text reviews
On the 2nd Day of (The Nightmare Before) Christmas…
December 24th, 2011
…my true love gave to me: DISCOVERY!
What’s this? What’s this? There’s something very wrong
What’s this? There’s people singing songs
As we continue unwrapping The Nightmare before Christmas, we find a hearty recipe for sad Jack Skellington. Mix one part aimless wandering, a dash of sehnsucht wondering, stir with a skeleton-snatching snow flurry and you’ve got the ingredients for Jack’s journey through a doorway to a world of light and laughter, peace and love. Transported from the grey, mundane streets and cemeteries of Halloweentown, the story’s unsatisfied protagonist finds himself in a miraculous and life-altering change of address. Jack sings ecstatically:
Read More...On the 1st Day of (The Nightmare Before) Christmas…
December 23rd, 2011
…my true love gave to me: DISCONTENT?
“Oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There’s something out there, far from my home
A longing that I’ve never known…”
Jack Skellington is sad. So sad. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, our skeletal main character is found depressed and lamenting, and why wouldn’t he be? He’s only… uh… the best he is at what he does, loved by all his peers and co-workers, adored by patchwork women, and almost everybody recognizes him as the guy in charge. Wait a minute: he’s the Pumpkin KING, he’s a rock star, he’s the king of the world, head-liner at what seems to have been their very best Halloween ever: so what’s wrong with this picture?
Read More...Unwrapping The Nightmare Before Christmas…
December 22nd, 2011
‘Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems in a place perhaps you’ve seen in your dreams. For the story you’re about to be told began with the holiday worlds of auld. Now you’ve probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven’t I’d say it’s time you begun…
In addition to one of the endless versions of A Christmas Carol, and endless showings of A Christmas Story, a tradition I and many other freaks and geeks (and otherwise normal people) keep each year is watching Disney’s enchantingly odd story, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This quirky tale of Halloween characters trying to take over the Yuletide has built up quite a following since it first sang out in 1993, with everything from music boxes to pajamas to Jack Skellington action figures rolling out each year as decorations and presents, sparking that now-frequent debate: is this a Halloween or a Christmas movie?
(hint: the answer is in the title).
Read More...A father’s legacy in TRON
January 26th, 2011
Sam Flynn misses his daddy. Sure, the 27-year old boy plays it cool in the opening of TRON: Legacy, chills out in a swanky bachelor pad I confessedly covet (but he drinks Coors, so we KNOW something’s amiss) and pretends he’s cool rockin’ the whole “aloof” thing, but the truth is he feels confused and [...]
Read More...A “god’s” legacy in TRON
January 8th, 2011
“Your father was the creator.” – Quorra, from Tron: Legacy Jeff Bridges doesn’t play a divine trinity in Tron Legacy, but he does present a curious trifecta of world creator, absent father, and slightly Lebowski-channeling aging 80s hipster. While the last one provided vocal audience response with claps and laughter, the first two are what [...]
Read More...TRON’s Legacy isn’t deep, but appropriately playful
January 5th, 2011
What were YOU expecting from TRON: Legacy? A cursory viewing of this sequel’s 1982 film predecessor, sporting half-baked yet fun ideas stretched across a kaleidoscope of imagery and loosely scrambled religious plot-points (with cameo by Pac-Man), offers a cult classic that’s cute but not innately thoughtful. I adore the first film, no doubt with a [...]
Read More...DONNIE DARKO: in God’s channel (pt 2)
October 31st, 2010
“It was as if the plan had been with him all his life…” – Karen Pomeroy, from Donnie Darko (2001) Spoilers Ahead: for the first part of the Donnie Darko review, click here. By the end of this spectacularly crafted film, the young Donnie Darko understands what his death will avert, and it is clear that [...]
Read More...Flashback to DONNIE DARKO
October 29th, 2010
“28 days… 6 hours… 42 minutes… 12 seconds. That is when the world will end.” – Donnie Darko (2001) Writer/Director Richard Kelly uses various techniques to capture not only the spirit of the late 80s, but also the spirit of late 80s filmmaking in the eerie Donnie Darko. Co-produced by Drew Barrymore (who also plays [...]
Read More...INCEPTION, Reformed (for the last time)
October 21st, 2010
What do filmmaker Christopher Nolan and Puritan Preacher Jonathan Edwards have in common? I know we’ve been hammering on Inception for what seems like a lifetime (or we might be dreaming within a dream, and it’s only been minutes!) and I’ll have to go on and review some of the year’s other offerings eventually… you [...]
Read More...“True Inspiration” versus INCEPTION – does it exist?
October 8th, 2010
“True inspiration is impossible to fake.” In Christopher Nolan’s incredible Inception, the notion is posited that planting an idea may not be possible because the mind will recognize it’s “inception” as foreign. One might easily take away that inception is something external whereas “true” inspiration is internal. Some might miss the obvious question: what is [...]
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