L'étrange Noël de monsieur 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

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+

This movie has always been a favorite of mine. I never like holiday movies, because i always find them to be full to bursting with slapstick comedy, or way too sugary-sweet and dramatic. both of these things are okay in moderation, but most Christmas movies seem to go to one side of the spectrum or the other. this wonderful fairy tale is perfect for someone like me, who likes a little bit of a darker movie, but expects a Christmas movie to have a good message. the darkness in the movie is not without cause-it shows the joy of Christmas in great contrast to the scariness of Halloween, and it made me love both holidays all the more for that reason. i don't know, maybe that's just because Halloween and Christmas are my favorite holidays, but i really feel that this movie is great for older children and adults. younger children (up to 5 or 6 years) may find this simply frightening, but older children would find it wonderful.

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.

Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King – the creative genius behind the holiday of Halloween, designing each year to be scarier and more horrible than the one before. However deep inside he longs for more than the horror and scares of Halloween Town, a longing he cannot understand until he stumbles into Christmas Town and sees happiness and cheer the likes of which has evaded him all these years. Having finally worked out what Christmas is all about, Jack decides to kidnap Santa and make himself the new king of Christmas Town so that he can have the happiness of Christmas all the time. But the others in the towns realize the significant consequences that this disruption of the norm will have as Jack's evil nature proves harder to overcome than he thought.

With Pixar currently dominating the world of 'animations that please both children and adults' it is easy to forget that over a decade ago Tim Burton delivered this delightful family film to the cinema using a much more traditional animation and a huge amount of imagination. The basic plot is a great little fantasy fairytale with a very dark heart to it that make it much more enjoyable for having that edge. Too often kids films (especially at the time and animated) are soaked in a sweet sentiment that simply forgets that kids are not stupid and indeed often prefer a bit of darkness in the story. The only downside of this darkness is that younger children might not 'get it' and just end up being scared by the Halloween images and imaginative images. Despite this the material will play equally well to adults and children because it neither panders to nor excludes one group over the other at any time. Regardless of the material, the film still manages to come off as charming and enjoyable thanks to a well-written script that never plays for the basic laugh or easy sentiment. Some viewers may come to this with Pixar in their minds and bemoan it for not being hilariously funny from start to finish, but they are missing the point and

The songs reflect this approach and are very clever throughout; whether it is the sorrowful longing of Jack at the start or the Cab Calloway-inspired song from Oogie Boogie Man, generally they are inventive and fun. The same praise can be laid at the door of the stop-motion animation, which is inventive and fun to look at from start to finish. All the characters have a great deal of effort put in and they add to the dark feel of the film. The voice cast may not feature a load of well-known voices in the same way as Pixar films generally do, but they still do a great job. Sarandon and Elfman combine to do a good job with Jack; Page is fun as Oogie Boogie; O'Hara is good as Sally despite not having as fun a character to work with but for my money it is Hickey (as Dr Finklestein) and Shadix (Mayor) that make the biggest impression, mainly due to having the most enjoyable characters.

Overall this is a very short but very enjoyable film that will please both children and adults at the same time (with the same material) and never ignores or panders to one side of the audience over the other. Both groups will appreciate the dark fairytale, the clever songs, the darkly imaginative animation and the comic sense of humour, making this a family film that deserves to be remembered even as kids movie get smarter and fancier.