July Review: Pippi Longstocking (1997)

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90's, adventure, animated feature, animated movie, animated movie review, animation, Annika, Astrid Lindgren, bloom, bowler, cartoon, catherine o'hara, children’s book, circus, cult classic, Dave Thomas, dunder-karlsson, explorer, gold, gold tooth, horse, kids book, klang, kling, Longstocking, Melissa Altro, monkey, movie review, Mr. Nilsson, musical, musical review, Nelvana, non-Disney, nostalgia, obscure, obscure animated movie, obscure animation, ocean, Peter Pan, Pippi langstrump, Pippi Longstocking, pirate, pirates, pluttification, pluttifikation, Prysillius, recipe for life, sailing, sailor, school, Sweden, there’s magic everywhere, thunder-karlsson, Tommy, treasure chest, villa villekula, what shall I do today

“Children need a little order in their lives, especially if they can order it themselves.”

I’d like to start off by pointing out a mistake which should have been fairly obvious from my last review. When I said that the only two Disney movies that haven’t gotten a blu-ray release yet were the remaining package features, I was wrong – The Black Cauldron has yet to be released on that format. This is something I should know both as a Disney fan and for the fact that it’s On The Shelf for future voting (it might even be perfect review fodder for Halloween…)

Anyway, on to this month’s review.

Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter Longstocking, or Pippi Longstocking for short, was one of my childhood idols, something I never quite realized until I rediscovered the film that introduced me to her in the first place. Pippi lived a Peter Pan-esque life completely independent from grownup rule and schooling; she called the shots in her own house, but had a firm grip on average adult responsibilities – which she was able to approach and complete as if they were games – and little to want for thanks to a sizable fortune she happily shared with those in need, not to mention she knew how to run circles around stuffy useless old farts with her playful, seemingly simple wit.

Basically, she’s everything I wanted to be as a kid AND as an adult.

And who do we have to thank for bringing this character to life? That would be none other than Sweden’s own Astrid Lindgren.

If JK Rowling is the literary world’s cool mom, then she’s its sweet and occasionally sassy old granny.

Lindgren is revered in her homeland for perfectly capturing a child’s point of view in her stories; you’ll find no wishy-washy protagonists or condescending for the kiddies in them. Her female main characters in particular are fierce, free, and adventurous, though they keep a genuine loving heart beating within them. That’s probably why I was drawn to Pippi so much after finding her. Though it’s been years since I’ve picked up the Pippi Longstocking books, I recall them being among my childhood favorites. They’ve been adapted multiple times for television, film, and even stage, yet as of writing there’s only been one full-length animated version, the one we’ll be looking at today from Canada’s primarily television (but sometimes film) animation studio, Nelvana. This wasn’t the first time Pippi was courted for an animated retelling, however. Hayao Miyazaki approached Lindgren for one back when Studio Ghibli was just getting off the ground, even going so far as to draw an entire sketch book’s worth of preliminary designs and storyboards, but she turned him down because…

Because…

You know what? She’s got no excuse. As satisfied as I am with the one we got, you really dropped the ball, Lindgren. Just think about it. HAYAO MIYAZAKI’S PIPPI LONGSTOCKING. Something simple yet beautifully animated and whimsical that could have stood on the shelf between Kiki’s Delivery Service and Whisper of the Heart. Seriously, look up the drawings he did. You’ll be wondering why he got left holding the bag too.

So without further adieu, let’s sail right into Nelvana’s Pippi Longstocking and see how it holds up.

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June/April Review: Muppet Treasure Island (1996)

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1996, 90's, adventure, billy connolly, brian henson, cabin fever, clueless morgan, dave goelz, Disney, disney muppets, disney review, frank oz, gonzo, island, jerry nelson, kermit, kermit the frog, kevin bishop, kids, lew zealand, love led us here, mad monty, miss piggy, movie review, muppet, muppet treasure island, Muppets, musical, piggy, pirate, pirate ship, pirates, pirates of the caribbean, polly, polly lobster, professional pirate, puppet, puppeteers, puppets, review, rizzo, rizzo the rat, sailing for adventure, sam the eagle, ship, something better, statler, statler and waldorf, steve whitmire, sweetums, sword, swords, tim curry, treasure, treasure island, waldorf

“Hoist the sails and sing –
Sailing for adventure on the big blue wet thing!”

– Best. Lyrics. Ever.

Before I start I have a confession to make. The reason why it took as long as it did to get this review out largely has to do with what I was going through at the time with my then-boyfriend. He adored the Muppets and got me to love and appreciate them again after years of seeing them as only kiddie stuff or nightmare fuel (those gdamned martians…) I envisioned this review as a meaningful discussion between two fans who have differing viewpoints on this film (I love it, he hated it for his own pigheaded reasons). Unfortunately by that point things between us were rapidly falling apart. Our relationship was already a sinking ship, something that took me longer than it should have to figure out, but some much needed soul-searching on top of the most recent bout of drama made me realize that I needed to bail out as fast as possible. After enduring seven long years of emotional abuse, cutting all ties with the man I believed I had a future with was one of the hardest things I ever done. I needed to let go of the dreams I thought we once shared, learn who I was without him overshadowing every opinion and action I made, and step away from a number of things that I associated with him. This review was one of them.

On the plus side, going back to doing it solo means I have nobody apart from the comments section to answer to, explain what I already know back to me, tell me what I think is wrong, or throw a tantrum and go pout in the corner for twenty minutes when I don’t agree with them.

In other words, suck it, you lying manipulative walking meatloaf lover. Your thoughts don’t mean jack shit here or anywhere else.

Getting back to the topic at hand, The Muppet Movie is arguably my favorite of the Muppet films, but the one that I watched the most growing up which often comes close to dethroning it? That would be Muppet Treasure Island. I’m not alone in that regard as many a 90’s kids waxing nostalgic on the internet will tell you how awesome and hilarious it is. Some have even gone as far to say it’s the best adaptation of Treasure Island (I can’t comment on that since the only versions I’ve seen are this and Treasure Planet, both of which are coincidentally made by Disney).

Still, all childhood nostalgia aside, does it still hold up? Yes, though I have noticed a growing opposition to that in recent years. Most of the arguments amount to, “It doesn’t match the charm of the original films or Muppet Christmas Carol. THAT was a better book adaptation with Muppets” with one or two more quibbles thrown in that I’ll address later. While it is pretty obvious that the films were straying a bit from the usual Jim Henson formula by that point, I still think it captures most of the humor and heart the Muppets are known for, and takes a few more risks as well. It follows the success of the formula utilized a few years prior in The Muppets’ Christmas Carol – telling a classic story with a well-known human actor playing the lead/villain role – and it feels like a natural continuation of that idea instead of a retread.

November/April Review: The Prince of Egypt (1998)

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aaron, all i ever wanted, animated, brenda chapman, danny glover, Dreamworks, egypt, exodus, hans zimmer, helen mirren, jeff goldblum, jeffrey katzenberg, let my people go, martin short, michelle pfieffer, miriam, moses, musical, patrick stewart, pharaoh, playing with the big boys, prince of egypt, ralph fiennes, ramses, river lullaby, sandra bullock, stephen schwartz, steve martin, steven spielburg, the plagues, the ten commandments, tzipporah, val kilmer, when you believe

“I have seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry […] And so unto Pharaoh, I shall send…you.”
– The Burning Bush

Over two years ago I talked about Dreamworks and their unfortunate habit of leaning on the Shrek-style bandwagon (which they themselves have to blame for creating in the first place) and how every once in a while it’s balanced out by a work of jaw-dropping animation and drama that pushes the boundaries of film in a way only Pixar, Disney, and the occasional Don Bluth film have succeeded. It’s been like this since Dreamworks’ inception. “The Prince of Egypt”, today’s film, was the second animated film released after their first, “Antz”, a fairly obvious attempt to copy Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life”, premiered that same year. Ask animation buffs which is the better film and you’ll immediately be directed to this one. It’s unusual that an animation studio that just got off the ground would try something like a musical remake of “The Ten Commandments”, but hey, some ideas can sound silly on paper and yet blow everyone away in practice. “The Prince of Egypt” is without a doubt one of those films. Fostered by both Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, directed by Brenda Chapman, with songs by Stephen Schwartz of Wicked and Pippin fame and music by pre-BWOOOOOMP-obsessed Hans Zimmer, it’s a movie that at times even manages to bring the great Cecil B. Demille epic to its knees.

Now unlike certain people who shall remain nameless, I have a deep respect for those of different cultures and religions. While this movie is based on a sacred text to many, it is in no way a direct take on said text, and any jokes I make toward the holy figures depicted are not a rip on the figures themselves, just the characters as they are in the movie. The movie opens with a similar disclaimer in case you’re worried they’ll be insensitive to anyone (frankly I think the filmmakers were more terrified of offending anyone religious than any audience member who went to see this).

In other words, “Just repeat to yourselves ‘It’s just a film, I should really just relax.'”

Christmas Reviews: “Arnold’s Christmas”

In my last episode I talked about Rugrats and how big a part of my childhood it was. While nothing will ever change that, there’s one other Nicktoon that came out a few years later which certainly rose in my estimation as I got older.

Originally a character created by Craig Bartlett as a series of claymation shorts for Sesame Street, Hey Arnold was a show that brought us a colorful cast of characters and taught some surprisingly deep life lessons when not making us crack up. It centers around the titular Arnold, your seemingly average nice guy kid who’s the voice of reason among his group of eclectic friends and the kooky boardinghouse he calls home (and if it were up to me the complete series DVD set would come in a box shaped like that boardinghouse and have the stampede of animals from the into pop out when you open it, but we can still dream). Boasting a jazzy soundtrack, unique character designs, great voicework done by actual kids instead of adults posing as them, and some unforgettable moments of humor and heartbreak, it’s become a cult classic that 90’s kids like myself consider one of the very best of the original Nicktoons. And of course this past November, after fifteen agonizing years of wondering and waiting, we finally got the long-awaited Jungle Movie where the mystery of what the heck happened to Arnold’s parents was solved, so this is my one chance to hit on one of the standout entries to this classic series while the iron’s still hot. Let’s take a look at “Arnold’s Christmas”.

Christmas Reviews: “The Santa Experience”

For a very brief couple of seconds on October 9th of this year some of you may have noticed that this review went up all of a sudden just to disappear as quickly. I’ve said before it was due to some issues trying to reschedule the review for another date in December and had to give away the surprise that I’d be looking at more holiday shorts. Well, here’s the actual review. Let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint as I review at another nostalgic staple from my childhood, Rugrats.

An animated show that takes place from the point of view of a baby doesn’t sound like a particularly risky idea, but back when it was among the first crop of original Nicktoons to be pitched to Nickelodeon, it was. Suffice it to say that the gamble paid off and up until Spongebob dethroned it Rugrats was Nickelodeon’s golden child. I was very young when Rugrats came out and it was the very first show I remember being obsessed with; dolls, toys, books, clothes, you name it and I had it. The movies actually hold up pretty well too (except Rugrats Go Wild, that can burn in the deepest recesses of Hades). I even went to the live show. The freaking cheesy as hell live show. I mean the premise of the entire series was actually relatable though the main characters were about 4-5 years younger than me; they had a great deal to learn about the world around them and often got lost in fantastic adventures using their imaginations while the yuppie parents went about being completely oblivious 80% of the time. That was my bread and butter when I was in my single digits.

The characters were also basic but likable and cute to boot; you got Tommy the intrepid leader always looking to explore everything, his best friend Chuckie the fraidycat who always had some sort of new phobia to conquer (and was my favorite by the way), the gross-loving twins Phil and Lil, and Tommy’s bratty cousin Angelica whom everyone loved to hate, myself included. More characters were added along the way like the badass Susie, Tommy’s infant brother Dil, and Chuckie’s stepsister Kimi, each one bringing something new and diverse to the show.

I’m not gonna say that it was the perfect animated show or the standard all kids shows should emulate though; I mean for one thing if this took place in the real world the babies would have been taken away by child services now because it surprises me just how wrapped up in their own problems the adults could be. Most of the time they neglect the kids long enough for them to get out of the playpen or stroller and wander around a strange area and nearly endanger themselves. That and the usual foray into poo-poo humor you’d expect when dealing with characters that are barely 2 years old. Some of the toilet jokes I remember would make Shrek gag in disgust. But hey, sometimes you gotta appeal to the lowest common denominator for kids. It doesn’t completely take away the fact that at its best it was a very cute show that played a major part in building Nickelodeon’s identity.

So how does their take on the most wonderful time of the year hold up? And why is it called The Santa Experience anyway? Let’s take a look.

July Review: Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

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1990's, 90's, antonio, beatrice, beetlejuice, ben elton, benedick, borachio, branaugh, brian blessed, claudio, cliche, constable dogberry, contempt farewell, denzel washington, dogberry, don pedro, double wedding, emma thompson, fake funeral, feminist, feminist shakespeare, forget not that i am an ass, gilderoy lockhart, hero, hey nonny nonny, i am an ass, i love nothing in the world so well as you, i love you with so much of my heart that there is none left to protest, italy, keanu, keanu reeves, kenneth branaugh, leonato, margaret, masquerade, masquerade ball, michael keaton, misunderstanding, movie review, much ado about nothing, pardon goddess of the night, patrick doyle, pedro, play, professor trelawney, Romance, romantic cliche, romantic cliches, romantic comedy, romantic interlude, sexton, Shakespeare, shakespeare translation, shakesperean play, sigh no more, stratford-upon-avon, strike up pipers, taming of the shrew, third act misunderstanding, tuscan countryside, tuscany, twelfth night, verona, wedding, william shakespeare

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.)

“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever.
One foot on sea, and one on shore,
to one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so
But let them go
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all
Your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.”

Ah, William Shakespeare. The Bard. The muse of many. Stratford-Upon-Avon’s golden boy. The man who put humanity to prose and through his many poems, songs and plays revealed the nature of –

(sigh)

I had a feeling this would happen.

Now that I have your attention, let me say that I get what many of you are feeling right now. Chances are you were forced to read Shakespeare in your high school English class and you most likely found it the most dull indecipherable piece of literature to be praised as art since…well, take your pick of the other classics you probably had to read. Sadly, that’s the trap most English teachers fall into. Shakespeare wrote poetry, which is prime for studying and easy enough for most folks to understand, but he’s primarily famous for his plays, and plays aren’t supposed to be read like any other book – they’re supposed to be seen. Even I in my obsessive bookworminess had difficulty understanding what was really happening while reading Hamlet and Macbeth unless I read the side notes or my teacher put on film versions of the plays that we were reviewing.

I had a general grasp of how important the works of Shakespeare were and even had some interest in learning more about them unlike my bored classmates, but I was never quite able to appreciate the works of Will ’til long after I left the classroom setting. Much of that is primarily thanks to the videos of Kyle Kallgren and Overly Sarcastic Productions. Both reviewers have very distinctive styles – one an in-depth analysis that balances familiarity with the subject with pop culture playfulness, the other a speedy anime-drawn recap marked by a few snarky asides and often a gentle acoustic cover of a song related to the subject played over the end credits – but they both made me realize the reason why Shakespeare has persisted for over 400 years and is taught ad nauseum: his stories are universal. Be it love, war, vengeance, betrayal, magic, history, religion, family, legacy, the transition from youth to adulthood, gender and societal roles, or the very nature of being, the Bard has covered most every genre and theme known to man, and created some of the most popular stories and characters that have been revisited countless times by an infinite parade of directors, actors, cultures, and storytellers. One particular auteur was singled out by Kyle for revitalizing Shakespeare for the silver screen in the much latter half of the 20th century.

Kenneth Branaugh, the finest slice of Northern Irish ham you’ll ever see on stage or screen, and one of the most highly regarded Shakespearean thespians of our time, having both directed and starred in lavish film versions of Henry the Fifth, Hamlet, Love’s Labors Lost, As You Like It, a filmed stage adaptation of The Winter’s Tale and the movie I’ll be reviewing today, Much Ado About Nothing – or as I like to call it, the blueprint for every future rom-com ever made. There’s fanciful innuendos, a main couple and a smaller less important couple that we both want to see hook up, a black best friend providing both sage advice and comic relief, misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up in a matter of seconds if they stopped to think about it, and much of it hinges around a “will they-won’t they” plot that you could probably guess ends with “they will”. Branaugh can be beautifully subtle in both acting and style, but boy can he bring on the bombast whether we want it or not. In this case his over-the-top hamminess and obvious love for the material makes this outing a fun ride.

If you’re concerned that this review is going to be too highbrow compared to my usual work, there’s no need to worry. In some ways I’m on the same level as you guys. I confess that I’ve never seen any of Shakespeare’s plays performed live, I’m not very familiar with some of the language and phrasing outside of what little I remember from high school and some Youtube videos explaining select passages, and sadly my Cine-Kyle is still in the mail, but that’s never stopped me from enjoying many of the Bard’s works as seen on film (nor has it stopped me from trying to sound smarter than I really am). Once you understand the actions behind the flowery language, though, it’s pretty simple to take it from there. Never fear, I will be acting as your translator in my own unique way throughout this review.

February Review: Beauty and the Beast (1991)

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.)

“…For who could ever learn to love a beast?”

-Opening narration

All right, let me level with you –

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Beauty and the Beast, and you can only imagine how much I’ve been looking forward to reviewing it. Beauty and the Beast was one of the very first Disney movies I ever saw; hell, it was one of the first movies I ever saw (my mom goes back and forth on whether or not this or a re-release of 101 Dalmatians was my first moviegoing experience). It was also my first Broadway musical, my first Disney on Ice show, I would walk around the basement with a decorative wicker basket acting the part of Belle while the movie played in the family VCR, you get the idea. It’s a movie that was a big part of my childhood as well as my adulthood. This is tied with Fantasia as my favorite Disney movie, and depending on my mood it jockeys between that and one other movie that I’m keeping secret as my favorite film of all time.

…Which means it’s going to be VERY hard for me to give it a fair and unbiased review.

All nostalgia and fan gushing aside though, it would be easy to say that the stars were aligned from the very beginning and the experience of crafting such a masterpiece was lightning in a bottle, but nothing could be further from the truth. Production on Beauty and the Beast went as far back as Walt Disney’s time; however, he and his best story men had a difficult time working out the kinks in the second act. For anyone not familiar with the original fairy tale this is based on, most of the story is just Belle and the Beast having dinner together every night with him asking her to marry him over and over, which doesn’t make for a compelling film. Jean Cocteau’s adaptation got around that by focusing more on atmosphere and mood and inner conflict, but as much as I enjoy his take, I still don’t quite buy his couple’s relationship. Their love is the heart of this story, and if you can’t be invested in their romance, then the film falls flat.

Disney dropped the idea and it wasn’t glanced at again until the new regime that would be responsible for the Disney Renaissance in the 90’s came in. They started flipping through the archives for potential new films and came across this one. Jeffrey Katzenburg commissioned British animator Richard Purdhum to storyboard and direct an early version of the film but wasn’t a big fan of what he came up with, mostly because it was too similar to Cocteau’s.

And then, like two musical angels descending from on high, THEY entered the picture.

If you have no idea who these men are, get down on your knees and kiss their toes thou quivering infidel, for they are responsible for your childhoods!!

Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, fresh off their Oscar-winning hit The Little Mermaid, were brought on board to liven things up and turn this dreary set of drawings into an animated musical fit for Broadway (of course, neither of them would know at the time that this movie would eventually become a stage musical, but it’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?) Richard Purdhum was given the boot and the director’s reins were handed over to Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, whose only directing experience at the time was an animated pre-show for Cranium Command, an animatronics show at Epcot. What’s more, The Little Mermaid’s success prompted the studio executives to announce that there would be one new animated film released every year, which meant nearly every animator, storyboard artist, effect/layout/background/etc. artist had to kick it into high gear to get this movie done on time.

Now it’s hard to give all the credit of the film’s success to just one person since there were so many who labored on it, but if I had to, I’d have to say Howard Ashman was the one who contributed the most into shaping it into the movie we have today. Howard was a lifelong Disney fan with a great musical background (his most well-known contribution to theater being the most beloved musical in existence about a flesh-eating plant based on a Roger Corman film) but knew that animation was his true calling. He leaped at the chance of helping shape an animated film, and you need only look at the bonus features on The Little Mermaid DVD where they discuss him to see how much his ideas and words and even vocal inflections influenced the actors and animators. Beauty and the Beast is no exception. He was the one who suggested the formerly mute enchanted objects should be given voices. He was the one who turned Gaston from aristocratic fop to comically masculine but homicidal hunter. He was the one who said the story should be the Beast’s journey to humanity as well as Belle’s journey to love (and if you haven’t seen Waking Sleeping Beauty then why the hell are you reading this go watch it now there’s only three words I can say: “little Beast boy”.)

The results did not go unrewarded. As much as we get oversaturated with so much Disney in the media today, whether it’s memes, god-awful direct-to-video sequels, and toy brands that suck any heart or meaning from the movies they originated from, we forget how great some of their movies are, especially upon their release. A rough cut of the film mixing storyboards and unfinished animation that was shown at the New York Film Festival was met with nearly twenty minutes of standing ovation when it was done. It won the Golden Globe for Best Picture-Musical/Comedy (and this was before they made a separate category for animation) and was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It came surprisingly close to winning but lost to The Silence of the Lambs, which could also be considered a Beauty and the Beast tale…of sorts, and after finally seeing that movie after years of griping that Beauty and the Beast should have won…

…nope. Sorry-not-sorry. Great film, but Beauty and the Beast is still better. Shows how little you know about animation, Hollywood.

And seeing as how I’m over a thousand words in and have yet to actually review the film itself, it’s best we finally get started.

October Review: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

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barrel, catherine o'hara, chris sarandon, Christmas, christmas elves, christmas town, claymation, creatures, danny elfman, Disney, disney animated, disney animated feature, disney animated movie, disney animation, disney review, dr. finklestein, elves, experiments, finale reprise, finklestein, gambling monster, ghost dog, glenn shadix, greg proops, Halloween, halloween town, halloweentown, harlequin demon, haunted mansion holiday, henry selick, jack skellington, jack's lament, jack's obsession, ken page, kidnap the sandy claws, lock, lock shock and barrel, mad scientist, making christmas, mayor, monsters, nightmare before christmas, oogie, oogie boogie, oogie boogie's song, paul reubens, poor jack, rudolph, sally, sally's song, sandy claws, santa claus, shock, simply meant to be, stop motion animation, stop-motion, the nightmare before christmas, this is halloween, tim burton, touchstone, touchstone pictures, town meeting song, what's this, zero

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.)

“Twas a long time ago,

Longer now than it seems

In a place that perhaps you’ve seen in your dreams

For the story that you are about to be told

Took place in the holiday worlds of old.

Now you’ve probably wondered where holidays come from.

If you haven’t, I’d say it’s time you’d begun…”

– Opening narration

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a movie that I’ve always had a personal connection to. It was released when I was just a child, but I can still remember seeing ads and toys for it in certain places and being oddly fascinated by it, despite the fact that it had ghosts and skeletons and monsters and other such things that would usually scare the bejeezus out of me at that age. I can still remember my first time ever seeing the movie – not in theaters, but at my cousin’s third birthday party. He was a year younger than me, and on his birthday that year, all us kids gathered in the basement of his house and watched this movie in the dark. Whether there were any adults there to supervise us I can’t say, but I can say that I was enraptured by every second of it. I can vaguely remember some of the other children being a little afraid, but I wasn’t (well, maybe for two parts, but those were rather quick moments that didn’t traumatize me as much as you might think). Up until then I had never seen anything like The Nightmare Before Christmas; it was dark but not gruesome, lighthearted without being sappy, humorous, heartwarming, and the visuals and the music stayed in my head long afterwards.

I remember really enjoying it, but a long time passed between that one viewing and the next time I would see it again. For whatever reason, maybe they thought I would be too scared by it, my parents never bought the movie for me. It wasn’t until I was about thirteen or fourteen that I caught it on HBO one day, and all those memories of watching it through the eyes of a child came flooding back. I became obsessed with The Nightmare Before Christmas big time, watching it and listening to the soundtrack even when it wasn’t Halloween or Christmas, learning all I could about the movie via books and dvd bonus features, and yes, making fanart of the characters. It was my gateway to the dark and quirky world of Tim Burton, and seeing as how I was also going through an angry, rebellious, anti-Rankin-Bass phase as a teenager, I embraced this movie with open arms while my family looked on with something that wasn’t quite disgust and wasn’t quite confusion.

And for the record, this was BEFORE this chain got their sticky fingerless gloves all over it and slapped the characters’ faces on everything they could sell, freakin’ posers.

So you may be wondering what the story behind this odd little film is. Well, back in the 80’s Tim Burton worked for Disney as an animator. Yes, the Man of Merry Macabre once worked for the bright and squeaky-clean House of Mouse. I still have a hard time believing it (What Alice in Wonderland movie? Disney only made one Wonderland film and it was animated, silly!) Burton’s time at Disney wasn’t a happy one as most of his ideas were shot down for being too dark and different and he wasn’t too keen on drawing only cutesy animals for a living.

One day, while walking down a street, he came across a window display in a store having its Halloween decorations switched out with Christmas ones and inspiration struck. He wrote a poem based on the classic holiday tome “The Night Before Christmas” showing what happened when two holidays collided. Initially he pitched it as a half-hour stop-motion special, ironically in the style of Rankin-Bass, and he wanted it to be narrated by his idol, Vincent Price. Disney, however, wasn’t interested, and Burton would eventually leave the studio. It wasn’t until after he achieved popularity with “Beetlejuice” and “Batman” that Disney approached him with the idea of turning The Nightmare Before Christmas into a movie. Burton was all for it, but couldn’t direct it himself due to his commitment to filming “Batman Returns”. Instead, he got stop-motion artist Henry Selick to direct it.

Now I’d like to clarify something right away – this is a Tim Burton movie through and through; his name and signature style may be all over this film (heck, the title of the film is preceded by Burton’s name just to remind you whose brainchild it was), but I cannot give enough credit to Henry Selick. The man is a genius of stop-motion; his name is up there with Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park as the best in the business. People often assume that because it’s a Burton film with his name in the title that Tim Burton directed it, but it’s not. Selick did an amazing job with this movie and I’m happy to say it’s led to a very fruitful career for him, directing other stop-motion greats such as James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. Even though there have been innovations in animation since then, this film looks just as great today as it did twenty years ago. So while the story and characters are pure Tim Burton, this movie is just as much Henry Selick’s as it is Tim’s. You’ll see why when I finally get around to reviewing it…

…which is now.

We open in the middle of a forest, where, in a clearing, there is a circle of trees, each one with a door representing a different holiday – an egg for Easter, a heart for Valentine’s Day, a clover for St. Patrick’s Day, a Christmas tree for Christmas, a turkey for Thanksgiving, a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, and one which for years I was unsure was either a firecracker for 4th of July or a dreidel for Hanukkah. We can only imagine how this film would have turned out if it was “The Nightmare Before Hanukkah” instead of Christmas.

Anyway, as the opening narration wraps up, we enter the jack-o-lantern door and we get our first musical number “This is Halloween.”

Oh, and did I forget to mention that longtime Tim Burton collaborator and former Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman did the music for this movie? How foolish of me. How could it have possibly slipped my mind when this music is OHMYGOSHUNBELIVABLYAWESOMEANDBEAUTIFULANDBLAAAAAAGHHHH –

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Uh, can I pay you to pretend that didn’t just happen?