Film Snark

NOTE: WE ARE FAST APPROACHING TOY STORY - so now is the time to remind folks, I'm not doing PIxar as a part of this. All of my film choices are based on this wikipedia page: List of Disney Theatrical Animated Feature Films). That contains the Pixar movies (but not Mary Poppins or Bedknobs and Broomsticks?! What?! Even though it includes So Dear to My Heart which had way less animation than those two movies. WHATEVER. Not like I'm mad about it.), but I'm going to skip Pixar because I really consider them to be a different class of movies. I'll probably do Pixar after Disney, if I ever finish Disney, which is unlikely given that there are 8 million Disney animated films.

CLAYMATION. CATHERINE O'HARA. DANNY ELFMAN. SPOOKINESS. SANTA. GREG PROOPS. TIM BURTON. WHAT THE HELL ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM A FILM.

Here's a really charming story that I still don't understand: when I taught in China I showed kids the beginning of this movie during my lesson about Halloween, and I had found a clip with Chinese subtitles. I showed them "This is Halloween" and there is some scary stuff in there. For some reason, in all 15 of my classes, when the lyrics got to the "I am the wind blowing through your hair" line, (it's just wind and Sally combing her hair while some leaves go by), all the girls would squeal in fear. So like........I still want to know what those subtitles said. Maybe they said, "Your laowai teacher is probably showing you this movie, you should act scared and it'll confuse her for decades."

So much of this movie is actually SCARY - that frickin' clown with the tearaway face.........omg! The thing under the bed! The thing under the stairs! This film really does a great job of teaching kids that sometimes being scared can be fun. I mean for other people. Not for me. 😕 But it's also charming and funny; when the kids are getting attacked by their presents, no one actually gets hurt, and the toy attacks are done in clever ways. One of my favorites is the killer wreath.

God the plot of this movie is a Greek tragedy on the order of Oedipus and Medea; the absolute HUBRIS of Jack. You can really feel your emotions get tangled up in the plot as the movie goes along; you want Jack to succeed but you know when he does it's not going to be right. The audience is Sally in this film.

The aesthetic for both Halloweentown and Christmastown are so perfectly Tim Burton; even when he's designing cheery, it's a little creepy and odd, and I love that. I think Christmastown looks like all the ceramic Christmas decorations my mom always put out for the season; the Christmas trees look just like some ceramic trees she had, and the buildings look like the little Christmas villages she put out with fake snow and little fake trees. I love the design of Santa. He's jolly and larger than life, and the size of his hands and feet in comparison make him adorable. I also love that Oogie's lair is a riot of color in a world that's all muted greens, grays, and browns. I love Oogie as a bad guy. He's almost incidental to the plot; the real story is Jack's pride and fall, Oogie's just the last obstacle and provides catharsis, like any other Greek tragedy.

The characters are iconic; Sally, Jack, the Mayor, Santa, Zero, Dr. Finkelstein, and of course, Lock, Shock, and Barrel. But I also always remember specific characters with great one-liners: the vampire who says "I peeked behind the cyclops' eye, I DID, but he wasn't there!" and the guy with the ax in his head who shouts "BUNNY" at the Easter Bunny. The voice actors are perfection. I love that Catherine O'Hara plays both Sally and Shock, it genuinely brings me joy. To be honest there isn't a single character whose design I don't like; they are all unique and so well designed that it fleshes out their characters in a way we haven't really seen in Disney films before. The thing that's great about claymation is that you can't just print out sheets and sheets of it like you can with animation cels. It's not super fair to compare animation to claymation, and it's very interesting how modern animation is striving for a three-dimensional realism that is built-in for claymation. Think of Anna and Elsa, Moana and Maui. Of course this setting (being Halloweentown) is a little more forgiving of the more stilted movement of this particular claymation, but then you watch something like The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and it becomes clear what a flexible medium claymation really is. It's really all in the cinematography, the lighting, and the editing.

Where do I start with the music. Where. Do. I. Start. Danny Elfman is such a perfect composer for this film. He's also the perfect singing voice for Jack. The lyrics are moving and epic, I know almost every song by heart (or at least, I used to when I was younger and still had a memory to speak of). Sally's songs are haunting, and Jack's songs ramp up the anxiety and drama through the whole film. "What Have I Done" is heart-wrenching, listening to Jack's lament for his failure. "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" is a treasure; it's character development for the henchmen, and it's FUN. It's DARK FUN. I love it. "Making Christmas" is done in a really threatening minor key, foreshadowing the folly of this plan, and when Jack sings, "I can't believe what's happening to me" it's so obvious he's not in a mental place to accept responsibility for his actions; he thinks this is great, and he thinks it's "happening" to him, as if he deserves it.