If you are anything like me -- and why wouldn't you
be? -- you're a sucker for Christmas. The arbitrary yet somehow
natural-seeming traditions; the carols which somehow only sound right
when you've got just enough bourbon-fortified eggnog in you; the extra
days off from work; the fact that people give you free stuff wrapped in
shiny paper; the way everyone pretends to be nice to each other for a
change: what's not to like? It's also one of those Western cultural
touchstones so universal (suck it, Judaism!) that pretty much everybody
gets into the act; despite the bogus claims from pouty conservatives
about a "war on Christmas", the birth of Baby Jesus is still
commemorated on almost every TV show on the air, and Yuletide is second
only to summer as a Hollywood high holy day.
So,
in the spirit of this year's Summerfest series -- where I lazily
Netflixed a dozen or so movies with "summer" in the title and reviewed
them so you'd know what to watch while the pool guy skimmed the drowned
crow out of your Jacuzzi -- I present the Screengrab's 12 Days of
Christmas Marathon, where I get drunk and watch some of the finest
Christmas movies that Hollywood has crammed down our throats, and ask:
will this movie fill you with holiday cheer or seasonal depression?
First up is 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3-D, although a more accurate name for it would be Not Actually Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas or even Hi
Everybody We're Henry Selick and Caroline Thompson and We Directed and
Wrote This Movie Respectively And What Do We Have To Do To Get a Little
Credit For That?'s The Nightmare Before Christmas. While Burton
created the lead characters and wrote a poem that served as the movie's
inspiration, he had very little to do with making the film itself, and
the fact that he's generally given all the kudos for it is a shame,
because if nothing else, it proves how other people are capable of
taking his quirky, creepy aesthetic and running with it.
Made using a daring, innovating, and highly striking form of 3-D animation, The Nightmare Before Christmas uses
the clever (and somewhat underexplored) notion that all holidays are
represented geographically in an otherworldly tableau to tell the story
of Halloween bigwig Jack Skellington -- voiced by Chris Sarandon, with
song vocals by the film's composer, Burton stalwart Danny Elfman. Jack
happens upon the existence of Christmastown, and, meaning well but
flummoxed -- and slightly jealous -- of the universal love showered on
its big shot, one "Sandy Claws", resolves to cut in on his action.
Hilarity ensues, lessons are learned, and all that standard Christmassy
crap, but filtered through a truly weird visual sensibility.
One
thing that director Selick and screenwriter Thompson share with Tim
Burton is a sort of whimsical disregard for the conventions of
storytelling. Setpieces ramble one to the other, and the story rolls
gregariously along without ever making a lot of sense -- you get the
idea that the filmmakers were as impatient as some of their younger
audience to get on to the next bit of cool stuff. That said, the movie
is breathtakingly gorgeous, with incredibly clever and intricate
visuals that took as much time and effort as the story didn't.
(There's currently an exhibit of some of the models used in the film on
display at an art museum here in San Antonio, where I live, and seeing
them up close, you get an unexpected sense of how elaborate and careful
the building of them was; it's clearly no accident the movie looks as
good as it does.) Kids old enough not to be freaked out by some of the
jarring elements of the movie will adore its highly successful visual
style, which blends cute and creepy in a way rarely seen outside of
Japanese animation, and adults will be engaged by the swell
performances and the overall intricacy of the movie's design.
Despite the Halloweeny themes and the often shocking visual play, there's really nothing gloomy or depressing about The Nightmare Before Christmas;
it's an old-fashioned entertaining all-ages romp like rarely gets made
any more, and the songs, while not exactly unforgettable, are loads of
fun while you're experiencing them, especially "The Oogie Boogie Song",
a monster's rollicking threat towards a kidnapped Santa Claus. In
contrast to Burton's own weepy-assed Christmas effort, Edward Scissorhands,
the only bummer to be found is that some of the great talents on
display in the voice cast -- including Paul Reubens, Catherine O'Hara,
and Glenn Shadix -- don't get nearly as much work as their talent
deserves. 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS RATING:
A solid 8 Maids a-Milking. The story and the script won't stay with
you past Christmas morning, but it's a pure good time you can sing
along to after you've gotten deep in the punch bowl Christmas Eve --
and you won't even have to chase the kids out of the living room.
Related Posts:
Summerfest '08: A Summer Place
Summerfest '08: Wet Hot American Summer
