Hayao Miyazaki Double Feature

Kaze No Tani No Naushika (1984)

(Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind)

In the far future, a thousand years after a nuclear war left the Earth as a nuclear holocaust. The Valley of the Wind, a small kingdom ruled by King Jil struggles for survival as the community tries to defend the Valley from gigantic Ohm creatures and toxic plants that live beyond the Valley in the Sea of Decay, whilst Jil's daughter and heiress to the throne, Princess Nausicaa tries to understand and feels it is wrong to destroy the toxic jungle. The Valley is attacked by the Tolmekian people who plan to destroy the Sea of Decay by using the giant warriors that started the holocaust. After Nausicaa is taken prisoner, she escapes and goes beneath the Sea of Decay where she discovers the toxic plants are not poisoning the air but are purifying the world by draining the air of radiation and toxins. With everything at stake, Nausicaa unites with the Ohms and set out to the Valley to foil the Tolmekians plan of unleashing the Great Warrior before they start another holocaust. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: After the original, heavily re-written and edited 1980s release of this film in the United States (as "Warriors of the Wind"), which substantially changed the movie, Hayao Miyazaki demanded that any new licensor for his films be contractually bound to do no edits whatsoever aside from a straight translation and dub. Disney (who bought the rights to all of Miyazaki's films except Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro (1979)) has honored this stipulation. Nausicaä is the name of a character in Homer's Odyssey. Ohmu means "king of the insects" in Japanese. The "Nausicaans" from Star Trek: The Next Generation were so named because the Star Trek writers were big fans of Japanese manga and anime, and Nausicaa in particular.

This one of Miyazaki's first features and it is a wonderful little film. There are normally three things you can count on in a Miyazaki film. Nature overcoming man, flying machines, and very strong female characters. You get all of these in Nausicaa. The princess, Nausicaa is a warm, kind hearted person adored by all of her fellow countrymen. She is strong, smart, daring, beautiful, and tough. Her compassion for all things living is amazing. She flies a glider with great skill, and the other humans all fly planes. The flying sequences are so vivid and beauitful. The forrest with it's defending insects and deadly spores really is a good way to show what could happen after we destroy our world. This is a wonderful movie and I would highly recommend it and Miyazaki's other movies...and speaking of his other movies...

Kurenai No Buta (1992)

(Porco Rosso)

In Early 1930's era Italy, air pirates, bounty hunters and high flyers of all sorts rule the skies. The most cunning and skilled of these pilots is Porco Rosso, a man cursed with the head of a pig after watching the spirits of the pilots killed in the last air battle he fought in rise to the heavens. He now makes a living taking jobs, such as rescuing those kidnapped by air pirates. Hilarity ensues. Donald Curtis, Porco's rival in the air and in catching the affections of women, provides a constant challenge to the hero, culminating in a hilarious, action packed finale.

Trivia: Porco Rosso was originally planned as a 30-45 minute in-flight movies for Japan Airlines. Director Miyazaki eventually expanded it into a feature-length production. The name of the production studio (Ghibli) is embossed on the engine Piccolo installs in Porco's new plane. Marco Paggot (Porco Rosso's real name) is named after an Italian animator who had worked with Hayao Miyazaki earlier in his career. Miyazaki mentioned in a chat room that the ghost plane scene was inspired from a passage in a Roald Dahl story. Hayao Miyazaki has stated that he prefers the French language cast (in particular Jean Reno as Porco Rosso) over the Japanese cast.

Wait, I bet you are saying, "Will, you just said Miyazaki movies normally have 3 things, that nature stuff, airplanes, and strong female characters. I only see the airplanes." And that is mostly true. Porco Rosso is just about the only exception on the nature vs man part, but...Miyazaki frequently works in pigs as a show of the dark side of man and Porco Rosso is no exception there. Miyazaki does a good job in showing the callous nature of Porco, but on the other hand, he also shows a soft side to Porco. As for the strong female characters? Well, it has them too, in the forms of Gina, an old flame who isn't quite out, and Fio, the 17 year old daughter of Rosso's Italian friend and who redesignes Rosso's plane and, with the help of her many female relatives rebuilds the plane as well.

Top 250: WALL·E (2008)

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALL*E discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL*E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, hilarity ensues as WALL*E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets an adventure into motion. Joining WALL*E on his journey across the universe is a cast of characters including a pet cockroach and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots.

Trivia: The main character's name is actually an acronym, standing for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-Class. EVE stands for Extraterrestial Vegetation Evaluator and M-O stands for Microbe Obliterator. Most of the predominantly robot cast of characters (including WALL*E and M-O) are voiced by Ben Burtt through mechanical sounds of his creation. The film contains numerous references to Apple computers: -when WALL-E is fully charged by the sun, he makes the same "boot up" sound that Apple computers have made since the earliest Macintosh system -WALL-E watches his favorite movie every night on the screen of an iPod -The villainous Autopilot's voice is provided by Apple's text-to-speech system, MacinTalk -EVE's sleek design as an evolution of WALL-E's parallels the sleek iMac design having evolved from the boxy, beige Apple IIe. Steve Jobs, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer, was CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney in 2005, and as a shareholder and member of the Disney Board of Directors is still actively involved with the company. WALL*E collects numerous objects from the 60's-80's including a VCR tape of Hello, Dolly! (featured prominently in the film), a Rubik's Cube, and even an Atari 2600 with the game Pong. Despite the film taking place over 800 years after these objects were created, all the objects are still in working condition. The name of the ship that the humans are living on is "The Axiom." In logic and math, an axiom is something unquestionable or taken for granted. Director Andrew Stanton explained why he used excerpts from Hello, Dolly! in an interview: "When I got to 'Hello, Dolly!' and I played 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes,' and that first phrase 'Out there...' came out, it just fit musically... I finally realized, 'You know what, this song is about two guys that are just so naïve, they've never left a small town, and they just wanna go out in the big city for one night and kiss a girl. That's my main character.' And then my co-writer, Jim Reardon, said, 'You know what, he could actually discover an old tape in the trash, and that's how he got inspired by it, and it's a great way to show that he's got a romantic slant.' So we started looking at the movie, and when I found the other song, 'It Only Takes A Moment,' and saw the two lovers holding hands, I realized 'That's a perfect way for my main character to express the phrase 'I love you' without being able to say it.'"

I am sure that if you know me at all you know that I am a huge PIXAR fan so WALL*E was a very highly anticipated release for me. They just have a talent for telling a compelling story. From the very beginning you feel a friendship with this lonely little robot left alone on Earth for 700 years. His personality is quirky, his house is endearing and he has a cockroach as a friend, how cool is that. Then EVE shows up and you can sense the feelings that WALL*E has for her from the start. By the way, if you have never heard of Ben Burtt, I will bet you anything that you have heard his work. Ben Burtt is a sound designer, but not only that, he is an Oscar award winning sound desginer that is responsible for among many other things, the voices and sounds for the aliens and droids of Star Wars, the rumbling sound of the gigantic boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the sound of the lightsabers.

The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle (2000)

35 years after their television show was cancel, we find our heroes living day to day in a deteriorating Frostbite Falls on the residuals from reruns. While in Pottsylvania Fearless Leader (Robert DeNiro, yeah, that Robert DeNiro), Boris Badenov (Jason Alexander) and Natasha Fatale (Rene Russo) hatch an evil plan to take over the world by brainwashing the poulation of the United States and getting the voters to vote for Fearless Leader. All then need is a cable television station. Check, they create RBTV (Really Bad Television). They need to get to America. Check, they dig a tunel. They need to become real and not just cartoons. Check with the help of a Hollywwod Producer that buys the rights to the Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie. Hilarity ensues when FBI Agent Karen Sympathy (Piper Parabo) is assigned to stop the trio in the only way they have every been stopped before, with the help of moose and squirrel.

Trivia: The Whassamatta University infirmary is labeled "J. Ward", a homage to Rocky and Bullwinkle creator, Jay Ward. This film was originally in pre-production in the early 1990s, with Danny DeVito and Meryl Streep set to play Boris and Natasha. Legal problems with copyrights prevented the film being made until several years later. The students in the film were actually real students of Chapman University, where part of the film takes place. June Foray, one of the surviving members of the original "Rocky and His Friends", who created the voice of Rocket J. Squirrel, does Rocky's voice for this film. She also recreates the voice of Natasha (when Natasha is in cartoon form) and her ubiquitous "old woman" voice from the old series as the voice of the narrator's mother. For the narration, Keith Scott is doing an imitation of the voice of the late William Conrad, who had been the narrator for the original animated adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, "Rocky and His Friends".

It is pun filled, low brow, infintile at times and has a ton of movie cliches and doesn't take itself seriously. That is why it is funny. I will admit that I am not a die-hard Rocky and Bullwinkle fan (I don't go out of my way to watch it) but I will stop and watch it if I come across it. The thing that makes the Rocky and Bullwinkle series fun to watch is that it doesn't cater to one kind of kid like some, well, most of the cartoons of today. Any age could watch it and it would be funny. And in fact it is even funnier the older you get. Today if a cartoon isn't trying to teach a child some moral lesson it isn't worth making. This leads to boring cartoons. They are to generic, too politically correct, too something. I have no idea how kids can sit there are watch that stuff over and over and over again on DVD. Talk about brainwashing kids, there is something fishy there. Of course DeNiro did seem to have a pretty pained look on his face when he was delivering some of his lines (especially when he had to do the Taxi Driver monologue, "You looking at me?") and Natasha didn't have enough lines. I know Badenov is supposed to be the main villian but in the original series Natasha had the best lines.

And don't foget to take a crack at the trivia questions below. Have a happy Memorial Day Weekend. See ya on the other side.

Enchanted (2007)

Once upon a time in the kingdom of Andalasia, a beautiful young maiden named Giselle (Amy Adams) lives in a cottage in the forest. But before she can marry the dashing Prince Edward (James Marsden), hilarity ensues when Giselle is sent tumbling down a magical well - and finds herself in the non-animated, extremely disenchanted world of modern-day New York City. There, she befriends a cynical divorce lawyer, Robert (Patrick Dempsey), who isn't so sure that her prince is coming to rescue her. Giselle's spontaneous singing and fairy-tale demeanor enchant everyone around her as she waits for Prince Edward. But she's about to discover that love in the real world isn't always as easy as sharing a single True Love's Kiss - and that she'll need courage, spunk and maybe just a little enchantment if she's ever going to find her own happily-ever-after.

Trivia: The bus driver's hair is shaped like Mickey Mouse's ears, as well as the green pepper slices on the pizza Robert and Giselle are served at the Bella Notte restaurant. In the scene where Prince Edward is standing on top of a moving bus, billboards for Hairspray (the Broadway Production) and Superman Returns are visible. James Marsden, who plays Prince Edward, stars in Superman Returns, and the movie, Hairspray, based off the Broadway Production. In the scene where Edward is on top of the bus, the people riding on tour buses next to him laughing and pointing at him weren't extras, but actual real tourists. The actresses who provided the voices for three previous animated Disney princesses make appearances in the film: Jodi Benson (‘Ariel’ in The Little Mermaid), Paige O'Hara (‘Belle’ in Beauty and the Beast), and Judy Kuhn (Pocahontas). Also, Julie Andrews, who starred as the title character in Disney's live-action Mary Poppins, provides her voice here as the Narrator. Cathleen Trigg's character's name is Mary Ilene Caselotti. This is a tribute to Mary Costa, the voice of Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Ilene Woods, who did the voice of Disney's Cinderella, and Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Disney's first princess, Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The law firm where Robert works is Churchill, Harline and Smith, the surnames of the songwriters from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Two of the elderly men dancers appeared together in West Side Story. One of the elderly men dancers appeared in Mary Poppins as a chimney sweep.

What can I say? As an admitted Disneyphile, this movie just called to me. I didn't get a chance to see it in theaters so it garnered a top spot on my netflix queue. What I love about it is how it can have fun with itself. It doesn't take itself seriously and how could it? Andalasia is pure Disney charm. Amy Adams works well as the out of place princess and you couldn't help but like her. James Marsden is hilarious as Gisselle's prince charming (um...I mean Prince Edward). Three of the songs were nominated for Oscars this year and each had the Disney magic behind them. The "Happy Working Song" is pure Disney (I keep saying that) with Amy Adams accompanied by pigeons, rats, and coachroachs (relax, it is actually pretty charming). "So Close", the romantic dance near the end was just beautiful. But it was "That's How You Know" that was the best. It was a full on production number in the middle of Central Park. It blended the fairytail feel with a live music feel if that makes any sense. Disney is at it's best when it isn't trying very hard to be anything else but just trys to be Disney.

Don't forget to send in your answers for this weeks quiz.

Beowulf [Digital 3-D] (2007)

n Denmark in the year 507 a.D., elderly King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his people are terrorized by the misshapen half-human, half-demon Grendel (Crispin Glover). Hrothgar orders the mead hall sealed and sends out a call for a hero to come and rid the kingdom of Grendel. Several months later, Beowulf (Ray Winstone) answers the call. Beowulf and Hrothgar's
queen, Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) are clearly attracted to one another. Hilarity ensues as Beowulf prepares to battle the vile Grendel. And to make it fair, since Grendel uses no weapons, Beowulf will face him naked.

Trivia: According Ray Winstone, he and his fellow cast spent days filming in blue skintight suit, "showing up all your lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. Which can be hard when you're standing in front of Angelina, who looks stunning in hers." According to visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen, close to 300 cameras were used to motion capture the performances, compared with 64 to 72 for The Polar Express (2004).

Well, after much hilarity ensuing in my own life, I am back to torture you with my well intentioned yet sometimes lacking reviews. Beowulf. I watched this in Digital 3-D and it is stunning. This isn't your parent's 3-D. The action is smooth and the image is crystal clear. The only thing is that currently it is only being used for animated movies. That will change with the release of Journey 3-D with Brendan Fraser next year, the first live action Digital 3-D movie (the preview looks awesome), but back to the movie. Be sure to watch this in the 3-D format because it will enhance the movie tenfold. The movie itself is a tad simple and at times maddening in the animation. The motion capture is great for the action, but things like the eyes of the characters is still lacking. There just doesn't seem to be much life in the eyes at times and occasionally the backgrounds disappoint. The action more then makes up for the occasional lapse in the animation and once or twice you actually forget you are watching an animated movie. The motion capture does a fantastic job capturing the performances of the actors and with actors like Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich (the king's adviser), Robin Wright Penn, and Angelina Jolie (the water demon, those are her legs in the poster) you get some good performances. The camera also is unhindered because of the fact that it is animated so you are treated to some exceptional camera angles that you would be hardpressed to duplicate in anything but CGI. So to sum up, if you watch this film, be sure to see it in 3-D.

Top 250

The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Number 148 on IMDb's Top 250

Springfield faces a crisis. The lake is on the verge of destruction due to heavy polluting by the town. Meanwhile, Homer adopts a pig who has run away from Krusty Burger after Krusty tried to have him slaughtered. Homer names the pig "Spider Pig." Spider Pig's waste has filled up a silo in just 2 days, apparently with Homer's help. Since the town has decided to protect the lake and ban anyone from dumping waste, the lines at the dump have expanded to the point Homer can't get to the dump quickly so dumps the silo in the lake, polluting it. Russ Cargill, the villainous boss of the EPA, gives President Arnold Schwarzenegger 5 options, who picks the option of putting a dome over Springfield to prevent evacuation and hilarity ensues. Homer, however, has escaped, along with his family. Can he stop the evil Cargill from annihilating his home town, and his family, who have been forced to return to Springfield?

Trivia: Twentieth Century Fox registered the internet domain SIMPSONSMOVIE.COM on April 22 1997, nine years before the movie finally was green lighted. The Simpson's movie debuted in Springfield, Vermont. 20th Century Fox held a contest to select 1 of 16 possible Springfields (spanning from Oregon to Nebraska to Massachusetts) to decide which city will host the premiere. Springfield, Vermont won, just beating out Springfield, Illinois. The script for the voice work was to be kept so secret that the producers personally shred the script after every voicing session. Work on the script began in 2003. 158 drafts were written. For the entire month of July 2007, as part of a campaign to hype the July 27th opening of the movie, 11 "7-Elevens" stores all over North America changed their names to Kwik-E-Marts, and begun selling products like Buzz Cola, KrustyO's cereal, and Squishees - including WooHoo! Blue Vanilla flavor. One store in Burbank, CA reported selling over 57,000 sprinkled donuts matching the one featured in the movie poster.

Well this is on the Top 250 list now, but I don't see it lasting very long there. It has already dropped from it's initial point in the top 50 and is now at 148. Yes, it is funny. It has all the Simpsons flair to it. But there just wasn't anything to make it stand out. It is just a big budget hour and a half version of a typical show. I think it has suffered from it's marketing. The anticipation outgrew the movie. Some fans have been waiting for this movie for ten years or longer (it is currently in it's 18th season) and their was probably no way it could have lived up to it's hype.

Remember to email me your trivia guesses.

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

When a new princess is born to King Stefan & his wife, the entire kingdom rejoices. At a ceremony, three good fairies - Flora, Fauna & Merryweather - bestow gifts of magic on the child. But an evil sorceress named Maleficent shows up, and because of a rude remark by Merryweather, she places a curse on the princess - that she will die on her 16th birthday after touching a poisoned spinning wheel. Merryweather tries to undo the damage by casting a spell that will allow the princess - named Aurora - to awake from an ageless sleep with a kiss from her true love. The fairies take Aurora to their cottage in the woods to keep her away from the eyes of Maleficent, and raise her as their own child, named Briar Rose. On her 16th birthday Aurora meets Prince Phillip, the son of a king whose own kingdom will soon merge with King Stefan's - and falls in love. Maleficent manages to kidnap the Prince and her horrible prophecy is fulfilled when she tricks Aurora into touching a spinning wheel created by Maleficent herself! Realizing that the Prince is in trouble, the 3 good fairies head to Maleficent's castle at the Forbidden Mountain, and spring the Prince loose. But the Prince soon finds himself up against Maleficent's army of brutes, and the power of Maleficent's evil spells - which include a thorn forest as thick as weeds around King Stefan's castle, and a fight against Maleficent when she turns herself into a dragon! Is the Prince strong enough to withstand the powers of the evil sorceress? Will hilarity ensues? (Well, this is Disney)

Trivia: Art direction for this movie was inspired by medieval painting and architecture. Live actors in costume served as models for the animators. The role of Prince Phillip was modeled by Ed Kemmer, who had played Commander Buzz Corry on television's "Space Patrol" five years before Sleeping Beauty was released. For the final battle sequence Kemmer was photographed on a wooden buck. All the live actors' performances were later screened for the animators' reference. When the fairies discuss how to help the king and queen, notice Merryweather magically create cookies, they are the shape of Mickey Mouse. Disney Studios has no record as to who provided the voice for the queen, Briar Rose's mother. Much of the musical score is based on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Sleeping Beauty". A flame thrower was used to create the dragon breath sound effect for the climax of the movie. Castanets were used for the sound of its snapping jaws. The elaborate background paintings usually took seven to ten days to paint. By contrast, a typical animation background takes one workday to complete. Second only to Dumbo (who didn't speak at all), this Disney title character has very few lines of actual dialogue throughout the entire film (well, she was sleeping from half of it). In fact, Briar Rose/Aurora says nothing at all in the film's second half. The Disneyland castle was named for this film, even though the park opened four years prior to the film's release. Princess Aurora's long, thin, willowy body shape was inspired by that of Audrey Hepburn. Briar Rose is the Sleeping Beauty's name the German fairytale. Princess Aurora is Sleeping Beauty's name in the Italian version.

Ah, Disney, for some reason I haven't watched a Disney film in a while so when my niece and nephew watched it this weekend, I joined in. What really struck me with Sleeping Beauty is the whole sense of art. The backgrounds are tremendous. They look like watercolors. Each Disney film has it's own visual style which is why they are so good. Maleficent is truly one of the most evil of Disney villians (why are most of the best Disney villians women?). I liked her design, she looks like the dragon she turns into in the end.

Ratatouille (2007)

Remy has a dream of becoming a chef in a fancy restaurant in Paris, but there is a slight problem, Remy is a rat. This poses a problem until he is meet and befriended by Linguini the garbage boy at Gusteau's. Linguini has no talent for cooking. When Remy fixes a soup that Linguini has ruined everyone thinks he did it and he is promoted to cook. Hilarity ensues when Linguini (with Remy's help) starts to be noticed for his food and he starts to fall in love with Colette who helps him get started. Meanwhile Remy struggles with his family who thinks he should stay away from humans and be satisfied with the food they can steal. Will Remy, Linguini, and Colette be able to save the restaurant from a bad review by the infamous critic Anton Ego who could doom them with one stroke of his typewriter.

Trivia: The animation team worked alongside chef Thomas Keller at his restaurant French Laundry in order to learn the art of cooking. Mr. Keller also appears in a cameo role as the voice of a patron at Gusteau's. Michael Warch, the manager of sets and layout, holds a culinary degree. Several changes to the design of the rats (primarily the nose and ears) were made after Debbie Ducommun, a rat expert, brought down several of her personal pets for the art and animation departments to observe. To create a realistic looking compost pile, artists photographed and researched the way real produce rots. Fifteen different kinds of produce were left to rot and then photographed, such as apples, berries, bananas, mushrooms, oranges, broccoli and lettuce. To find out how to animate the scene where the chef is wet, they actually dressed someone in a chef suit, and put him in a swimming pool to see which parts of the suit stuck to his body, and which parts you could see through.

If you know me you know that I love Pixar. So some of you are probably wondering why I haven't reviewed Pixar's new Ratatouille yet. After all, it did open on Friday. Well, I was out Letterboxing with the parental units over the weekend and having a great time (the world is not just movies after all) so I didn't see it until last night. Wow, it was great. The story is heartwarming. The characters are entertaining. The voices aren't annoying. One of the things I like about Pixar films is that the story drives the movie and they don't stoop to adding pop culture references and highly recognisable voices. Let's take, for instance, oh, I don't know, Shrek The Third. It is a fun movie sure, but in 20 years will kids watch it and be able to get all the pop culture that is soprevalent in just about every scene. And Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers did great jobs bringing Donkey and Shrek to life, but you still sit in the theater thinking, hey, that's Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers. Ratatouille is different. It is classically told and the voices were picked to fit the characters and they do. I purposefully left out the names of the actors who voiced the characters in the ploy summary above because you can have just as much fun watching without knowing as you would by knowing. Another thing that I loved was the fact that Remy couldn't talk to Linguini, he had to gesture or tail slap or even sometimes bite Linguini to get his point across. All to many times in these so called children's movies, they resort to having the animal speak English. Although Remy does talk, the humans only hear squeaking. Oh yeah, Pixar's Paris is absolutely beautiful.

Shrek The Third (2007)

When his new father-in-law, King Harold (John Cleese) falls ill, Shrek (Mike Myers) is looked at as the heir to the land of Far, Far Away. Not one to give up his beloved swamp, Shrek recruits his friends Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) to install the rebellious Artie (Justin Timberlake) as the new king. Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), however, rallies a band of royal girlfriends to fend off a coup d'etat by the jilted Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) as hilarity ensues.

Trivia: In total, its directors and art directors approved more than 5,000 characters for the film. Five actors from Saturday Night Live appear in the movie, two of whom are currently on the show; Mike Myers (Shrek), Eddie Murphy (Donkey), Cheri Oteri (Sleeping Beauty), Amy Poehler (Snow White), and Maya Rudolph (Rapunzel). Two members from the Monty Python troupe, John Cleese and Eric Idle provide voices that are used in this movie. Cleese has reprised his role as King Harold, while Idle provides his voice for the new character Merlin.

Thank goodness this wasn't another Spider Man 3. For any Shrek fans out there, this movie will not disappoint. Shrek, Donkey, and Puss head off looking for Arthur, but it is the princesses that steal the show. Snow White won the Fairest of the Land contest (apparently rigged depending on who you ask. Cinderella is an obsessive compulsive cleaner. Sleeping Beauty is Narcoleptic. Um...man there is too much to talk about and it will give away too much stuff so I am going to stop right here so you can get the full effect. Go see this movie.

Shrek 2 (2004)

Fresh from their honeymoon, Shrek (Mike Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are invited to Fiona's parent's castle for a celebration. Fiona's parents are the King (John Cleese) and Queen (Julie Andrews) of Far Far Away. But there is just one problem, they don't know Shrek is an Ogre. Hilarity ensues as the kingdom meets Fiona's new husband. Among them is the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) whose son, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), was supposed to be the one to marry the princess. Meanwhile, the king takes matter into his own hands when he hires an ogre assassin known only as Puss-in-Boots.

Trivia: The Fairy Godmother was originally created for the first Shrek but was cut out and now featured in this sequel. The Fairy Godmother says, "What in Grimm's name..." - a reference to the Brothers Grimm who published collections of many fairy tales such as the ones used in the movie. The potion the fairy godmother gives to the King to make Fiona fall in love with the first man she kisses is labeled "IX", making the bottle "Love Potion Number 9". The entrance to Far Far Away closely resembles the entrance to the Paramount Studios lot. The Counting Crows song that plays during Shrek and Fiona's honeymoon montage replaced a track by Weezer which didn't quite fit to the timings of the visuals. When the Crows came on board, they however had to ensure that their new track did, as the visuals had already been locked down and couldn't be changed. Fiona's mother can be seen in bed reading a copy of "Kings are from Mars, Queens are from Venus". The crowd scene when Shrek and Fiona arrive at Far Far Away's castle involved over 600 animated characters.

There are some other spoofs of famous signs and stores in the background of Far Far Away:

• Burger Prince (Burger King)
• Olde Knavery (Old Navy)
• Far Far Away sign (Hollywood sign)
• Saxon Fifth Avenue (Saks Fifth Avenue)
• Romeo Drive (Rodeo Drive)
• Versarchery (Versace)
• Gap Queen (Gap Kids)
• Farbucks Coffee (Starbucks)
• Friar's Fat Boy (Big Boy)
• Tower of London Records (Tower Records).
• Baskin Robinhood (Baskin Robins ice cream)
• FFPS (US Postal)
• Barney's Old York (Barney's New York)

Take Shrek and add characters like the Fairy Godmother, The Frog King, Prince Charming, and Puss-in-Boots, plus lots more of the secondary characters that made Shrek so fun like Gingy, the Gingerbread Man, the three pigs, Pinochio and such and you get Shrek 2. It's just more of everything that made Shrek good. Then add dozens of new movie references that don't necessarily come from fairy tales but from pop culture and you have a hit. This is actually one of the few sequels that is better then the original.

Shrek (2001)

Shrek (Mike Myers) is a big ogre who lives alone in the woods, feared from all the people in the land of Duloc and he likes it like that. When Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow), the ruler of Duloc, exiles all the fairy-tale beings in the woods, Shrek looses his peaceful life and his home becomes a refugees camp and hilarity ensues. So, he sets out to find Lord Farquaad and convince him to take the fairy-tale beings back where they belong, and leave him alone. Lord Farquaad accepts, under one condition. Shrek must first go and find the beautiful young princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), who will become Farquaad's bride. So, the big Ogre begins his quest, along with his newfound donkey friend (Eddie Murphy). But, as usual nothing is as it seems and you can tell a book by it's cover and a lot of other cliches you can come up with. Fairy tales will never be the same.

Trivia: Chris Farley was originally cast as Shrek and even recorded the dialogue. However, after his death, the role was given to fellow Saturday Night Live performer, Mike Myers. A remnant of Farley remains when Shrek uses "finger quotes" - a trademark of Farley's character Bennett Brower. There are 36 unique locations in Shrek - more than any other computer-animated film at the time. Computer animation production started on the project on 31 October 1996 and took more than four and a half years to complete. The principal actors never met each other. All read their parts separately, with a reader feeding them the lines. In Yiddish, Shrek means monster (from the German for terror or fright). In the fire scene outside of Shrek's house you see Papa Bear comforting Baby Bear... later, in Farquaad's castle as he is watching the picture of Fiona on the mirror you see Mama Bear as a rug, skinned and laying on the floor. Her ultimate fate, however, seems to be ok. She re-appears during the Video & DVD Karaoke scene, dancing with Papa and Baby. Over 1,000 fantasy characters invade Shrek's swamp at the beginning of the movie. Prior to release, the movie was viewed by DreamWork's lawyers, since there were concerns that Disney would sue over the movie's not-so-subtle satirical references to the company's films and theme parks. The scene where Princess Fiona burps was not originally included, and was written only after Cameron Diaz burped after drinking some coke during a recording session.

In anticipation of seeing Shrek The Third this weekend, I rewatched Shrek, and will rewatch Shrek 2 tomorrow. I love this movie. It is great. It's funny characters and not so subtle humor appeals to kids. It's irreverence and subtle references appeals to adults. The amount of references to beloved fairy tale characters and Disney is just mind boggling. I did catch something that I don't remember seeing before. I don't think I am giving anything away by saying that Fiona has a magic spell on her where she is a woman by day and an ogre by night. When Shrek gets Fiona out of the castle and he takes his helmet off (before we know about her magic spell) Fiona says that something is wrong and that "I'm not supposed to be an ogre." The "I'm" is kind of muffled so that it is ambiguous, but her mouth is saying "I'm" not "You're" which I assumed she said. It's one of those nice touches that you catch sometimes when you see a movie again.

Meet The Robinsons: In Disney Digital 3-D (2007)

Lewis is a brilliant inventor with a surprising number of clever inventions to his credit. His latest and most ambitious project is the Memory Scanner, a machine that will help him find his birth mother so they can become a family. But before he can find her, his invention is stolen by the dastardly Bowler Hat Guy and his diabolical hat and constant companion, Doris. Lewis has all but given up hope when a mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson whisks our bewildered hero away in a time machine and together they team up to track down Bowler Hat Guy with a little help from the Robinsons, Wilbur's excentric family from the future and hilaruty ensues.

Trivia: This is the third animated Disney movie to receive the Disney Digital 3-D treatment (after Chicken Little and a remastered The Nightmare Before Christmas [which is being released again this year]). The movie is projected digitally, with a single Christie, Barco or NEC DLP projector (other digital projection technologies would work as well if fitted with the proper equipment) at 144 frames per second, six times as fast as a normal movie. Every 1/24th of a second (the projection frame rate for normal 2-D movies on film) the two scene views called "right eye" and "left eye" are each shown 3 times (6 flashes of image on the screen matching the 6-times-higher projection rate), giving each eye a flicker-free image. In front of the projector lens, an electronic device, the Z-Screen, developed by Lenny Lipton, from Stereographics, inserts a polarizing screen that matches the polarization of either the right lens or left lens of the glasses worn by the audience. When the left-eye-matching Z-Screen is in place, the viewer's right eye sees nothing at all (or almost nothing) while the left eye sees a normal looking frame. For the next frame of the movie, the Z-Screen swaps the polarizing screen to match the right eye lens in the glasses worn by the audience. Now the audience sees nothing (or nearly nothing) with the left eye and a normal but slightly shifted version of the frame in the right eye. The brain knits together the alternating left-right perspectives into a seamless 3-D view of the movie scene.

This is the second movie I have seen in Disney Digital 3-D and I am still impressed (the other one was The Nightmare Before Christmas). The image is very smooth and you don't see the echo ghosts that you used to see before. As for the story, it is cute and has its moments (even for grown ups). One very funny part is when Lewis is reviewing the Robinsons he has met with Wilbur (slide show style) and comes to Mr. Robinson, whom we have not met, and he asks Wilbur what Mr. Robinson looks like and Wilbur replies "Tom Selleck", so Mr. Robinson's picture is replaced with Tom Selleck's. Later, when we meet Mr. Robinson, though he doesn't look like Tom Selleck, he sure sounds like him. So if you have movie age children, or just want to see good 3-D, this movie is for you.

Hoodwinked! (2005)

Little Red Riding Hood: A classic story, but there's more to every tale than meets the eye. Before you judge a book by its cover, you've got to flip through the pages. For this story, we begin at the end. Furry and feathered cops from the animal world investigate a domestic disturbance at Granny's (Glenn Close) cottage, involving a girl named Red (Anne Hathaway), a wolf (Patrick Warburton), and an axe. The charges are many: breaking and entering, disturbing the peace, intent to eat, and wielding an axe without a license. Not to mention, this case might be tied to the elusive Goody Bandit who has been stealing the recipes of goody shops everywhere. Hilarity ensues as we meet characters we've never met before, including Boingo (Andy Dick) the cute bunny, Chief Grizzly (Xhibit) who is willing to arrest anyone, a very high strung squirrel named Twitchy, an enchanted goat that can only sing, and Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Steirs) who is trying to decipher what actually happened. All the while, the Goody Bandit is on the loose, trying to accomplish his master plan.

Trivia: In the scene where Nicky Flippers, played by David Ogden Stiers, needs to understand what Twitchy the squirrel is saying, he uses a tape recorder to slow down Twitchy's speech so that he can find out what Twitchy is saying and save the day. This is a reference to A Circle of Children (1977). In that movie, a teacher named, Dan Franklin, also played by Stiers, needs to understand what a young boy is saying and uses a tape recorder to slow down the boys speech so that he can find out what the boy is saying and save the day. The scene where Boingo tells Keith to change his name was not scripted "Keith, darnit change your name, please, that's not scary and I'm embarrassed to say it. Boris, try that. Keith, ya know, OOOO Watch out for Keith!". It was ad-libbed by Andy Dick while recording his lines. According to Todd Edwards at Anderson University's Chapel, this is the first fully independently-funded computer-animated feature film.

I know this movie was independently funded so they had to cut some corners but the computer graphics really disappointed me. At best they were a little bit better then cable television CGI cartoons that have sprouted up recently, which is a shame because this was a funny well written story. Little Red Riding Hood gets the Rashoman treatment (four different stories of the same events told by four different characters watching out for their own interests). The funniest thing is that the four main characters (Red, the Wolf, the Woodsman, and Granny), although they have their funny moments, act as straight men to the hilarity of the secondary characters. So little kids will like it because it is well paced and has action and squirrels and frogs and stuff like that, bigger kids may get most of the jokes, and the adults will like it for the story (although they will probably figure out who the bad guys is pretty quickly, it is still worth watching).

Flushed Away (2006)

Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is a decidedly upper-crust "society mouse" who lives the life of a beloved pet in a posh Kensington flat. When a sewer rat named Sid comes spewing out of the sink and decides he's hit the jackpot, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the "whirlpool." Sid may be an ignorant slob, but he's no fool, so it is Roddy who winds up being flushed away into the bustling sewer world of Ratropolis as hilarity ensues. There Roddy meets Rita (voiced by Kate Winslet), an enterprising scavenger who works the sewers in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger. Roddy immediately wants out, or rather, up; Rita wants to be paid for her trouble; and, speaking of trouble, the villainous Toad (voiced by Ian McKellen)--who royally despises all rodents equally, making no distinction between mice and rats--wants them iced ... literally. The Toad dispatches his two hapless hench-rats, Spike (voiced by Andy Serkis) and Whitey (voiced by Bill Nighy, man he is in everything these days), to get the job done. When they fail, the Toad has no choice but to send to France for his cousin--that dreaded mercenary, Le Frog (voiced by Jean Reno).

Trivia: According to Peter Lord, co-founder of Aardman, this film's original concept involved pirates, and was pitched to Dreamworks soon after the release of Chicken Run. However, Aardman were told that there was no market for pirate films (this was before 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was made), and were told to modernize the concept. By the time the writer had done this, the project was temporarily shelved to make way for the production of Wallace & Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The film uses software that was developed for the rabbits floating around the Bun-Vac 6000 in Wallace & Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The software reproduces the 'imperfections' found in clay-mation (i.e. dropped frames, thumb-prints, etc.). Aardman's first fully-CGI feature film. The reason for using computer animation instead of the studio's trademark clay animation was the large amount of scenes involving water, which is nearly impossible to do convincingly in stop motion. Hugh Jackman also provided the screams for the slug that Roddy first meets in the sewer.

This is the other film I owe Impman and I am glad he picked it, although I would have eventually seen it. At first I was a little disapointed. It didn't have the feel of an Aardman project (this was due to the CGI animation, the character did things they just couldn't have done in claymation and it was a little distracting at first). It had the look of Aardman in the characters though and I think it had the heart of Aardman in that it showed family life, even in the sewers, is better then a lone and solitary life in luxury. Once I strted to get into the story itself it just captivated me. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. Kids will like it and parents will get twice as many jokes as the kids. The characters were great, especially Le Frog. But the absolute best party of the whole movie was...the singing slugs. They are enough reason to watch the movie just by themselves. This was just down right fun to watch. It even has a french mime frog, what else could you want? Thanks Dave.

The Alphabet Project: S is for...

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

The L.A. of a not-too-distant future suffers a surge of drug abuse involving a new ultra-addictive and eventually brain-damaging substance simply named "D". Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover narc leading a double life, dutifully reporting to his superiors while effectively having abandoned whatever normal existence he had for a "D" user/dealer career. But this schizophrenic situation and the drug-induced memory and concentration lapses put Bob under mounting stress. Hilarity ensues when an informant accuses Arctor of crimes he didn't commit he and his rag-tag band of friends, his girlfriend Donna, and his roommates Barris (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Luckman (Woody Harrelson) are put under observation, and the department puts one of their undercover agents in charge of gathering evidence, Bob himself.

Trivia: Based on Philip K. Dick's personal drug experiences. The title comes from a paraphrasing of the letters of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. Paul writes on "looking into a mirror darkly". Robert Downey Jr. wrote most of his lines down on post-it notes and scattered them around the set so he could read off them while filming a scene. The rotoscoping team simply animated over the notes to remove them from the film during post-production.

Okay, the first thing you may be asking is why the department suspected Arctor and put him under observation when he was the undercover officer, well, that is simple to explain, when Arctor is in the police station he wears a "Scramble Suit" in which his image and voice is scrambled, if you met him on the street all you would see is a diffused shape that has other peoples images superimposed on it, so a face will be made up of four different faces...come to think of it, it isn't that simple to explain, so basically nobody at the police station knew what he actually looked like and didn't know what name he was using. The animation used is a rotoscoping effect where they animate over the actual actors that are on film. So the images like like the actors. I think this actually made the movie better because the actors, knowing they were going to be animated, acted out more expressively, especially Rory Cochrane who plays and addict named Freck. He was awesomely funny in his expressions. This is one of those types of movies that at first is hard to grasp but as you go everything clicks into place.

Up Next: "T", This Week's Clue: The title character is dead throughout most of the movie. Get those guesses in! Only seven more letters to go! And now for last week's guesses:

Shaft - Shut Your Mouth! New York City police detective John Shaft (nephew of the original 1970s detective) goes on a personal mission to make sure the son of a real estate tycoon is brought to justice after a racially-motivated murder.

Slither - A small town is taken over by an alien plague, turning residents into zombies and all forms of mutant monsters.

Swordfish - The world's most dangerous spy is hired by the CIA to coerce a computer hacker recently released from prison to help steal billions in unused government funds.

Top 250

Hauru No Ugoku Shiro (2004)
Number 241 on IMDb's Top 250

Young Sophie Hatter is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, and turns into an old hag. Ashamed of how she looks, she flees into the hills where she finds shelter in a moving castle roams the hills. It is said to belong to the young and handsome wizard Howl, who has a bad reputation, he gets young beautiful girls to love him and he then devours their heart. Within the castle, Sophie befriends the fire demon Calcifer, who promises to help her become young again. One catch: she must help Calcifer to be free of Howl, whom he has a contract with, and Calcifer cannot tell her how. However, Sophie agrees to stay and try to find out about the contract through other ways. Still, Howl can see that Sophie is under a spell like Calcifer can, and he falls in love with her for who she is and not for what she looks like. Sophie manages to bring life to the moving castle, and she helps Howl to face his former tutor, Madam Suliman. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Loosely based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones. The character Pazu, from Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, can be seen running in front of the Wizard Jenkins' door.

Hayao Miyazaki is an amazing artist and director. All of his movies are full of bright, vivid characters, magical situations, fantastical flying machines, and very strong female characters. Howl's Moving Castle is no exception. He also does something very cool, in my opinion, with the character of Sophie. Sophie starts out as a pretty young girl of around 18 who thinks she isn't pretty. The Witch of the Waste curses her and she turns into an old maid of about 70. The interesting thing is that Miyazaki could have left her as the old hag until the curse was lifted, but he didn't, each scene she is in (an she is the main character so she is pretty much in all of them) in each scene she looks like a different age depending on her mood or circumstances. As she starts to fall in love with Howl, she starts to look younger, when she is asleep, she is her true age, when something stressful happens where she starts to doubt herself, she starts to look older. Truly amazing. It was a good movie.

Frankenthumb (2002)

Henry Frankenstein is a doctor who is trying to discover a way to make the dead walk. He succeeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again, and shall be called...Pepper. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: All the characters are portrayed by thumbs.

The thumb short were all created by Steve Oedekerk. Some of the other include: Thumbtanic, The Godthumb, Thumb Wars: The Phantom Cuticle, Bat Thumb. In Frankenthumb Dr. Frankenthumb is hilarious and the Frankenthumb Monster (called Pepper because he spices up the Doctor's life) is funny because of some of the facial expressions.

Okay, now a plee for help. I was a little too ambitious and Netflix has kind of let me down*. As a result, I am going to be short on my Halloween movies (Netflix just can't get them to me in time, I will go ahead and review them when I get them), but until then can I ask you, good readers, to do a guest review. All you have to do is pick a movie that you have seen and that fits into my definition, which is very broad as you can see, and email me one or two paragraphs. I will do the rest of the post (plot summary, trivia, poster). I would really appreciate that.

*I am also going to miss Saturday's Bond Post as they haven't sent it yet.

Majo No Takkyubin (1989)

Kiki, a young witch-in-training, (voiced on the Disney release by Kirsten Dunst) has reached the age of 13. According to tradition, all witches of that age must leave home for one year, so that they can learn how to live on their own. Kiki, along with her talking cat Gigi (voiced by the great Phil Hartman), fly away to live in the seaside town of Korico. After starting her own delivery service (using her broom as the delivery vehicle), Kiki must learn how to deal with her new life, especially after she loses the power to fly. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: When Kiki first arrives in the city, she is almost hit by a bus bearing the name "Studio Ghibli". This is the name of Miyazaki's animation studio. Ursula's painting is titled "The Ship Flying Over The Rainbow", and was painted by the students of a school for challenged children. The dialogue during a scene in which Kiki is given coffee, changes the beverage to hot chocolate in the Disney release. This was done because Disney thought it was inappropriate for children to drink coffee. The video subtitles also mention hot chocolate, although the Japanese "kohii" ("coffee") is clearly audible on the soundtrack. Kirsten Dunst's childhood nickname was Kiki. The 1998 English language version is dedicated to the memory of Phil Hartman, who was murdered by his wife that same year. This was his last project.

This movie fits into my Halloween theme because Kiki is a witch. Otherwise this is a very good charming tale. Miyazaki is the master of Japanese anime with most of the major titles that have
been release in the states belonging to him. One of his staples is a strong female figure. Kiki really fits the bill in this one. Can you imagine leaving home for a year at the age of 13 by yourself? She doesn't even hesitate. This is a very good coming of age story.

Corpse Bride (2005)

Two prominent families have arranged for their children to be married in order to overcome financial difficulties. As the objects of betrothal, Victor (Okay, for Kim, Everybody now, Mmmmmm... Johnny Depp) and Victoria (Emily Watson) met for the first time the night before their wedding. It only makes sense that Victor, a groom with cold feet, would have trouble remembering tedious wedding vows. Thus Victor ends up in the dark forest ringing his hands and muttering his vows on a cold dark night, the moon is full, the stars are bright and the forest is a little bit creepy. Wandering through the black mangled trees, Victor just can't memorize his wedding vows. Victor's hesitance towards marriage causes him to jumble the words. The Corpse Bride hears the vows, bringing her out of the grave. Blue-tinted, eye-ball-popping, maggot-infested beauty Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) has become known as the Corpse Bride after waiting for her fiance where the couple planned to rendezvous before getting hitched. When her groom arrives, he kills her, and she rests in the ground to wait for her soul mate, whether he knows he is the Corpse Bride's groom or not. Victor suddenly finds himself married to another woman, a voluptuous bombshell bride who also happens to be dead. Whisked away to the Land of the Dead, Victor finds out that living amongst corpses is not as easy as it seems. Heads easily loose their owners and eyes never seem to stay in their sockets, an adjustment that Victor seems reluctant to accept. Once taken into the Land of the Dead, it is nearly impossible to return, causing Victor to choose between risking Victoria's life or giving up his own. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: The puppets were made from stainless steel armatures covered with silicone skin. This is the first feature to be made with commercial digital still photography cameras (31 Canon EOS-1Ds MARK II SLR cameras with Nikon Lenses) instead of film cameras. As an indication of the painstaking nature of stop-motion animation, it took the animators 28 separate shots to make the bride blink. The puppets used neither of the industry standards of replaceable heads (like those used on The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)) or replaceable mouths (like those used by Aardman Studios in Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)) but instead used precision crafted clockwork heads, adjusted by hidden keys. This allowed for unprecedented subtlety, but was apparently even more painstaking than the already notoriously arduous animation. One animator even reported having recurring nightmares of adjusting his own facial expression in this fashion. The puppets were two feet tall and some of the stages were so large that animators could actually fit through the set doors with minimal crouching. Multiple, identical puppets had to be created so that more scenes could be accomplished in a shorter period of time. In all, fourteen puppets of the Bride and Victor were created, and thirteen were created of Victoria.

Well, Kim called it. She figured since I reviewed The Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton that Corpse Bride wouldn't be far behind and she was right. This was a great movie too. Again, the characters was very well defined. I thought it was very interesting because of the positioning of the worlds, the Land of the Living above, think upper class, and the Land of the Dead, think lower class, but then Burton gives the land of the dead a warmer friendlier feel, while making the land of the living sterile. He does this by giving the land of the dead vibrant colors and characters, while the land of the living is drab and lifeless (very few characters other then the main ones are seen, while the land of the dead is full of vibrant characters). Basically, the land of the living seems to be dead and the land of the dead is living life to the fullest. Fun film. Below you will see an example, to the left is the land of the living, to the right is the land of the dead. Click on the pictures to see them bigger.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween -- but alas, they can't get it quite right. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: In the original Poem Written by Tim Burton the only characters that every existed were Jack, Zero and Santa. All the other characters were made up for the movies, although he describes some of the presents which were given out including in some cases the names of the children. Tim Burton has said the original poem was inspired after seeing Halloween merchandise display in a store being taken down and replaced by a Christmas display. The juxtaposition of ghouls and goblins with Santa and his reindeer sparked his imagination. Oogie Boogie is inspired by Cab Calloway, who provided character voices and musical numbers for several Fleischer Bros. cartoons; he and Santas Claus quote dialog from the Betty Boop short "The Old Man of the Mountain", when Santa asks,(quoting Betty's line) "What are you going to do now?", and Oogie returns Calloway's (as the Old Man) "Goin' do the best I can..." This was the first movie to ever be fully animated using the stop-motion technique that was favored by Tim Burton for special effects in some of his other movies for its surreal quality. The animators received Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects as a result, but lost to ILM who created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park (1993).

While researching trivia for this movie I discovered that Disney is releasing this in 3-D in two days! Whoo Hoo! I will have to see if it is showing here. I LOVE this movie. I have since I first saw it. The depth of the shots, the characters, THE MUSIC. It is incredible. This is the movie that made me fall in love with Tim Burton films. I liked Beetle Juice and Batman before this but man. An interesting note, Danny Elfman, who composed all the music was the singing voice of Jack, he was also the voice of Barrel, along with Lock (Paul Ruebens) and Shock (Catherine O'Hara), quite a trio there. Elfman's music is the star of the film and it fits so well with the charactersm, who are very well defined. All in all a great movie, if you haven't seen it, see if it is playing in 3-D near you this weekend. Be sure to click on the poster to the right and see the full size picture, it's great.