Hello all you wonderful readers of blogs! I’m TheCinemaChick and I know I’ve already done a review of Bad Teacher today, but I’m going to also go over my all time favorite movie, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is going to be considered part II of my “Back to Basics” series where I look back at the films that inspired me to be the critic I am today. And if that weren’t awesome enough, I have a brand new, still has that new reviewer smell, Kitsy. Now, I know he’s new, so be kind to him or he’ll never come back. Together, we’re going to look at this claymation wonderland. And now, I’ll let Kitsy introduce himself.
Um.... Hi there? Well I guess I'm Kitsy, apparently, and so, as a personal favour (and for cookies), I have agreed to help out on this little adventure we call "Talking crap about films".... Or reviewing or some such type thing.... Anywho, I guess we can get on with the fun stuff now...Right?
Remember children, Kitsy is just like Butterfly. He’s a platonic friend and he’s British. And as we all know, British dudes are hot. As far as the cookies go…well, we’ll see about that. Now, I know, Nightmare Before Christmas came out ages ago and was rereleased not too long ago in a collector’s tin (which I own). But I absolutely love it. I can quote it and I know all the songs by hear. I have actually done a song and dance routine for “Oogie Boogie’s Song” for friends. Why? Because I’m awesome like that.
Hey! I never got to see that dance.... No fair.... Well I expect cookies anyway.... Talking of Oogie Boogie's song reminded me of the Nightmare Revisited album with loads of great covers of the film's soundtrack... It was that good that it inspired a cover album... But we digress... Well it might be mostly me digressing... So where do we start off CC?
With the plot of course, Kitsy. We start off with a nice poem read by Christopher Lee which leads into our first musical number which introduces us, the watchers, to the movie. “This is Halloween” is another one of my favorite songs because it’s so catchy and upbeat that you can’t help but hum it later. Plus we get to meet all the monsters and ghouls and ghost and vampires…oh my! At the end of the song, Jack Skellington appears and announces the success of Halloween. I should explain that each holiday gets its own town, so obviously, this is Halloween Town Thanksgiving Town , an Easter Town
And, possibly most important, Christmas town... But we'll get to that later, I imagine... But, yes, we soon discover that Jack isn't entirely happy, all he does is Halloween more or less, so naturally, he's become somewhat restless... While out strolling, trying to come up with some new twist, he accidentally stumbles upon a strange forest... In this forest are trees with strange designs upon their trunks.
Which of course means he’s found the magical place where all holidays are. I’m not sure how that works out in real life. Jack discovers Christmas, becomes infatuated with it and decides that he wants to experience. Thus, Halloween Town
Of course this isn't how Christmas is supposed to be, but no one in Halloween town really understands Christmas... Jack never seems to truly feel that they've got it right, but it's only Sally, some sort of girl sewn together and given life by a mad scientist, that really senses that this could be a big mistake... She happens to have a bit of a thing for Jack, but he doesn't notice this or her warnings and this misguided Christmas goes ahead as planned... Or at least until the world is plunged into chaos by the visits of an unusually skinny and scary fellow dressed in red and white.
Santa Claus is already scary. The man likes having little kids sit in his lap. Of course, everything goes wrong and Jack is left to fix everything in the nick of time. Santa is saved from Oogie Boogie and Sally gets with Jack. It’s a happy ending for everyone. There was going to be a sequel, but thank goodness, that didn’t happen. I don’t think this movie could have been so successful if there had been a Nightmare Before Easter or a Nightmare Before Thanksgiving. Plus, I just love Tim Burton, so I most likely would have seen it anyway.
It's probably also a good thing there was no sequel for another reason too, most likely they'd computer animate the whole thing instead of using the stop-motion thingy technique, which I think looks much better... Has more of a charm... Plus adds to the creepiness in a way... I've not seen the whole of the corpse bride, but what I have seen of it, I think that'd look better in stop-motion, or whatever it's called, too... But I shall reserve full judgment for when I finally watch it... If I do... But yeah we weren't talking about the Corpse Bride... Where were we?
I have to admit, I miss the days of real animation. Everything has gone digital so you only get to see the computer animated stuff these days. I prefer the claymation and stop motion stuff because it has more charm to it. I like Corpse Bride and I liked Coraline, but most people overlooked it because they are a bit on the morbid side. Well, I am a morbid person and I like things that are weird, freaky and controversial. So, overall, what do you think of Nightmare Before Christmas, Kitsy?
Oh I loves it, lovely animation, mood, music... Plus it's one of the only creepy things to come out of Disney, which I think gives it something... I'm not sure what, but something none the less... And hey, it's a film for both Halloween and Christmas! I can't think of much this film doesn't have... Except maybe giant, flying pandas... But you can't have everything can you?
Well, I don’t want giant flying pandas. I’d prefer more Halloween oriented movies that don’t suck and aren’t remakes. The Nightmare Before Christmas is considered a cult film but it has a very loyal fanbase. And it is Disney, which is pretty shocking since almost everything they do is fairly tame, not counting The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’d rather see this film over and over again that ever have to watch another romantic comedy.
Aaawww, but giant flying pandas are cool.... But yeah the film still rates highly with me, even though I'm not that into halloween... Well I suppose we should comment on some negatives of the film, but I personally can't think of any...Hmm... What do you think CC? Or should we just say it's awesome and be done with it?
There aren’t many negatives in my book, other than some small technical errors that you really have to pay attention to and look for. I’m not an expert with this sort of thing, so I can’t really comment or say where to look for the small things. I personally won’t go into them because every movie has its flaws. I have to say thanks to you Kitsy for agreeing to work with me despite our interesting past.
It was more because of our interesting past than despite it CC... Anyway, it was fun and also, need I mention, the cookies! Mwa ha ha! But seriously.... Where are they? Ooh well I guess we should bid farewell to the ignorant masses for whom we strive to make a slightly better place... Farewell weary travellers, now you may get back to the main reason for the internet!
I’m TheCinemaChick and I’m not responsible for what he says. On behalf of my movie watching crew, I bid you a pleasant movie experience.
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