Corpse Bride

Wow. When The Nightmare Before Christmas is the "normal" cousin, that's one weird family. Both that work of genius and this film bear a familial resemblance, though the younger relative is not quite the achiever that the elder cousin is. This one has a lot of the same visual inventiveness, the same mix of jokes and drama, and is mostly entertaining throughout. The only real problems here are a certain unevenness in the musical numbers; with this outing soundtrack master Danny Elfman tries to broaden the range of song styles, which only creates a certain choppiness rather than a smooth, unified score. Mostly, that's a quibble; there's more than enough good stuff here to make this flick a fun time.

Big Fish

Not as good as it should have been, but the bar was set pretty high, so you still get a good movie. The fantasy sequences play much better than the worn-out father-son relationship plot. Credit for the good stuff goes to Ewan McGregor's bright performance and Tim Burton's inventive mind.

Erin Brockovich

The better of director Soderbergh's two award-nominated movies from 2000. Julia Roberts is compelling as Brockovich, and Albert Finney is a hoot as her boss. And if the movie's accusations against PG&E are even close to true, then the bastards should stay bankrupt forever.