Taking a Break

Hi guys recently I have been really wrapped up in the holidays so I decided to take a little break from blogging. I will be taking a break for the rest of December. But don't worry I will be back in early January. So until then, Happy Holidays and see you in the new year.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Happy Halloween. Oh, wait that was two months ago. Oh, wait I used this joke in my review of Gremlins. Regardless Christmas is getting closer so I decided to go away from Christmas and back into Halloween. That's right I am reviewing The Nightmare Before Christmas. So I hope you're in the holiday spirit because it's time to review The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We start on Halloween where all the monsters are celebrating. The head of the celebration is lead by the king of Halloween, Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon). But after the festivities are over Jack realizes how tired of Halloween he is and goes for a walk through the cemetery and then into the woods. The next day the Mayor of Halloween Town (Glenn Shadix) goes to Jack's house to plan next years Halloween, but he soon realizes that Jack is missing and this puts the whole town in a panic. Meanwhile Jack finds a bunch of mysterious doors in the woods with different symbols on them like a turkey, an Easter Egg, and a four leafed clover. Jack is curious and he goes through a door shaped like a Christmas tree and he ends up in another world. Jack is blown away by how happy and festive it is there and he finds out that he is in Christmas Town. Jack comes back to Halloween Town with the good news and he tells the entire town about Christmas and all the monsters decide they want celebrate Christmas.

Jack is having trouble figuring out how to celebrate Christmas if the people in Christmas Town already do. He also wants to try and figure out the scientific meaning of Christmas before he can celebrate it. So he borrows some equipment from a mad scientist named Dr. Finkelstein (William Hickey). While talking to Dr. Finkelstein about his experiments the doctor's zombie housekeeper Sally (Catherine O'Hara) overhears them talking and that night sneaks out to help Jack. She gives Jack a potion to help with the research. But on the way back to the lab Sally has a premonition about Christmas and it says that it will end in a disaster. Meanwhile Jack finally decides what to do about Christmas. All the monsters start to prepare and Jack gets three kids named Lock (Paul Reubens), Shock (also Catherine O'Hara), and Barrel (Danny Elfman) to kidnap Santa so that Jack can take his place. The first time they mess up and end up kidnapping the Easter Bunny. The second time they get it right and they decide to give Santa to the Boogie Man (Ken Page). Meanwhile Jack is getting ready to leave and give presents to all the children of the world.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

Jack gives toys to all the children of the world. The only problem is that all the toys are evil and want to destroy everything. The army decides to stop Jack and they fire a missile at Jack which causes him to crash. Jack realizes that he needs to set things right so he decides to go back to Halloween Town. Meanwhile Sally tries to free Santa from the Boogie Man but she ends up getting captured. Jack comes in just at the right time and frees Santa and Sally and defeats the Boogie Man. Santa goes to save Christmas and Jacks agrees to stick to his own holiday. The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

I love The Nightmare Beofore Christmas. The animation is very good and detailed and the character design gives to the style of the movie. The songs are amazing and you'll be singing them for about a week. Jack is a very fun character to follow throughout the movie and it is a great movie for Christmas or Halloween. For once I actually have nothing bad to say about a movie. So yeah The Nightmare Before Christmas is definitely worth a rent this holiday season. See you next time.

The Polar Express

Well Christmas time has come around and what better way to start it than with The Polar Express. The movie is based on the book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. Little note about the movie it isn't computer animation it's motion capture which means it was acted out by real actors and then they were animated over. One more note about the movie almost all of the characters are not given names so I made up my own names. So get you tickets ready because it's time for my review of The Polar Express.

We meet a boy named Hugo (Tom Hanks) who has decided to stop believing in Santa even though a lot of other kids still do. He is trying to sleep when he hears a noise outside he goes outside where he sees a train that appeared out of thin air. The trains conductor Jerry (also Tom Hanks) invites Hugo to come with him to the north pole to see Santa. Hugo says no but changes his mind at the last second and gets on the train. There are other kids on the train like a girl named Jessica (Nona Gaye) and a know it all kid named Ned (Eddie Deezen). Before they go to the north pole they go to one more house that belongs to a boy named Billy (Hayden McFarland) (side note this is one of the characters with a name) Billy says he doesn't want to go but he too changes his mind but he trips and falls. Hugo uses the emergency break to stop the train and Victor gets on and goes to the very back of the train. Jerry then punches all the kids tickets and gets some waiters to serve hot chocolate. For some reason the waiters and Jerry sing a musical number. Listen you're all very good at dancing and serving hot chocolate but your song doesn't serve much of a purpose so I'm just going to fast forward this part. So after that Jessica realizes that Billy didn't get any hot chocolate so Jerry and Jessica go to give it to him.




 Hugo realizes that Jerry forgot to punch Jessica's ticket so Hugo goes to give it to her. But when crossing cars Hugo accidentally lets it go. This causes Jerry to take Jessica away. Ned thinks Jerry is going to toss Jessica off the train so Hugo runs after them he climbs on to the roof of the train. On top of the train Hugo meats a hobo named Frank (also Tom Hanks) who helps out hugo by helping him get to the front of the train. It turns out that Jessica is just taking over for the engineers Rusty and Dusty (both Michael Jeter). They have to stop the train because there are some caribou blocking the tracks. They manage to get the caribou out of the way but they are approaching a section of tracks that was frozen over and to make things worse the brakes break and they are gaining speed quickly. They make it through the icy patch and fix the brakes and Hugo gives Jessica her ticket. They go to the back of the train to see Billy and we have another musical number. Not much of a point to this song so I will skip this one too. They make it to the north pole and everyone is excited to see Santa.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED**

They make it to the north pole and are getting in line to see santa but Hugo, Jessica, and Billy get separated from the rest of the group. They end up in the inner workings of Santa's present factory. They climb through some conveyor belts and end up in Santa's sack of presents. The sack is lifted onto the Santa's sleigh and the kids get out safely. Santa (also Tom Hanks) comes out and everyone loves him and Santa must choose who to give the first gift of christmas to. He chooses Hugo and for a gift Hugo takes one of the bells from Santa's sleigh. Hugo returns home and he has the best christmas ever and Hugo still believes in the Santa even to this day. The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

The perfect word to describe The Polar Express is "Trying". It is trying to become a christmas classic but it is trying too hard. The overly whimsical soundtrack and pointless songs seem to show just how they tried too hard. The animation is a really freaky and the songs just aren't that good. But it has a nice message and I can sort of see why people like it. So I guess that I could semi recommend this for you depending on what your taste in movies is. See you next time.