon of vengeance. The plot is also excellent in presenting antagonists who are able to illicit the same fear from him he himself instills in the guilty.

Revenge of the Sith

In this installment of the Star Wars saga, George Lucas officially lets all of us know he really doesn't know what he's doing.

In the movie's final duel, Obi-Wan Kenobi accepts the task of killing Anakin Skywalker for destroying the Jedi order. It is a battle of experience vs power that ends with Obi-Wan offering Anakin an opportunity to surrender, having it refused, and simply cutting him down when Anakin attacks from, for him, a very slight disadvantage.

The opportunity overlooked was to put Anakin in the same great disdvantage Obi-Wan overcame in Phantom Menace, and failing because Obi-Wan is able to counter the same move he himself employed against Darth Maul. This approach would make plausible the victory of the more experienced Obi-Wan over the Jedi prodigy who killed the same Count Dooku who fought Yoda to a stand-still. The $120 million George Lucas spent on this movie rightfully belongs to me.

Sin City

After turning "Daredevil" from a bi-monthly publication to Marvel's best selling comic book, writer and artist Frank Miller turned his attention to DC's Batman, who for most people had been represented by the campy Adam West for 20 years.

Miller visited Bruce Wayne 10 years after the death of Robin, emerging from his retirement as Batman. He's an old man running around in a cape and mask, jumping off rooftops, fighting crime, dodging police bullets, bellyaching about the crabs stabbing him in the chest. Then, while your 16-year-old-boy-self is laughing open-mouthed three-quarters into his story of madness and mayhem, Frank Miller tells you why you like Batman so much: Batman hates guns because the pretense of a clean murder is cowardly.

Batman's fucked up? What makes you think any of us ain't fucked up? Now siddown, shaddap, and maybe you'll live long enuff ta lern sumthin', punk.

20 years later, Rodriguez and Miller have adapted Frank Miller's Sin City comic book to film. It has all the elements that called the wrath of congressional hearings onto 1950s publishing house EC Comics -- sex, violence, drug abuse, corrupt government officials, mutilation, cannibalism, the talking undead, knives pointed at vulnerable eyes. Special effects are implemented to highlight the most adolescent masturbation and revenge fantasies.

And like children on a playground, the plot migrates from sensation to sensation, patching 3 of Miller's Sin City storylines together. Worst of all, Sin City's heroes enjoy brutality and misogyny almost as often as its villains. Was your mom right to throw out your poisonous comic books? Is this the seduction of the innocent Senator Roark warned her of? How will this all end?

For an American audience unprepared for the power of a repressed artform, Sin City the movie is stupidly controversial. The moral of Sin City isn't declared in any bold speechifying about the march of freedom or the sanctity of life. It is presented in how the characters of Sin city manage the very guilt of living -- how the most hideous evil is sheltered by the guilty who pretend they're clean.

Don't live in hiding pretending to be the virgin you aren't. Live openly, babe -- like a Valkyrie.