O Estranho Mundo de Jack

By 1993, director Tim Burton was such a successful filmmaker in Hollywood that he was able to return to one of his most beloved early projects, "The Nightmare Before Christmas." It's certainly an inspired movie, as it is also very weird, and when I say "weird," I mean it's distinctly Burton.

Even though it was directed with enough competency by Henry Selick, this groundbreaking stop-motion animation film is Burton all the way, as it contains ample "esque" qualities that make this "Nightmare" uniquely his vision.

As the film opens in the twisted, "Burton"-esque village of "Halloweentown," Jack Skellington, who is dually voiced by Chris Sarandon and longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, is celebrating another "horrible" Halloween. You'll be shocked and amazed at some of the town's inhabitants, who include jazz-playing zombies, Four Tenor-like vampires, a wolf man, and a wheelchair-bound scientist who occasionally opens up his cranium to (literally) scratch his brain; his creation, a Frankenstein-like scarecrow named Sally (Catherine O'Hara), yearns for contact with others and is quite fond of Jack Skellington.

But Jack's quickly growing tired of the same old routine year after year, and because he's so downtrodden with boredom, he ventures into the dark forest outside the town's borders, and accidentally stumbles onto the wondrous, jolly world of "Christmastown." Enticed by its splendor, he decides to bring back his discovery to the residents of Halloweentown, who of which are just as shocked by Christmas as he is. Jack gets the brilliant idea to pose as Santa Claus but hires three mischief-makers to kidnap the real Santa so he can share his own, misguided vision of Christmas with an unprepared world.

Painstakingly and meticulously crafted, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a beautiful and wonderful film from start to finish. The most famous image of this film is the cover art, which features Skellington eerily silhouetted against a full moon while he stands atop a coiled hill that overlooks a desolate graveyard.

Burton is such a wonderful director, who had already brought us one unique "esque" vision after the other, especially with the first two "Batman" films and "Edward Scissorhands" behind him as of '93 when "Nightmare" was made.

10/10

Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is one of the nice animated movies not from Disney. It is about Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, who lives in Halloweentown. One day he goes through a door in a tree and arrives in Christmastown and sees how happy and beautiful it is over there. When he is back in Halloweentown he shows his friends what Christmas is like, and he suggests to do Christmas this year instead of Halloween. Things do not go as planned.

Everything is beautifully animated and although the story is not that great it is entertaining the whole way through. I liked all the songs in the movie and there are some good laughs as well. Definitely worth watching.

I am not a big Tim Burton fan, but this movie is in my top 3 of all time. Perhaps the fact that Halloween is my favorite holiday influenced my opinion, but I doubt it. The more I hear and read about this movie, the more I love it.

Based on a parody of the famous "Night before Christmas" poem by Moore that Burton wrote and illustrated while employed at Disney, this idea was stagnant for many years prior to filming. In many ways this was a good thing, technology was able to catch up to Burton's ideas.

In NBC, we see our hero Jack Skellington, aka The Pumpkin King, depressed as another Halloween passes. In the background we hear the residents of Halloween Town celebrate another wonderful holiday. But Jack is sad. The only one who notices is the Rag Doll-style woman Sally.

Other characters, including many town-monsters, are introduced. We meet the wonderful mayor with two faces, the evil scientist and his assistant, three local children and our evil boogie-man.

After an accident, Jack develops a plan to kidnap "Sandy Claws" and give presents out for Christmas in place of Christmas Town. You will have to view this movie to discover the rest.

The claymation is not what I expected, it was of a high quality and the movements are not jerky like the old Christmas Specials. Danny Elfman's music has little resemblance to his work with Ongo Bongo and "What's this?" (which Jack sings when he discovers the colorful world of Christmas Town) is closer to a tune mixed from Cabaret and The Music Man. The voices match the mouth movements nearly perfectly. This was a project from the heart and all the little touches to make it 'just' right show this fact.

I was a kid when I first saw Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, but I wasn't scared by it in the slightest - this world is one entirely of the imagination, and in a sense saying that the film is scary for younger children is something of a compliment. 'Nightmare' is both a horror film and a musical, and fantasy and a suspense film, and like most Burton effort, comedy is thrown in at just the right moments.

With Henry Selick as director and Michael McDowell & Caroline Thompson as the screenwriters, Burton has fashioned the worlds of Halloween-town and Christmas-town as real originals, working on the cliches that are in each holiday and surrounding the worlds with a host of terrific and terrifying characters. While Halloween-town has a mayor (appropriately with two faces, one smiling one distressed), the real leader is Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon voices with a great Danny Elfman as the singing Jack) who orchestrates Halloween every year for its citizens. But he's grown weary over the years, and after stumbling upon Christmas-town, loaded with good will towards men and a large man in a red suit, he gets his town riled up to overtake the joyous holiday. Despite one protest by Sally (an amazing Catherine O'Hara), the doll-girl who loves him, the town goes on creating Jack's vision. The results are hilarious and, indeed, spellbinding.

Much credit is given to Burton and Selick for their work on the film, but a lot should also be attributed to Denise Di Novi (co-producer and co-designer), Rick Heinrichs (visual consultant), Pete Kozachik (D.P.), and of course Danny Elfman for his perfectly fitting score and song creations. Along with the talented voice actors, Nightmare Before Christmas ends up a triumph of artistic ingenuity. Some could construe it as too weird or too stylish, but for the cult audience it has garnered over the past ten years it remains of of Burton's finest accomplishments. A+

Who would ever think that a musical about the overlap between Halloween and Christmas would work? However, it does work with the songs not exactly being Christmas - or Halloween - classics, but fitting the dark mood of this film perfectly.

The movie opens with Jack Skellington, AKA the Pumpkin King, facing an identity crisis of sorts. Halloween has just ended in his hometown of Halloween Town, and he has been receiving kudos from everyone in town for making this year's Halloween the scariest ever. But Jack is seeking purpose in his life, and scaring people to death once a year just isn't doing it for him anymore. He takes a walk in the woods and he discovers a group of trees each with doors and different symbols on each door. He opens the door with the tree symbol on it, and finds himself in Christmas Town. While there, he is fascinated by the contrast of Christmas Town with his own world. Jack returns home, along with a sampling of trinkets from Christmas Town, to contemplate the meaning of what he has found there. Ultimately he decides that this year, Halloween Town is going to take charge of Christmas. Jack has also decided that he will replace "Sandy Claws" on his yearly sleigh ride, delivering presents to all of the children of the world. All of the citizens of Halloween Town are enthused by the idea except Sally, a creation of Halloween Town's mad scientist, who coincidentally is also looking for something new in her life. She alone sees the danger of Halloween Town hijacking the Christmas holiday.

While the Grinch tried to destroy Christmas and came away with a true understanding of the meaning of the holiday, Jack Skellington, with the best of intentions, is on the road to ruin Christmas. In preparation for the big event, he enlists the townspeople to help make toys, and they just can't get the hang of making or doing anything that is not designed to terrify. In fact, when Jack makes his Christmas ride and the town hears on the radio of the terror Jack is causing, they actually see this as a sign of success. To them, horror equals happiness.

Like most good films designed for all age groups, the movie is actually weaving a tale on two levels. The story itself is very straightforward so that children can easily follow it. On a second level, there is deft humor and one-liners that are obviously aimed at adults, such as the mayor's plea to Jack -"I'm only an elected official here! I can't make decisions!" Or when the scientist who created Sally gets tired of her running away and builds a new creation to replace her. This one turns out to be just a female version of the mad scientist himself to which he has endowed half of his own brain. His conclusion is "You will be a decided improvement over that treacherous Sally. We'll have conversations worth having." You'll see quite a bit of similarity between the style of art design here and that done in some of Tim Burton's other films, such as "Beetlejuice". You'll also probably recognize Danny Elfman's style of score that has come to decorate so many of Burton's other films. I highly recommend this film as great entertainment for the whole family.