J.D. Hansel

Halloween Movie

Coco Review

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The general rule of thumb when it comes to my opinions on Pixar films is this: other people complain about the ones I like, and I complain about the ones other people like.  I like a different tone and sentiment than the one Pixar usually offers, and it’s the tone they offer that makes so many people love Pixar.  It’s obviously more complicated than this though – even though I’ve heard people complain plenty about Inside Out, it’s generally regarded as a great Pixar movie, and I’m actually in the camp that really likes this one.  My brother, a far bigger Pixar nerd than I, also loved Inside Out, but I like Coco a heck of a lot more than he did, and it’s hard for me to understand this disparity.

The main reason why he didn’t like the movie is that, according to him, it doesn’t feel like a “real” Pixar movie.  He likes how most Pixar films give humanity or “souls” to objects and species that we generally don’t think have them: bugs, toys, cars, rats, monsters, robots, Scottish people, etc.  That being said, The Incredibles doesn’t do this, and Cars 2 does, so go figure.  He does have a point though: Coco feels more like it could come from Disney’s name-brand animation studio just as easily, and it does feel a little more formulaic and cliché than Pixar’s average feature.  (He noted that The Emoji Movie, which came out first, has a remarkably similar plot, and yet The Emoji Movie is the one that gets points off from critics for being too cliché.)  So I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed the film as much as I did.

To be fair, I actually have a bias towards this film – one of the makers of the film came to my college campus and gave us a sneak peak, so I feel a special attachment to it – but according to Rotten Tomatoes, 224 out of 232 critics also liked it, so there must be something here.  Part of why it works is the very fact that Pixar was trying to do something different.  They told a different kind of story than usual with a different style (certainly with darker comedy than usual), and their experimentation shows that they have some range.  The visual style is particularly dazzling, and I think the introduction of this new color pallette to the (generally bland) look of CGI animated films is one of the best things to happen to the animation industry in a decade.

More importantly though, much like with The LEGO Movie, this film knows what it’s doing when it uses the clichés.  It’s taking a formula we’ve all seen before and using it to fully show off a fresh, vivid, imaginative, and highly detailed world.  Pixar is using every trick in the book here – even tricks going back to “Skeleton Dance” – to give us an old-fashioned fantasy adventure film with lots of great music.  Even the film’s opening narration uses a kind of visual storytelling I’ve never seen before, and it serves as a great callback to old shadow puppet shows.  It’s also worth noting that this film will be, for many American children and probably a number of American adults, the first time they see a film that expects them to identify with an explicitly Mexican protagonist, which also makes the film feel fresh to me.

Still, I think I’m mostly pulled in by the emotion in the film.  Pixar hasn’t done a lot of movies about artists.  They’ve done films about characters who want to find their families (Finding Nemo), characters who feel rejected by their families (Toy Story), characters who miss their dead family members (Up), characters who have dysfunctional families (The Incredibles), and so on.  This is a story about family as well, but much like The Little Mermaid, it’s a good, old-fashioned story about someone who wants to do something that’s considered acceptable by the powers that be.  It’s a film about an artistic rebel – and a far more relatable one than Remy.

It’s always music and the arts that grab me emotionally, and this film does a beautiful job of depicting not only how music can connect people and bring out the best in people.  It perfectly captures the experience of being a kid who forms a bond with someone he’s never met because they speak the same artistic language and share a special passion.

I used to be that kid.  For me it was people like Jim Henson.  I can’t help but wonder who it will be for the kids who see this film, and wonder what lives they’ll lead because of it.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Review

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This film has been a source of inner conflict for me for a long time.  I saw most of it years ago, but I couldn’t finish it.  I found it too boring, even though I recognized its creativity.  I thought that I could overcome this dilemma by coming back to it a few years later, but sadly, I’m still caught in the same spot.

This film is brilliant.  Its visuals are absolutely stunning, and the attention to detail is so praiseworthy that one would have to bow down to Henry Selick in order to overstate how great the detail is.  Even the very idea of the film, with all of its characters and little gags, is pure genius.  In a way, I love this film.  The problem is that it gets very dull very fast.

The reason for this is that the film only has one note – or at least it holds the same note too long.  There are a few moments that stand out in the film as contributing something different to the film from its usual aesthetic: the scene in Christmas Town, the scene in which the toys attack the children on Christmas, and the scenes in which Santa is in the clutches of the Boogie Man.  All of these scenes are strong, and I like them a lot – the first is charming, the second is very Gremlins, and the third is very Tim Burton.  Apart from these, however, most of the film is just the same few feelings and motifs on repeat.

Some of this is due to the writing, and the actors might be partly to blame also, but this one mostly falls on Elfman.  “This Is Halloween” is a good, catchy song, but almost all the other songs run together and are nearly impossible to tell apart.  They all use the same few chords and are very limited in the emotions they express.  Consequently, the film feels like a broken record.  So I don’t think I could stand to watch this film every year, but since there’s clearly a lot to love hear, I’ll try to squeeze it in a couple times a decade.

Brotherhood of the Wolf Review

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Alternate Title: Le Pacte des loups

I feel the need to highlight this French film that isn’t very well-known in the States, even though it should be.  It’s an entertainment film, much like what one would expect from Hollywood, but there’s a key difference.  In the middle of its fights scenes and romance, there’s a running theme of the significance of the Age of Reason.  Consequently, it’s a skeptic’s alternative to Sleepy Hollow – a neat Halloween movie that does a better job of celebrating critical thinking.  While it is rather slow, it’s also dramatic, creepy, and clever.  Try it on for size one night when you’re in the mood for some chills.

Sleepy Hollow Review

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It’s always a pleasure to see a spooky movie that doesn’t rely too much on jump scares, instead reveling in a charmingly eerie aesthetic with creepy visuals.  In fact, it’s even a pleasure to find a film that’s not just trying to be a horror movie, but is specifically trying to be a Halloween movie.  It’s a special pleasure to watch a Halloween movie that’s not just throwing clownish, irritating exaggerations of Halloween character types at me the whole time.  This is the kind of pleasure I have come to expect from few directors but Tim Burton, who brings his knack for nightmarish aesthetics to the Washington Irving tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

Now, to be clear, this is not Burton at his best – by this point in his career we’ve already entered the phase in which he’s making everything bland and gray – but it’s still a fun watch.  Johnny Depp is as over-the-top as one would hope, without being annoying, and the rest of the cast is largely comprised of some of my favorite British actors.  The only problem here is that this great cast is working on great sets with a great director to bring to life a not-so-great screenplay.  It’s a predictable story with the usual bashing of “men of reason” for having too much certainty.  Yes, that’s right – the people who believe 100% in a headless horseman of all things accuse the sensible detective of having too much faith, all because he’s pretty sure he ought to be looking for a real, living murderer rather than an undead legend.  Now, I’ve seen this foolishness in enough Hollywood films that, for a silly fantasy story, I can almost let it go, so I can still mostly enjoy the movie.  The story may be weak and a little slow, but it’s still something I can see myself putting on the big TV every few Octobers.

Little Shop of Horrors (1960) Review

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Not a lot of people remember that this film was, for a while, a legend in Hollywood.  Countless directors told the tale of “The Movie Made in Two Days.”  The story goes that one filmmaker noticed that a set would be available on a studio lot for two days longer than it was needed, so he asked to have the set to shoot his own film on those two days.  He then wrote the script for a relatively short feature film, put together a cast, rehearsed it with them, and then shot all of the footage in just those two days.  One has to wonder, then, how does one make a feature in so short a time-span?

Easy: don’t worry about quality.  The film doesn’t mind at all that it’s stupid and ridiculous – in fact, it loves its own stupidity.  This was, after all, marketed as a comedy, which is only sensible since the idea of a low-budget horror movie about a talking plant is laughable.  I think because it appreciates its own “campiness,” I’m inclined to appreciate it as well.  The fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously makes for a movie that’s loads of fun, and that even has a few moments here and there that I wish could have been in its sacred remake (for example, I love the clever use of the cartoon drawing for the credits).

It may be stupid, but it’s also smart, and that’s why it’s more than deserving of its status as a cult classic.

An American Werewolf in London Review

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My appreciation of great horror films is always a little bit limited by the fact that I don’t really care for being scared all that much.  There is still some horror out there that I like, but this film doesn’t have that much of it – most of this film’s horror portions are simply slow builds to jump-scares.  Sometimes fun builds, but the point is still the “startle,” which isn’t my kind of horror.  This film does, however, offer my kind of humor.

Most of the movie is really a sort of bizarre ’80s comedy about a college kid and his buddy having a strange experience abroad, and the character comedy is absolutely delightful.  John Landis knows how to make the minor characters funny as well; the casting of Frank Oz here is perfect, and sometimes finding the right character actor is all it takes for great comedy.  I think that’s what I like so much about this film: Landis brings together different elements that don’t usually get put together, but his careful combination creates a rare and beautiful emotional effect on the viewer – an effect of uneasy laughter.  It’s simply a work of really smart craftsmanship, and while not all of it is the kind of entertainment I’m used to, this film is already inching its way closer and closer to my heart.