The Nightmare Before Christmas Movie Review

I love a good holiday film, but sadly there tends to be so few good ones out there. As far as Halloween goes, there are only a few suitable holiday movies that I've seen which aren't simply slasher horror flicks. One classic that has withstood the test of time is The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).

Halloween Town is a dream world where the citizens are friendly spooks such as deformed monsters, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires, werewolves, and witches. Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon) the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town leads them in a frightful celebration every Halloween, but Jack has grown bored with doing the same thing year after year. While wandering into the forest outside the cemetery, he stumbles upon a portal to "Christmas Town." Jack is so impressed by the feeling and style of Christmas Town that he presents his findings and his somewhat limited understanding of the festivities to Halloween Town. They fail to grasp his meaning and compare everything he says to their idea of Halloween. Jack reluctantly decides to play along and announces that they will take over Christmas. Sally (Catherine O'Hara), a rag doll woman created by the local mad scientist, seems to be the only one who thinks it will end badly. Things do take a turn for the worst when Oogie Boogie (Ken Page) the villainous boogieman sets his creepy sights on abducting Santa Claus.

Tim Burton is frequently, and erroneously, credited for directing Nightmare. Burton was actually the producer and was present only about ten days out of the three years it took to complete the movie. Nightmare was actually directed by Henry Selick who also directed two other amazing stop motion animated movies: James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. Burton did come up with the concept, though. Reportedly, Burton saw a store's Halloween merchandise display being taken down and replaced with a Christmas display, and the juxtaposition sparked his imagination. He then wrote a poem which drew inspiration from the TV Special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas. Burton published and illustrated the poem as a children's book. The concept and design inspiration was all that Burton did, everything else was Selick.

Selick did strive to capture the feel of a Tim Burton movie, and he did such a good job that Burton is often given all the credit. Like many of Burton's films, Nightmare features spindly characters with huge eyes; there are lots of hard angles, spirals, and stripes. This is ironically juxtaposed against the cute and colorful world of Christmas Town. It's like Halloween Town is German Expressionism and Christmas Town is an outrageous Dr. Seuss village. When the two worlds collide, it creates a visually striking setting to tell a pretty funny story with some fun and creative characters. I love it when the Trick-or-Treaters show up at Santa's house.

The stop motion animation in Nightmare is still remarkable even today. Animated movies are often made with computer animation these days. While they are without a doubt fascinating, there's something more physical and organic about good stop motion animation. You can watch a CGI animated movie and even when it's impeccably done, your brain simply recognizes it as being artificially rendered computer images. But with good stop motion you see things that physically exist and that appear to be moving on their own despite how improbable that might be. Nightmare's visual effects and animation at its release was every bit as innovative and revolutionary as Star Wars and Who Framed Roger Rabbit were in their day. Even scenes that look as though they had to be made with computers were, in fact, not. For example, Jack's pet ghost dog, Zero, is transparent and interacts with physical objects. It only makes sense to have Zero be CGI animated, right? In actuality, a complex series of glass and mirrors were used to make the Zero puppet, which was off set, seem to be interacting with other puppets while appearing transparent. The result is amazing.

Part of what makes Nightmare so endearing is the music. Renowned movie composer Danny Elfman provided the score and musical numbers for Nightmare as well as providing the singing voice for Jack. The songs and score are so engaging and memorable that it will keep audiences humming the tunes well after the movie is over. The songs move the story forward and develop the characters while remaining fun to listen to. I hope the Blu-Ray has a sing along version or something. The two songs that have always stuck out to me are "This is Halloween" and "What's This?" They're just so catchy!

 The Nightmare Before Christmas is a cult classic and is still well loved even twenty years after its original release. I can't think of a single time since it hit theaters that merchandise wasn't available somewhere. Walt Disney Pictures has reissued the film annually under their Disney Digital 3-D format since 2006, making it the first stop-motion animated feature to be entirely converted to 3-D. This is the perfect movie for the holiday season, especially since it covers two holidays! Nightmare was originally released under their Touchstone Pictures banner because they thought the film would be too dark and scary for kids; even at PG, I think it might be a bit too scary for kids under the age of 6. But for anyone else it's a classic that shouldn't be missed. I think this is worth owning on Blu-Ray, possibly in 3-D if you can find it.

Here's the "What's This?" song. You can't tell me you don't get caught up in Jack's excitement and wonder.

Disney wanted to make a sequel using computer animation, Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of Nightmare not to do sequels or things of that kind," Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it..." Thank goodness for that! But if there was going to be a sequel, what Holiday would you enjoy seeing Jack encounter? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Wreck-It Ralph Movie Review

Video games have been around for about three decades. There have been movies made that feature video games, such as The Last Starfighter and The Wizard. There’ve been some dreadful movies based on video games themselves. But I think having a movie that’s actually about video games, such as Wreck-It Ralph (2012), has not been done before.

Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) longs to be as loved and accepted as his games’ perfect Good Guy, Felix Fix-It (Jack McBrayer). The problem is, nobody loves a Bad Guy. So when a modern, first-person shooter game called Hero’s Duty arrives at the arcade featuring tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), Ralph sees it as his ticket to heroism and happiness. He sneaks into the game with a simple plan. Win a medal. But he soon wrecks everything, and accidently unleashes the alien threat from Hero’s Duty upon the other video games in the arcade. It turns out Ralph’s best chance is Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), a young troublemaking “Glitch” from a candy-themed cart racing game called Sugar Rush; she may be the one to teach Ralph what it means to be a Good Guy. Will Ralph understand what it takes to be a hero before it's “Game Over” for the entire arcade?

Wreck-It Ralph was remarkably creative. I’ve never seen a movie that is about video games in their own video-game-style setting. Because there are so many video games featured in Wreck-It Ralph, there’s a lot of opportunity for a diverse art style. Sometimes it looks simple and plain, like it does in the “retro” Felix Fix-It, Jr. game, other times it looks dark and gritty like in the Hero’s Duty game, and still other times it looks bright and colorful like in the Sugar Rush game. The often bizarre contrasts are what make Wreck-It Ralph so fun! For example when Calhoun is using her sci-fi gadgetry to find the aliens that have infested Sugar Rush, all the sugar and candy in the atmosphere interfere with the sensors.

Ralph at the Bad Guy support group.

There’s another fantastic scene early on in the movie when several video game Bad Guys meet together as a support group. In attendance are Bowser from the Mario series, Dr. Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog, Kano from Mortal Kombat, Clyde the ghost from Pac-Man, and M. Bison from Street Fighter to name a few. There are lots of other classic video game cameos strewn throughout the movie, including a brief speaking part from Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mario mentioned in dialogue. This was important to make the movie relatable. For main characters and settings, Disney obviously had to make their own video games to keep from making copyright infringements, but if there were no actual video game references it would have made the games created specifically for this movie seem out of sorts. But because Pac-Man attends a party, Q*Bert helps Felix, Ryu uses his Hadouken move, and they all go to the video game root beer bar Tapper after the arcade closes for the night, the made up games seem more believable. They even use the Konami Code in Wreck-It Ralph, hilarious.

Even the made up games use obvious references to actual video games. Fix-It Felix, Jr. is based off of Donkey Kong and Rampage, Hero’s Duty is similar to Halo, and it’s hard to ignore Sugar Rush’s blatant similarity to Mario Kart. It’s almost like Who Framed Roger Rabbit of video games. So many cameos and references that watching for them makes Wreck-It Ralph even more fun to watch.

So, video game junkies will love all the references, but how does it stand as a movie? I was expecting a simple, typical Disney story. But unlike half-baked stories about being yourself, Wreck-It Ralph did a great job of telling a story with good characters who are overcoming their past, reinventing themselves, accepting weaknesses as part of what makes them unique, and learning to see the world from the perspective of the downtrodden. The characters are so well written, fun, and lovable that you can’t help but care about them. There are so many jokes and groaner puns the movie will keep you laughing, but there’s also some dramatic moments that you may get choked up over. I did, anyway.

Wreck-It Ralph might be the best animated movie I’ve seen this year, it certainly gives Brave a run for its money. I was worried that with a Halo-like game referenced, it might get a bit too scary or violent for very young viewers, but that was not so. This is a great movie to watch as a family. You don’t need to have been a gamer from the Pong-era to appreciate this movie. Small children who’ve never played a video game will love it, and adults who have been helping Mario save The Princess since 1985 will probably get the biggest kick out of this movie. It’s almost like the Toy Story for this generation; kids are growing up with video games more than toys, so I think Wreck-It Ralph will be much loved for years to come. I highly recommend this movie to anyone of any age. I really want to get a copy of this on Blu-Ray when it becomes available. Catch this in theaters if you can, it’s worth the ticket price.

What is your favorite video game you played as a kid? Mine has to be Super Mario Bros. 3 or possibly Bubble Bobble on the NES. Comment below and tell me all about it!