The Nightmare Before Christmas

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Story
Review: Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas is probably the most artistic film I've ever seen. Care was put into every character, even the ones with minor, minor roles, and the sets were astounding. The fuildity of movement was incredible, and the music and scripts are without peer.

This film is undoubtably one of the greatest of the great movies, and is captured escellently on the Special Edition DVD. The DVD came out just in time, since my old copy of Nightmare Before Christmas was on tape, and begining to stretch. The DVD has fabulous extras, including theatrical trailors for the movie, and for James and the Giant Peach. I Thouroughly enjoyed watching "The making of The Nightmare Before Christmas," one could see that they hadn't just thrown it together, but actually thought about how the "making of" part was going to be done.

One of my favortie parts of the DVD was teh extra short films, particularly "Vincent." I loved the rhyming and the way things went from reality to Vincents imagination.

I HIGHLY reccomed this DVD to ANYONE who has a remote intrest.

Rating:
Summary: A timeless classic
Review: I remember seeing this back in '93. It was the late showing and I was the only one in the theater, a very cool way to see this film for the first time. The Nightmare Before Christmas showcases two of Tim Burton's trademark influences: German expressionist films and stop-motion animation. The dark, foreboding sets, high-contrast lighting, and stark angles of The Nightmare Before Christmas harken back to German films of the silent era, such as Nosferatu and The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Burton has employed stop-motion animation in several of his earlier films, such as Beetlejuice (by the way, if you look closely in one particular scene, you can see Jack Skellington's head atop Michael Keaton's carousel hat). The Nightmare Before Christmas follows the animated movie tradition of using music and songs to progress the story. Naturally, being a Tim Burton movie, the songs are provided by his frequent collaborator, Danny Elfman. The music and the visuals are inseparable. The wonderful songs breath life into characters who are at home with their dark, sinister nature. Anyone can enjoy Danny Elfman's music, which is easily the best you'll ever hear in an animated musical. The voice talent for The Nightmare Before Christmas is a splendid bunch, drawing from the stable of Tim Burton regulars and improvisational comedy geniuses. Children will be able to grasp the story with little difficulty, and most will be able to grasp that these characters are not at all scary.

The original DVD release, while it contained an excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an exemplary video transfer, albeit non-anamorphic, had a dismal lack of extras. It's these extras that make the new DVD worth buying. First up, you get a commentary track with director Henry Selick and director of photography Pete Kozachik. A twenty-five minute documentary highlights the making of the film. Several deleted storyboarded or fully animated sequences are presented. A thorough concept art gallery presents the design work of Tim Burton and the storyboard artists. Two theatrical trailers are included - one is a "teaser" that presents the project as the brainchild of Tim Burton (who was riding high after the success of Batman and Edward Scissorhands), while the other is a more standard theatrical trailer. Also included are his first directorial efforts, the short films Vincent and Frankenweenie. He directed both shorts prior to directing Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Frankenweenie received a video release around the time of Batman Returns, but has been unavailable for many years. This is the first time either film has been available on DVD, and it will probably be the last. If that isn't reason enough to buy this disc, well, nothing will convince you.

Rating:
Summary: A good film
Review: A good, original film. Great disc, finally a Disney release with extras on it. Good picture quality.

Rating:
Summary: A DVD edition worth of the movie it holds
Review: I remember, as a child, seeing this movie once. I was 8, and to tell the truth, I didnt understood one bit, and got scared a few times. Now, 7 years later, I re-discovered this gem in this DVD, and all I can tell is wow. The movie is marvelous, the score and music are one of the best you can find in a "children" movie, and the DVD extra features gives you the chance to know the secrets of the stop-motion animation. I never though Halloween could be so wonderfull until I saw this movie...

Rating:
Summary: Excellent movie, bad VHS
Review: I would prefer to give this three and a half stars.

This is a beautiful movie and has been one of my favorites since I first saw it. Tim Burton is a genius, and knows how to bring out this dark, surrealistic beauty in all of his works. Burton's imagination of the lands where holidays come from (if you've not wondered, I'd say it's time you begun) is brilliant, with Jack as the king of Halloween. I'm glad Burton didn't choose something tacky like Jack'o'Lantern, or Mr. Unlucky, or any of those typical named beings associated with Halloween. Creating a new being only added to the movie. A few of the lines are corny, and some of the delivery seems strange, but that happens in most movies.

As for the VHS, I found all the additional stuff they put on it to be silly. Save it for the DVD; I understand that they were trying to make that information to be more accessible, but I hate fast forwarding through the movie jsut to get to the interesting info. Most other movies save it for the DVD... they could have too.

Rating:
Summary: Get lost mid-plot!
Review: Call me a stickler, but I like to be able to put all the pieces of the plot together when I'm watching a movie. When something just doesn't make sense with what's happening in the rest of the movie, well, it bothers me. This movie is a perfect example of a good movie that could've been great, had it not been so confusing halfway through.

Let me start with the good first. This movie has great, rich visuals. The sets are amazing, I can't even imagine going through the pain-stakingly slow process to do stop action animation. The scene in the graveyard, after the Christmas disaster, is especially well-done. The score has a slightly creepy, rich, wonderful sound. I love most of the songs, especially the one's featuring Elfman's fantastic voice. He has the passionate, tender-hearted voice, with a bit of underlying menace right there. Along with Elfman, all of the other voice characterizations are first-rate, and the whole cast is very endearing. And, I really like the fact that they didn't use modern day lingo. That drives me up the wall with current Disney cartoons.

Now, the problem is, Jack's Christmas was way too scary. Throughout the Town Meeting Song, the whole point was to show how the rest of Halloweentown wanted to make Christmas like Halloween, but Jack knew that Christmas was not like Halloween. The citizens are all yelling out their thoughts on what is in the box, or the sock, as Jack corrects, You don't quite understand, That's not the point of Christmasland. So why does he let them create all those scary gifts?? Don't get me wrong, I get a kick out of the kid pulling the head out of the box, but it just doesn't make sense. And what about "Sandy Claws"? That's a funny joke, but we're supposed to believe that Jack researched Christmas for hours, and didn't happen upon "Santa Claus"?

I don't see any reason why there has to be holes in any movie plot. That kept this movie from being a classic with me. I liked it, but was hoping to love it.

Rating:
Summary: Nightmare Transports Viewer Into World of Delight
Review: I love "Nightmare" - it's one of my all-time favorite animated films - but I have to admit that to me, the best thing on this DVD is Burton's early short film, "Vincent". The animation is very similiar to that of "Nightmare" and you can see early reflections of Jack and Sally in Vincent's imaginary world. But the best part of this 5-1/2 minute short is hearing Burton's hero, Vincent Price, once more. He reads this charming poem about 7-year-old Vincent Malloy's longing to be "just like Vincent Price" and the smothered glee in his voice as he tells how the child delightedly dreams of dipping his aunt in wax for his wax museum brought a huge smile to my face. There was only once Vincent Price and fans can get a little time with him here.

Of course, the DVD's focal point is "Nightmare" itself, which shines. I went to see this repeatedly when it originally came out in theatres, so delighted was I with the story and the character of Jack (and the three vampires - watch for the scene where they play ice hockey - the original puck they used was a model of Burton's head but it got replaced by a pumpkin). Oogie Boogie's character is still a bit shallow to me - I never have quite gotten his "motivation" - but that doesn't matter. The entire film is still great!

And there is still that great moment when the parents ask one kid, "Well, what did Santa [Jack Skellington] bring you?" and the kid pulls out ... oh, well, watch the DVD. You'll see.

Rating:
Summary: A perfect edition of this film, except ...
Review: So, for the holidays, I decided to buy some of my favorite seasonal films, and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was on my list. I like eye-candy, and thus I like Tim Burton. But I'm not reviewing the film so much as this version of it. This is a special, widescreen edition that includes: an original trailer, a "making of", "Vincent," narrated by Vincent Price, and "Frankenweenie".

What it *doesn't* include, however, is the ending I saw in the theater. This version ends with the song near a pumpkin patch (as I clumsily try not to spoil the film for anyone who hasn't already seen it), and not the closing narration. Okay, so I'm picky. I thought I was getting the entire film, and I didn't. The closing narration wasn't long or even, to my mind, boring. Granted, it probably wasn't necessary either, but then, how was including "Frankenweenie" necessary?

It's a wonderful movie and a really cool edition considering what all you get in it. However, if you intended to get the *complete* film that you may have seen in the theaters, you may want to hunt around for a different version.

Rating:
Summary: Sick, Twisted, Disturbing and Brilliant!
Review: I First Saw this film when I was eight years old in a ratherlarge cinema. The atmosphere was great. They even had a giant hangingJack Skellington from the ceiling. I remember having the feeling thatthe film was very funny, and bing young and Naive, i thought Santastill existed. The Music was fabulous and clever. Now, the christmasafter that i bought the video but never fully understood it. Sevenyears later i decided to watch it again, as Tim Burton is now myfavourite director. His films all have a twisted sense of humour witha rather horrific undertone. I am now 14 and appreciate the film forall it's worth. The animation is stunning and in it's time must havebeen top of the line. The Music which rightfully won an Oscar is stillas powerful and twisted as ever. And the humour is razor sharp with avery satrical edge....The film is rather disturbing for youngchildren. My Cousin still won't watch it, and I think it might destroymany child's view of Christmas, but I still think that every familyshould Own a copy. I Can't wait to see what Henry Sellick can do withMonkeybone and this film reinforces my view that Tim Burton shouldhave been the one to remake "How the Grinch StoleChristmas!"!

Rating:
Summary: A star for talent, a star for horror.
Review: Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored of doing the same thing every year for Halloween. After stumbling in to Christmas Town, he is so taken with an idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls and goblins of Halloween Town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween- but they just can't get it right.