It has left me sleepless again. My need to see the “Corpse Bride” became more intense as the release date approached.

I am hoping this won’t be a cheap knock-off of the “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and will satisfy my Burton thirst.

I cannot recall the exact time I became infatuated with Burton’s work. Perhaps it was the grotesque blunt humor of “Beetle Juice,” the gory inspired “Nightmare Before Christmas,” or the biographical account of a transvestite director in “Ed Wood.” Regardless, there is never a time in my cognizant life that I can remember being without him.

As soon as I was old enough to follow a plot, my older brother had the pleasure of introducing to me all I had missed while awaiting birth. Day after day was filled with showings of “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” “Beetle Juice,” “Batman,” and “Edward Scissorhands”. Pee-wee taught me to cherish and appreciate my tricycle, and even manipulated me into attempting to paint it red. The amount of time-outs I got for repeating the words of that devious Beetle Juice were innumerable.

Though I was banned from my brother’s Batman action figures for being, well, a girl, I always managed to sneak a few figures away to protect Malibu Barbie’s summer home with Gotham’s greatest crime fighter. For the influence of “Edward Scissorhands” I duly apologize to my childhood home’s shrubbery and the cat.

I can still remember the first time my parents brought home “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Amazement washed over my senses. I spent my sixth year in life drunk off of the amusement. Jack Skellington swept me off my feet with his deathly charm and appearance.

I did not fully realize who Edward Gorey was, but I knew how much I loved him. Danny Elfman’s “What’s This” became a personal mantra. The debut of “Batman Returns” heightened my six-year old cinematic experience. How original it was to have a female character in Batman that was not a complete waste of film. Not only a female, but also Catwoman was considered neither hero or villain.

The introduction of “Ed Wood” to my film palate opened a world of new themes: transvestites, heroin, and a dash of some of the worst cinema to date. When I had aged a little more I sought out the actual films, “Glen or Glenda” and “Plan 9 From Outer Space”, depicted in “Ed Wood.”

It reaffirmed the suspicion of Ed Wood being the ‘worst director of all time.’ Now I can’t say my faith in Burton didn’t waiver after “Mars Attacks” and “Big Fish” reared their ugly lack of talent, but he was properly placed back in the special part of my heart with the release of “Sleepy Hollow” and “Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.”

Near every release of a Tim Burton creation the butterflies of success or failure enter my stomach. Throughout my life a standard has been set in my mind as to what makes a Tim Burton film “good.”

For one, it has to have charming and fitting cinematography, an original interesting plot, and lastly the unidentifiable magic that makes you think, “Burton, you rascal, you’ve done it again.”