The other half of my holiday viewing double feature is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.
On November 1, 1993 I went to see Th Nightmare Before Christmas at the Rockville Center Fantasy theatre. Since then it has become a tradition to watch this ghoulish and festive Halloween/Christmas hybrid the day after Halloween to kick off the holiday season. In the same way I anticipate revisiting Christmas favorites like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and It's A Wonderful Life, I look forward to watching jack Skellington and all the folks in Halloweentown interfere with Santa Claus and the merriment of Christmasland.
Last year we watched the film in 3-D at the Castro Theatre, this year it was at home on Blu-Ray in high def which had eye popping clarity.
The film is an amazing example of stop motion animation and is based on a poem written by Tim Burton. Burton turned the directing reins over to Henry Selick who did an outstanding job of bringing Burton's vision to life.
The movie is visually stunning and original with homages to German Expressionism and Dr. Seuss. The movie features something for both kids and adults. There are 10 or 11 highly entertaining songs that propel the story along in a quick 75 minutes. Burton took story ideas from How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Night Before Christmas and mashed them together with ghoulish Halloween imagery right out of Edward Gory and Charles Addams.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is an amazingly imaginative film that could only have sprung from the mind of Tim Burton.
At The Movie House rating ****
1 comment:
Michael likes this movie along with James and the Giant Peach
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