The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) – A FDWG Movie Review

Hallowe’en this year marked a minor milestone in my house.  After Charlotte got her sackfull of candy, we returned home and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas.  We watched the whole thing, and as far as I can remember this is the first time she’s sat with me and watched an entire full length feature film, animated or otherwise.

This is a Fat Dad With Glasses review, which means I’ll be mostly covering it from the father-of-a-five-year-old-girl angle.  If you want my grown-up independent type view point… Here you go:

Despite being a fresh take, it still features a pretty derivative theme.  However, the movie is very entertaining.  It’s a masterwork of visual and musical achievement.

If you would like that opinion expanded upon… Seriously?  You can go pretty much anywhere else on the internet.  Or bait me with a comment below. It’s shockingly easy to get me to talk about something “I’m not gonna talk about” with comments.

Review Grab Bag (1-5-15)

Happy New Year, folks.  It’s 2015 and after an 18 month hiatus, the Review Grab Bag is back.   If you don’t remember, or didn’t realize in the first place, the RGB is where I throw up a paragraph or two about stuff that I have something to say about, but not much of a something.  This time around we take a look at 3 Sci-Fi movies that have very little in common, and an Atari 2600 cult classic.

Found On the Internet: Etheria Q

Youtuber RafiSG put together this little stop-motion mesh of Masters of the Universe/Princess of Power characters and Avenue Q, the musical play that takes a different look at Millenials and Sesame Street.  The figures are from Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics line, and it’s just more proof of how incredibly awesome the line is.

Review Grab Bag (6-15-13)

So, usually when I haven’t blogged much over a week or two, it’s because I haven’t had much time to consume any media.  This time, it’s because I haven’t happened to consume much media that I could write multiple paragraphs on.  Seriously.  I’ve watched several movies these past weeks… but even though I’ve really enjoyed, or even loved, them… I’ve just got nothing much to say about them.  So I had to save ’em up… and it’s RGB time, bitches.

Review Grab Bag (4-19-13)

Time for another Review Grab Bag.  Continuing with last month’s theme of having absolutely no theme, we’ve got a classic animated feature from Disney, a classic 80s toy, a debatable modern sci-fi classic film, and a relatively middle road, forgettable graphic novel.

Review Grab Bag (2-17-13)

 

Hello again, everyone.  So far this year my movie watching has been pretty limited.  I’ve managed to catch a few grown-up titles.  Mostly, though, if I get to watch a movie, it’s a computer animated one that ends up not actually capturing my daughter’s attention in the least.  Here’s a grab bag of titles that I ended up finishing on my own, while Charlotte ran around looking for her pig hat, or blocks, or whatever.

The Lion King (1994)

Disney may be making another mad grab for cash, digging through “the vault” and re-releasing a remastered, 3D-ified The Lion King in theatres this weekend, but that just means it’s even more timely that I review the unremastered, original, March 3rd, 1995 released, VH-fucking-S cassette tape that my family sat down to watch last weekend.

Hashtag:  Old School, Mother Fucker.

The Circle of Life:

Recently, Mel decided that we should have a Wonderful World of Disney type viewing of various Disney classics, and not-so-classics, and ugh-I-hate-that-garbage-ics on Sunday afternoons.  The reason being, because when we were growing up and had to deal with TFC cable, (that’s Two Fucking Channel for the uninitiated) a highly concentrated source of cartoons could be found on CBC when they aired WWoD.  Since we (she) liked this as kids, obviously we need to try to replicate the situation so that Charlotte grows up thinking that all awesome things are awesome and whatever the hell kids are doing these days is lame.  (Hey, I can dream.)

Now, most of our collection of Disney movies is on VHS.  So that meant making sure the VCR was hooked up and working.  A quick run through with a headcleaner a few weeks ago and we were ready to go.  Just pop in The Lion King and enjoy the majesty.

Fuck no.  I forgot Disney movies have commercials.  Shit tons of commercials.  One of the commercials was the entire “Colors of the Wind” sequence from Pocahontas.  So yeah… 20 minutes later and the movie starts.

ZAAAAAAA!  ZE B’WINGYA!  OBADEECHI BADA!  OH WING YAMA!


The Lion King is a great goddamn movie.  In my opinion, it’s probably the best of the Disney movies.  It’s moving.  It’s hilarious.  It’s suspenseful.  The songs are catchy.  The catchphrases are catchier…  I had actually half-forgotten how many quotable lines there were.  The opening sequence is textbook great film making, let alone great animation-making (is that a thing?  That doesn’t sound like a thing.  It can’t be a thing.  I probably shouldn’t use it).  It is outright iconic.  Everyone who has had a child since 1994 has held their baby up into the sunlight muttering “CHUNG!”  Very few scenes are repeated this often in real life.  There’s this, “You Talkin’ To Me?”, The Orange peel from The Godfather, and “I’m King of the World!”

Pictured:  Mandatory Baby Display Technique

But to sum up how great I think this movie is:  Even though it reminds me of a girl that tore my heart out in High School, it’s so fucking good that I watch it anyway… and fucking love it.  But I digress.  I know it’s a complete ripoff of Kimba the White Lion, and it’s still so good that I don’t care.  I know that whining crazy people have tried to ruin it for me by saying Scar is a bad influence on kids because they think he’s gay.  Oh… that makes him a bad influence.  Not regicide… or fucking fratricide… or being such a shit ruler that completely ignores counsel and runs his kingdom into the ground.  Those don’t make him a bad influence… but the fact that his paws are limp during a fucking song and dance number means he’s going to ruin us all.  I know all that… and the movie blocks it out with only the power of its own sheer awesomenitude.

VHS Forever.

So, aside from the total nostalgia trip of the movie… there’s also the nostalgia trip of the technology.  Have you played a VHS tape recently?  Goddamn that is an awesome experience to revisit.  Yes, I’m admitting that, until just recently, I hadn’t really sat down to watch a movie on VHS in years.

I got to run the whole gamut.  I got to get mad at myself for not rewinding.  I got to get mad at myself for not remember to stop rewinding before the previews started.   I got to wonder if auto-tracking was going to be enough, or if I’d have to fiddle with the settings myself.  I got to pause the screen, and have a shaky image with distortions running all through it.  I was warned that the movie had been formatted to fit my screen.  (No it hadn’t.)  When it was over and I rewound it, I got to worry about whether or not the tape was getting eaten.  Damn those VCRs can make some freaky ass sounds.  I swear at one point it sounded like Cookie Monster.

OM NOM NOM!

So… yeah.  I do wish that The Lion King had been re-released a few years from now, instead of now, so that I could have taken Charlotte to go see it.  Regardless, even during an old, worn out, VHS, low definition, mono-sound, 2D viewing The Lion King is still epic.

5/5

Review Grab Bag (9/12/11)

Another new feature here at FGWG… it’s the Review Grab Bag…  Basically what we have here is a spot for me to say something about the odds and ends I watch, play, read, whatever, that I don’t really feel strongly enough about to warrant a large scale review of their own.  Like all Grab Bags and boxes of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.  If it can be reviewed, it’s fair game… good, great, bad or steaming pile of shit.

I’d also love for the Review Grab Bag to become a spot for guest reviewers.  The rules are simple:

1. Have an opinion on a thing.
2. Write a paragraph or two about it, and e-mail it to me at hamwallet@gmail.com.
3. ????
4. Profit.*

This week in the grab bag we have 4 movies.