This one sat on our shelf for a while, because 1) I hate Tim Burton movies, and 2) I hate Southern tall-tale movies (while I like most Coen Brothers films, I really didn’t care for O Brother, Where The Fuck Art Thou), so a Tim Burton Southern tall-tale film is just the sort of thing that I’d expect to despise.

So it’s surprising that I found myself really liking it. It had a sort of Princess Bride vibe to it (for obvious reasons, if you’ve seen the movie), the story-telling was solid, the characters (particularly the protagonist) were great, and just generally an all-‘round fun movie. How can this be from the same Tim Burton who put out turgid shit like Batman and Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas? (Although I can see how this could be the same Tim Burton who did Edward Scissorhands, so.)

Good stuff, well worth Netflixing.