As the Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington spends his entire year planning for the next Halloween.  As a matter of fact, his entire town of Halloweentown does the same thing.  His latest stint as king has Jack questioning his place in life and after the events of Halloween are over, a somber Jack heads out for a walk and comes across a gathering of trees, each marked with a different door representing a holiday.  Jack enters the door of a decorated tree and finds himself in Christmastown.

What he finds is a town full of colors, cheer and happiness, which is a polar opposite from Halloweentown.  With an idea in his head and excitement in his belly, he heads back to Halloweentown with a plan.  That plan consists of kidnapping Santa Claus and appointing himself as the bearer of joy and gifts in an attempt to recapture his zest for life.  The combination of the two holidays however, end with disastrous but hilarious consequences.

There is no doubt that The Nightmare Before Christmas came from Tim Burton’s brain.  It was however, not directed by Burton, but by Henry Selick.  Having two strong, creative minds behind the world of Jack Skellington only made this film better.  Burton’s films always have a unique look to them.  From the sets, to the landscape, to the characters, you just know when you’re watching one of his movies.  One of the things I loved most about Nightmare is that its world is unlike anything I had seen previously.

Aside from the typical things associated with Halloween and Christmas, the landscape of the film was totally unique.  I loved the townsfolk and the dark and dreary element to Halloweentown.  Dried leaves, and bare branches. Tumbleweeds and wind.  It’s all so perfectly Halloween (depending on which part of the world you live in of course) but it also managed to be rather charming.  It goes without saying that the world of Christmastown was just as great.  Instead of dried leaves and barren hills, we’re treated to a snowy, bright, joyful realm with elves making toys and children riding sleds.  The worlds are polar opposites but fit in this film perfectly.  At least until Jack starts making and handing out his own presents.  Things get a little weird there.

Chris Sarandon (along with Danny Elfman in the singing portions) brings Jack to life through his voice.  Jack is a typical Burton character, but by no means is he forgettable.  He’s just a guy who goes about his life, and begins to question that life.  He’s quirky and even though he’s the Pumpkin King, he’s a bit of a misfit and a bit misunderstood.  I love these qualities about him.  Even though he’s revered in his town, he wants to be better.  That’s something that everyone feels at one point in their life.

The one aspect that this film truly grasps (for me at least) was that feeling of wonder that only comes with innocence.  I remember feeling awestruck at Christmas when we’d go look at the houses that were decorated, or once the tree was finished.  That sense of wonder only comes when you’re a child and slowly fades to something else as an adult.  Jack looks upon Christmastown with that same look of wonder and wants to be a part of it so bad.  I think that’s something that all of us can relate to.

When Pixar released WALL-E, the biggest thing I heard was how they were able to convey so much emotion without using any dialogue.  With Nightmare, I was amazed to see how much emotion could be conveyed when the character didn’t have any eyes.  Actually he didn’t even have a face per se.  Just a skull, devoid of flesh.  His facial expressions speak volumes and you know what he’s feeling just by his brow line.  A furrowed brow goes a long way in getting his point across.

As if this film wasn’t lively enough, adding the other characters enriched to the point of being a classic.  Sally (voiced by Catherine O’Hara), Lock, Shock, Barrell, the Mayor, Dr. Finklestein, Oogie Boogie all added to the tapestry of the film, but my favorite secondary character, was that of Jack’s ghost dog Zero. Don’t ask me why, I just love him.  Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for dogs.

This is a film that holds up to time and even now, 17 years later (yes it’s been that long) it still holds its appeal.  Doesn’t matter what I’m doing at the time, if it’s on, I have to sit and watch it.  The soundtrack is catchy, thanks to Danny Elfman, and there isn’t a Halloween/Christmas season that goes by without a viewing.

Once I get through the annual 24 hour A Christmas Story marathon that airs every year here in the States, I’m moving on to The Nightmare Before Christmas once again.  If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend watching it.  If you have seen it, watch it again.  You won’t regret it.

The 37th annual Annie awards were held last night with Pixar’s Up taking the prize for the Best Animated feature, adding weight to the expectation that it will walk away with the Oscar for Best Animated Feature when the awards are handed out on March the 7th.

The International Animated Film Society also honoured Up’s director Pete Docter with the award for Directing in a Feature Production, while Disney’s triumphant return to hand-drawn animation, The Princess and the Frog, walked away with Animated Effects, Character Animation and Voice Acting for Jen Cody’s ebullient craziness as the spoiled Charlotte.

My own favorite of last year, Henry Selick’s sublime adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, took home both Character and Production Design and Bruno Coulais’ wonderfully haunting score was honoured with Music in a Feature Production. Coraline excelled in each of these areas and Henry Selick’s design for the film captured perfectly the strange world of Coraline Jones and the marvelous and sinister Other world.

Each of these films have a wealth of talent behind them, and while I thought Up petered out before the end, whereas Coraline for my money held the story far better, making for a more satisfying conclusion overall, the awards underline the great work being done in the field of animation.

TheWrap have the full list of awards here.

The latest movie sent over for us to review on our iPod Touch so kindly given to us by NBC Universal is Coraline. I have to admit to not knowing too much about this movie before I watched it. I’d heard something about buttons for eyes and that it was a bit twisted but other than that I was pretty clueless.

The movie stars Dakota Fanning as Coraline, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Ian McShane, Keith David and is directed by Henry Selick who previously brought us A Nightmare Before Christmas. Once you see Coraline, that will make perfect sense.  I think that I had the misconception that this was a kids movie but now that I’ve seen it, it’s so much more than that and will definitely appeal both to adults and children. That said, it’s quite a freaky film with a few bits that made me, a now 29 year old man jump! It is however rated PG so I’m probably just a wimp!

Coraline tells the story of a young girl who has recently moved into an old house with her workaholic parents, dead set on finishing their book. Coraline is an only child and quickly becomes bored of sitting in this big old house with nothing to do. Tasked with counting windows by her father, desperate to get rid of her, she quickly starts causing mischief by exploring both the house and the grounds surrounding it. On her travels, she meets a scraggy old cat (voiced later by Keith David) and a quirky boy called Wybie (voiced by Robert Bailey Jr.), which is short for ‘Why Born’….. See how this is starting to get a bit odd?!

Anyway, Coraline falls asleep one night to be awoken by some mice running into the door which was previously bricked up. When she opens the door, a tunnel appears with mystic colour drawing her in. After crawling through the ‘Being John Malkovich’ style tunnel, she finds herself in an alternate world where everything that she dislikes in the ‘real world’ is reversed. Her parents have all the time in the world for her and life revolves around her rather than around a book. The only thing is that all the people in this alternate world have buttons for eyes. This scares Coraline at first but their love for her masks the buttons and she loves every second of it. When night falls in this alternate world, her ‘other mother’ will put her to bed and when she awakes, she finds herself back in the ‘real world’. To find out what happens next, you’ll have to buy the download through iTunes or the DVD / Blu Ray (either in 2D or 3D) as telling you more would spoil the movie.

Coraline is one of those films where I was blown away by the complexity of it from the second it began to the moment it ended. When I say complexity, I’m mainly talking about the animation. The physics behind how it all works together is astounding. There are parts in the movie where the animation itself becomes a character, where you see the wire-frame makeup of the story in the alternate world which stitches together to create what Coraline sees. The way in which this was envisaged by both the director and graphic artists is simply astounding and so cleverly put together.

Coraline was a movie that I could watch over and over again. The style of animation was different to anything I’ve seen before – with maybe the exception of A Nightmare Before Christmas. The story wasn’t 100% original as it’s that sort of a ‘Lion, Witch, Wardrobe’ style of ‘what’s behind the magic door’ but the creativity and lengths Selick has gone to, to make this his own is excellent .

The characters they’ve made were also brilliant with a few which you’re a bit worried might be a bit too adult for young children but actually, i think they’d just find it funny. Dakota Fanning does a good job as Coraline, ably supported by Hatcher and the rest of the cast,  but this movie is really all about the animation and my hat (if i was wearing one!) goes off to the animators and production team. It’s animation but not like you’ve seen before,

Coraline gets a massive 9/10 from me!

Coraline is available to buy the download through iTunes or the DVD / Blu Ray (either in 2D or 3D) NOW!

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