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Post by The Captain on May 21, 2021 19:09:19 GMT -5
Wait, all this discussion of Tim Burton and not a single mention of The Nightmare Before Christmas? Out of all of his films, that's the only one that I really love. My biggest problem with Burton is when he tries to "reimagine" something that another person did before him (and most likely did it better). There is one good scene in his Willy Wonka version (the greeting at the factory, where the singing dolls catch on fire and melt), but the Apes, Dark Shadows, Alice, etc. movies are just him putting his weird spin on something that already exists, like a kid taking the Mona Lisa and giving her a tattoo and pink hair. When he has an original idea to work with, he does far better. Pee-Wee, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, even the first Batman, Sleepy Hollow, and Mars Attacks (not his ideas, per se, but things that hadn't been done before on film, not counting the 1960's Batman which bore little resemblance to Burton's) have a certain "magic" to them that his adaptations just don't. Plus, I'm tired of seeing Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter chewing scenery together in his movies. Nightmare Before Christmas was directed by Henry Sellick. Burton is credited as creating the characters. I'm thinking he sketched up a bunch of character designs. I think he produced the movie, and hence it's "Tim Burton's .....". Someone else wrote the story and yet someone else wrote the screenplay. I feel like the love for this movie has given him a ton of undeserved praise, which he has coasted on for years. I am also in the extreme minority of people who HATE this movie. I felt the "Christmas but Halloween" trope wore thin very quickly, and thought the songs were amateurish and grating. My measuring sticks at the time were The Little Mermaid and Little Shop of Horrors, and it just didn't even come close to the same level of storytelling or charm. I quite like Sellick's subsequent movie, Coraline. Fair enough. Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁
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Post by codystarbuck on May 21, 2021 21:03:24 GMT -5
Nightmare Before Christmas was directed by Henry Sellick. Burton is credited as creating the characters. I'm thinking he sketched up a bunch of character designs. I think he produced the movie, and hence it's "Tim Burton's .....". Someone else wrote the story and yet someone else wrote the screenplay. I feel like the love for this movie has given him a ton of undeserved praise, which he has coasted on for years. I am also in the extreme minority of people who HATE this movie. I felt the "Christmas but Halloween" trope wore thin very quickly, and thought the songs were amateurish and grating. My measuring sticks at the time were The Little Mermaid and Little Shop of Horrors, and it just didn't even come close to the same level of storytelling or charm. I quite like Sellick's subsequent movie, Coraline. Fair enough. Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁 Now, now; let's not end up with a Dead Man's Party!
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Post by Calidore on May 21, 2021 21:21:28 GMT -5
Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁
Elf was fun. Plus, I learned from the credits that I went to high school with two of the elves.
Watching Charlie Brown Christmas amounts to a religious pilgrimage, except it's at home. Perfection.
My friend's kids would watch Christmas Story, but I was never able to get into it. Same with Nightmare before Christmas. Loved NbC's art design (IMO Tim Burton's only real talent), but the writing and (sorry, Captain) music were completely forgettable. Christmas Story I can at least appreciate, even if it doesn't do anything for me.
My experience with It's a Wonderful Life was similar to your wife's, but with the opposite effect. I ended up buying my mom the video in self-defense.
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Post by The Captain on May 21, 2021 21:40:01 GMT -5
Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁
Elf was fun. Plus, I learned from the credits that I went to high school with two of the elves.
Watching Charlie Brown Christmas amounts to a religious pilgrimage, except it's at home. Perfection.
My friend's kids would watch Christmas Story, but I was never able to get into it. Same with Nightmare before Christmas. Loved NbC's art design (IMO Tim Burton's only real talent), but the writing and (sorry, Captain) music were completely forgettable. Christmas Story I can at least appreciate, even if it doesn't do anything for me.
My experience with It's a Wonderful Life was similar to your wife's, but with the opposite effect. I ended up buying my mom the video in self-defense.
A Christmas Story is a special movie for me, as it is the ONLY movie I ever saw im a theater with any of my grandparents. I never knew either of my grandfathers, as one died shortly after coming home from WWII (he was a doctor in the Pacific and came back not quite right, eventually committing suicide in 1948 just months after my father was born) and the other passed from cancer when I was less than three years old. My maternal grandmother lived in Memphis, TN, and I only saw her six weeks every two years (two every summer two every other Christmas). She does get credit, however, for giving me my first comic books ever and setting me on the course I've been on for 40+ years. My paternal grandmother lived about 15 minutes away from us when I was growing up and I was fairly close with her. Right before Christmas 1983, she took me to lunch at a restaurant in the local mall, bought me a Dungeons & Dragons action figure at Kay-Bee Toys in the same mall, then took me to the theater behind the mall for a matinee showing of "A Christmas Story". It was a great day for me and for my relationship with her. We watch it every Christmas morning after opening gifts and while eating cinnamon rolls before we get into other things prior to my sister and my mother coming over for more gift-giving and dinner. Is it a great movie? No, but it is a great memory for me and is becoming part of my family's history, which is something I'm finding important as the years go on by and my daughters get older. As for NBC's music, I'll respectfully disagree and leave it at that. I find some, although not all, of the songs very hummable throughout the year.
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Post by Duragizer on May 21, 2021 23:35:58 GMT -5
I'm a diehard fan of stop motion and the macabre, so there's absolutely no way I could hate The Nightmare Before Christmas.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 23, 2021 14:30:18 GMT -5
If anyone here who's been chatting about the various Batman films gets TCM, you may want to check out an episode or two (or twelve) of the original Batman serial (1943). Your mileage may vary, of course, but if you look closely enough beneath the layers of less than great acting, effects right out of "Plan Nine", and the painful racial stereotype that is Dr. Daka, the Japanese spy/villain played by all-purpose go-to ethnic character actor J. Carroll Naish, you may find enough to charm you into checking out a bona fide non-classic. Still, it is the archetypical Batman on film, so for completists, it's a must-watch.
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Post by profh0011 on May 23, 2021 15:31:21 GMT -5
That photo is from BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949)
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Post by Prince Hal on May 23, 2021 22:22:59 GMT -5
That photo is from BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949) Not any more.
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Post by zaku on May 24, 2021 7:12:05 GMT -5
That photo is from BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949) Not any more. It's a retcon!
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 24, 2021 7:15:40 GMT -5
those horns!
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Post by tarkintino on May 24, 2021 8:32:39 GMT -5
effects right out of "Plan Nine", I would not go that far; for a low budget serial from 1943, most of the practical effects were professional enough, including that well-designed "radium gun" and how it was used. That was miles ahead of anything from that one-man Mount Rushmore of total hackwork / incompetence, Ed Wood. No one was going to see hubcaps standing in for flying saucers, cardboard tombstones, day suddenly turning into night, etc., in this serial. The 1943 serial was not flawless, but its close to filmmaking brilliance when compared to Ed Wood.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 24, 2021 9:32:55 GMT -5
effects right out of "Plan Nine", I would not go that far; for a low budget serial from 1943, most of the practical effects were professional enough, including that well-designed "radium gun" and how it was used. That was miles ahead of anything from that one-man Mount Rushmore of total hackwork / incompetence, Ed Wood. No one was going to see hubcaps standing in for flying saucers, cardboard tombstones, day suddenly turning into night, etc., in this serial. The 1943 serial was not flawless, but its close to filmmaking brilliance when compared to Ed Wood. Points well taken. That was too lazy a reference. Still, the sets look like they're made of the same cardboard as the tombstones where Tor Johnson somnabulates: I will have to give the costume nod to Wood, though. Poor Lewis Wilson. Did they create his Batman costume from burlap sacks and an XL pair of granny panties? There's a scene in Chapter One or Two when Batman is fighting a few thugs and he becomes tangled in his cape more than once. In fact, it actually disappears for a few seconds and then reappears. And the outfits on Dr. Daka's mind-slaves are clearly the inspiration for the standard yegg costumes in the Batman TV show, sans the cute nicknames.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,707
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Post by shaxper on May 24, 2021 9:40:06 GMT -5
I still can't stand the idea that Silver Surfer was an unwilling servant of Galactus, merely bartering to save his homeworld. In the original, Kirby-driven epic, he was a willing and almost adoring servant of Galactus, making his change of consciousness and willingness to stand up to his master all the more meaningful and admirable.
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Post by tonebone on May 24, 2021 11:52:25 GMT -5
Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁
Elf was fun. Plus, I learned from the credits that I went to high school with two of the elves.
Watching Charlie Brown Christmas amounts to a religious pilgrimage, except it's at home. Perfection.
My friend's kids would watch Christmas Story, but I was never able to get into it. Same with Nightmare before Christmas. Loved NbC's art design (IMO Tim Burton's only real talent), but the writing and (sorry, Captain) music were completely forgettable. Christmas Story I can at least appreciate, even if it doesn't do anything for me.
My experience with It's a Wonderful Life was similar to your wife's, but with the opposite effect. I ended up buying my mom the video in self-defense.
My wife and kids really don't have the strong nostalgic associations to any of the Christmas stuff. But for me, If I don't get to watch A Christmas Story and Charlie Brown Christmas at least once during the Christmas season, I get moody. I also love Elf, and have an easier time getting my family to sit down for that. I was an early adopter of A Christmas Story, as I had happened across "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters" on PBS and was hooked on Jean Shepherd. When A Christmas Story came about the next year, I was primed to see it, but was too young to get to the theater on my own... but as soon as it was released on VHS, I was there, and was delighted when TBS began marathoning it during the Holidays.
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Post by MDG on May 24, 2021 12:59:28 GMT -5
I was an early adopter of A Christmas Story, as I had happened across "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters" on PBS and was hooked on Jean Shepherd. When A Christmas Story came about the next year, I was primed to see it, but was too young to get to the theater on my own... but as soon as it was released on VHS, I was there, and was delighted when TBS began marathoning it during the Holidays. I saw A Christmas Story the weekend it came out--as soon as I saw Shepherd's name in the ad, I was in (at this time, it was still possible for a movie to open and have not heard anything about it.) I had been a fan of his for years and had been able to catch the tail end of his career at WOR.
I loved it, and watched it a few times before TBS over-exposed it--the merchandising, etc., turned it into the type of thing he railed against when he was alive.
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