My Obligatory Nightmare Before Christmas Post

Hmmm...lessee here...it's October, almost Halloween, the leaves are brown and falling, the air has a slight cold nip to it -- yup, it's time to revisit my two-part review of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS! Back in November of 2004, when I started my blog, it seemed that I had oodles of time to spare and would work on incredibly lengthy posts. So please, by all means, check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you have gobs of time on your hands. I go into great detail about the design and characters of the film, as well as offer some filmmaker comments that I gleaned from the director's commentary on the DVD.




There's no need to reinstate that I love this movie. It's probably one of my top 10 favorite films -- a list that requires each and every film worth watching a million times over without my tiring of it. I see something different in the flick each time I watch it.

I took Ava to go see NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS in 3D on a very busy Saturday. It was great to see NIGHTMARE up on the big screen again, even if it was because of the 3D gimmick attached to it. I was a bit underwhelmed by the 3D effect, with some scenes that I though for sure would pop out with flying colors become dull and flat; but surprisingly, other scenes that were quite subtle become alive with just the right amount of the 3D touch. Scenes such as in Halloween Town's townsquare where all the characters looked nice and dimensional up against the town buildings and the sky in the background. Another excellent scene that worked for me was the whole sequence of Sally going over to Jack's to give him her picnic basket. Dynamic shots with items moving towards or away from the camera worked really well. Graphic elements worked the best off of the 3D technique, like the 2D animated ghosts, smoke and the new portraits of all the characters during the end credits. Also, the countdown to the beginning of the show with the jack-o'-lantern-in-the-box was fantastic. But I think that that was done in CG -- which was made just for this presentation. So, the 3D was, for the most part, an interesting twist to an already perfect movie, but all in all, I would've preferred to have seen the original movie. It was a classic case of WHY? Just my opinion.

One nice thing about seeing it this past Saturday: there was a young mother sitting behind us who I could tell had not seen the film (the horror!). Since I have seen NIGHTMARE hundreds of times, the newness has worn off on me and I've since forgotten the parts that were funny and fresh the very first time. What parts garnered a response? When Sally's arm hits Dr. Finkelstein on the head as she runs off; Dr. Finkelstein opens up his head to give it a little tickle; Jack hits the Christmas Town sign post; Lock, Shock & Barrell nab the Easter Bunny instead and the Behemoth (big dude with the axe in his head) yells out "Bunny!"; the angel decoration being hung by the string lights when Jack lands on the rooftop; most of the Halloween Town gifts doing their dirty deeds in the "normal" town; the Behemoth and Undersea Gal creating snow angels in the snow. It was great to enjoy those moments again vicariously through this faceless person. Oh, and Ava loved the movie, of course. But she's not one of those kids who talk incessantly about the movie right afterwards. She bounces around a bit as we leave the theater, but she's always been low key when it comes to movie outings.

Hey, since you all are such nice people, especially by being patient with me during my two-part NIGHTMARE review, here's some extra framegrabs that I had sitting in the dark confines of my computer, gathering dust. They were from when I was working on the review and just didn't have enough time to post them. Be sure to click on each to view larger:









Here is the very last sequence in order, of Jack and Sally finally together, which I feel is one of the strongest in the film. Just check out the poses and staging. Excellent shots here:







There were a couple of scenes with panshots and so I grabbed the images and did some Photoshop to see what the whole thing looked like. Here are two (click on images to view larger):



Rats -- Blogger is acting up for me now, and I still have lots more images to share with you. Please come back later on today and I'll have the rest up in the post. Stay tuned...

Tomorrow: see horrors of Halloween past!