Revisiting Some Christmas Time Nightmare

Revisiting Some Christmas Time Nightmare

I already attacked ONE Disney item, might as well go for a combo and pound on another while I have it in my system. We're almost to the end of the Celebrating of Holidays for 2009 and the big one is coming up. Christmas Day! Yes, that's right, we've moved past Halloween and stuffed ourselves over Thanksgiving leaving us with Christmas. Though dropping Thanksgiving from the whole picture you get Halloween and Christmas.

And if you're anything like me, you'll realize that those two are the really good ones. If not for anything else, than just for the fact that it's the perfect time to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas any time between Halloween and Christmas day. It's perfect because it's chronologically taking place between that time frame in the film as the opening happens on Halloween and the ending is where Jack finds out the true meaning of Christmas.



So perhaps it's time that you crack out that DVD, or if you're like me, that Blu ray disc and watch it. But whatever you do, do not go to your local record store and buy or even listen to this awful "revisit" to the NBC franchise that a couple of bands went and did. It's utterly awful in every possible way and if you don't believe me, let me explain;

Nightmare Before Christmas Revisited is a cover of the nightmare before Christmas soundtrack.. pretty simple enough, right? I guess the real question would be why would you want to do that? The soundtrack was good enough as it was. The answer.. Because there could be money to be made here.

I'm positive I tell this story every time I talk about NBC, but back when it was released in the early 90's, no one gave a shit about it. It was under Disney's Touchstone banner because, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it was deemed "too adult" in content. You would not see Disney make mention or make products for it. In Japan though, it was huge with promotional material, key chains, toys, etc. Then around the early 2000's, Hot topic started marketing the hell out of it and the Goth kids ate it up.



I really don't care for the fan base of the movie. As much as I love it, I just can't see any situation where I can wear my old Jack Skellington shirts around. It's really a shame. Thanks Hot Topic, you really ruined and over saturated a good thing. I mean that because if it hadn't caught on like that, maybe that crowd wouldn't have latched on so tightly to it? Maybe, just maybe this revisit would have never happened an we wouldn't have had these Hot Topic tailored bands singing and really giving these songs a bad name.

Oh, don't believe me? Take a listen to these songs that are on on this abortion of an album.

First up we have Marilyn Mansions rendition of This is Halloween;


Ugh! What the hell was that shit?

Jack's Lament by All American Rejects

......

Fucking seriously?

What's this by Flyleaf


I have no fucking idea who the hell flyleaf is. Maybe I'm just out of it and I don't know the latest music, but they have not made any impact on my listening of radio and music to even show up on my radar. Their use of this song.. well, it's really just awful all around.

The Polyphonic Spree - Town Meeting Song


Why would you do this? It just.. seems really odd. The band has this sort of silverlake vibe to it and it's not needed for this song.

Jack's Obsession by Sparklehorse


Fuck Sparklehorse and Fuck this. Really was a bastardization of the song. No need for all that extra sound to get any point across. Fuck this gay earth.

Korn performing Kindap the Sandy Claws


I don't even know where to start on this one. Really does make it so that those suburban kids can be all emo and what not. Oh poor you, you live in track homes..

I guess the banks are foreclosing on them now anyway, so maybe they do have something to be completely emotional about. The loss of their homes.


Rise Against performing Making Christmas


How is this not considered complete shit by anyone who was working on the album? Oh, because their taste was utterly shit. How is this even remotely close to the original in way?

Christmas eve montage RJD2


Hey, I know.. what if NBC was created back in the 70's and injected full of 'da funk'?

Poor Jack by Plain White T's


I'm not sure what that is suppose to be.. but I know it's not music. I'm not just reaching a "Get off my lawn" sort of mood. That music was really awful.

Here's two versions of Oogie Boogie's Song:


That one is done by Tiger Army.. Which can go suck a dick going from ass to mouth.

On the other hand....

Rodrigo y Gaberilla performing Oogie Boogie's Theme


Was something I enjoyed. It was close enough to the original without having to do so much over the top bullshit that the other songs so far have done. I enjoyed this one. Why? Because it was at least not

Shiny Toy Guns performing Finale/Reprise


Yeah.. that one can go fuck itself as well.

Sally's Song by Amy Lee


That one was alright because they didn't put too much into it other than what was originally there.

After my ears stop bleeding and I stop screaming on how much of a travesty this is, I come to the conclusion that I should just ignore this like I do any other thing that Hot Topic has spawned after the success of this commercialization of Nightmare Before Christmas.

So there you have it folks. A reminder that you could also be watching NBC right now before Christmas comes around and just forget this album ever existed. If you didn't know it did till this blog post, I'm terribly terribly sorry for putting that on you.

Sweet Coraline

Sweet Coraline


Ohhh, sweet Caroline, good times never seem so good

I should set the record straight, I've liked Nightmare Before Christmas long before it was cool to like it. Not trying to sound like... ok, no - I am trying to sound like an elitist. back when it was released it wasn't released under the Disney banner. It was too "adult themed" for kids in Disney's taste. The same company that allows their duck to walk around without pants was a bit uppity so they released it under the Touchstone company logo. This also happened with Who Framed Roger Rabbit because it had a curvy redhead in it.

For years after the release you would see no mention of NBC from Disney. They didn't acknowledge it. It wasn't as bad as Song of the South, but it was still pretty much something they didn't want to claim. Like the retarded cousin you don't claim during the family outing. You wouldn't see any sort of merchandise for it. Over in Japan though, Jun planning had the licensing for the movie and marketed the shit out of it. I would have to import all my nightmare before Christmas crap from Japan.


The sort of shit you wont normally find at Hot Topic

Around 2000-2001, Disney got on the ball and started mass marketing anything they could with Jack Skellington's face on it. Hot Topics around the states were filled with crap of it. It would have been a good thing if it wasn't all shit and didn't saturate the market so that every kid, not even old enough to remember the release was wearing the pumpkin king's skull on their chest. It looked tacky.

So consider my surprise when I heard that Henry Selick was going to adapt a Neil Gaiman book to film. While I love Neil Gaiman and his leather Jacket wearing coolness in his finely crafted words and stories, color me not surprised when this book becomes the next big merchandising machine for the Hot Topic crowd. You might as well get Jhonnen Vasquez working with Tim Burton to bring about something that will get everyone eating up anything and everything they'd toss money at for.


Stop Motion is a lot of work

I was still excited to see the movie. Don't get me wrong, I loved the book and the idea of one of my favorite stop motion animators working on it was great all around. So what could I complain about? If I stopped liking anything that was embraced by the emo/goth/whatever is considered the "outside" of the time, I wouldn't have anything to like.

Here's a little video of the hard work put into this

Pretty impressive... and just flat out pretty all around.

Stop motion in general peaked my interest when I was very young. I did a couple of pieces with an old 8mm camera. I'm sure they're buried somewhere. So I understand the hard work it takes to get something like this to actually look not only good, but to run smoothly.


Big sets for little pieces

While I normally scoff at 3D gimmicks, I had heard that this one didn't pander with cheap 3D gimmicks like throwing things at the 4th wall for the sake of getting a cheap 3D popup scare. It's subtle. If anything, you're just seeing the difference in the depht of field between characters and objects. Some things pop out more than others and the only really obnoxious 3D 4th wall break effect seemed to be a flying triangle and a couple of vampire dogs going your way. I'd say it's well worth the extra amount they charge for a 3D viewing.

If you're still interested in seeing it in 3D, Arclight is still showing Coraline in 3D while other theaters moved on to the Jonas Brothers shit film. So don't believe the hype of those ads about it being your last weekend to watch it. I suppose it's only true if you live in some bumfuck backwoods town. In which case, you might as well move to somewhere better.


Why hey, it's a book.

Back to the film, while it did deviate a good amount from the book, I did realize that the changes made to the movie work in the context of the movie format. You can't have Coraline talking to a cat. You need to add another kid her age for exposition. Good job on that. So while the book was short and sweet, the movie was also well crafted and just as fun.

The film sort of reminded me of Jan Svankmajer's work. Particularly his ALICE film. Except far less creepy. What with the sawdust coming out of the creatures. It was practically taken straight out of ALICE for that matter. Again, that movie was really creepy. Really really creepy.


A girl with many faces

Most of all I really did like the character design. Coraline's facial expressions were amazing for being individually created. A single line of speech took many face changes to come across as actual dialogue. Her mouth always seemed to be slight off to the left side of her face. It really did add to the character. I don't care what goth kids are going to grab on to this, Coraline looked adorable.

My issue is how can you have a movie this innovative, this creatively designed and ripe with potential for a video game and yet you only have a video game out for Wii, DS and PS2... PS2? Seriously? Who the fuck even has a PS2 anymore? You can't come up with a PS3 game? You know, take advantage of this new generation of graphics and memory capcaity and create a game that is worthy to the film it is based on?



You have things like jumping mice circuses and this whole garden that's amazingly detailed and you can't bump it up a notch when making a game? It did take three years to make this film, don't you think that's enough time to market and program a game that's to the same caliber?

How about a little big planet style of lay out? Speaking of which.. was that sackboy in the trailers for Tim Burton's 9? But enough about Burton, lets not mix him up in here before everyone confuses this as a work of his as they did when they marketed James and the Giant Peach.



There was no Denny Elfman score. There wasn't the Burton swirllie designs. It was entirely Gaiman's and Henry's designs. So I'm really greatful for that. While I love Tim Burton, I think the Corpse bride had its issues and I'm glad that it didn't crawl into this, as much as others believe that all things attached to NBC are all Burton.

The movie had an amazing score. I loved the music in every aspect. It's unique and odd, but it fit the tone of the movie, and it really fit with Gaiman's usual style as well. They Might Be Giant's wrote The Other Father's song. That's simply awesome in every aspect possible. It doesn't hurt to hear They Might Be Giants on the soundtrack.

There it is... Though just cause I posted it doesn't mean you don't have to see the movie anymore. GO! WATCH IT!

This movie also had a lot of fan service for those who followed it through the making. As Laika Entertainment sent many bloggers little goodies treats in mystery boxes. It was a very interesting to see who was getting what. All of them had a little piece of the film and were hand crafted in very limited number sets. Some got animation doll parts, others got pieces from the set. In total there was 50 or so boxes shipped out and not all of them have been reported on. So who knows what's out there left to be uncovered.



As for the Jerk wad aspect. It's just a code. You have to go to the official site. Go into Coraline's bedroom and click her nightstand drawer. Enter the password and you can be signed up for a drawing to win Coraline Nike shoes. Not much, but it's something. The director also wanted it to be Coraline's nickname for wybie.

Go see it before you don't have a chance to experience this on the big screen.