J.D. Hansel

Three and a Half Stars

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.

Hanna Review

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This movie almost merits two different reviews – it just doesn’t feel like it’s all the same film.  It somehow simultaneously embodies my favorite and least-favorite movements in contemporary American cinema.

As for what bothers me: it’s trying too hard to be artsy.  It thinks it is an art film, even though it isn’t, and it has a pretentious “hipster” vibe.  It really thinks it’s hot stuff, much like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but at least that film did not commit this film’s greatest sin – too many jump-scares.  As I may have said before, the jump-scare is the filmic equivalent to the playground bully who claps in front of children’s faces and mocks them for blinking.  It’s pathetic.  Of course, to complete this irritating aesthetic, much of the film is very gray and bland, which I suppose I should expect from a 2011 film.

However – and now it’s time for the good stuff – there are also scenes with beautiful lighting and colors, which feel as though they belong in a classic Tim Burton film.  These moments are rare, but they are very, very lovely.  Even before this aesthetic change though, the biggest shift in tone is when the electronic music kicks in, which injects the film with life and makes me grin like the Grinch.  Every movie soundtrack should be a little bit more like this movie’s soundtrack – the score is simply divine.  It helps that the film is driven by great characters performed by great actors.  Saoirse Ronan’s transformation is downright uncanny (in a good way), and praise for this is due to both the makeup department and Ronan herself, who makes the viewer believe in and care for a very unusual character.  I like intriguing female protagonists and threatening female villains, so I found it easy to stay engaged in the story.

The film is worth watching (and, perhaps, watching again) because it was clearly crafted with care.  As much as I hate how much the film embodies the errors of its time period, director Joe Wright is doing so much here that is genuinely artistic, original, and clever that, had he simply strayed further from the path, I think he could have made an amazing film.  As it is, however, this hipster of a film does actually have much intelligence – a shocking amount for an action film – and its thoughtful, precise incision of fairy tale elements into the DNA of the story is admirable.  Maybe the film’s good and bad aspects can be reconciled if one sees this as a turning point – a sign that we are moving away from what contemporary films have been and towards a future filled with color, synthesizers, great characters, and very smart writing.  Here’s hoping.

Delicatessen Review

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I think the first time I ever saw a scene from a French film was in one of my classes at Harford Community College.  The professor showed a brief clip in which residents of an apartment were all moving in unison to the rhythm of a couple having sex on a bed.  I never knew where it came from, but I would have liked to see the whole film since this scene struck me as both humorous very artistic.

I think the first time I ever saw a French film all the way through was when I watched Amélie.  Consequently, the stylistic choices of Jean-Pierre Jeunet formed my entire schema of what a French film was for a very long time – I think I assumed that his style was normal for French cinema because I didn’t realize the scene I had seen from Delicatessen was by the same director.  Now that I’ve seen many more French films, I can clearly see how Amélie and Delicatessen clearly belong in their own little corner doing their own little thing.

After a bit more consideration, however, what’s struck me is just how different the two films are.  Amélie, while it engages with the dark and gloomy, is extremely romantic, and Delicatessen, while it engages with romance, is extremely dark and gloomy.  Delicatessen takes pride in its repulsiveness, and for some strange reason, I appreciate that.  It’s a very icky movie, and I think it may have started a lot of bad trends in the filmmaking styles of the 1990s (bland color schemes, excessive fish-eye lenses, etc.), but it’s still clever, slick, and a well of creative inspiration.  Don’t make the same mistake I did – now that you know about it, see it sooner rather than later.

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.