Midnight Film House

  As it is nearing the end of October, I feel it appropriate to discuss a Halloween classic.   The Nightmare Before Christmas is a stop motion animated movie from 1993. Directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton. Their wonderfully eerie style emanates from the screen. The film follows Jack Skellington the ‘Pumpkin King’ of Halloween Town. We find that Jack has become jaded with Halloween, sick of doing the same thing every year. While wandering through the woods Jack finds a tree with a door on it. After entering, he finds himself enamoured within a world of Christmas Joy. Jack gleefully tells the townsfolk all about Christmas. Eventually Jack and the Halloween Town residents decide to take Santa’s place and deliver their own spooky version of Christmas which ends up failing hilariously.   I love this movie, it’s such a pleasure to put on every year between October and December. The film is full of iconic character designs such as Oogie Boogie and Jack ...

What would you give up, to relive the glory days? This is the question posed by Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I felt inspired to re-watch after reviewing Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Netflix shorts . I believe Fantastic Mr. Fox is a better adaptation. It builds atop the original instead of just reading from the page. The film follows Fantastic Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) a renowned chicken thief, now middle aged and stuck living the family life as a newspaper columnist. Fox is suffering a mid-life crisis. He wishes to return to his true purpose: stealing birds. This leads him to steal from the three biggest and meanest farmers around: Bogus, Bunce, and Bean, starting a war that leads to the destruction of his forest home. The theme of animalistic inhibitions is key to Fox’s character, he does these self-destructive things because he believes it’s his purpose as a fox. This is contrasted by the anthropomorphic nature of the animals: they wear suits, they have jobs, they own possessio...

  I recently watched Wes Anderson’s collection of 4 short films based on the works of Roald Dahl. They are: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. The collection includes a star-studded cast featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Ayoade, Dev Patel, Rupert Friend, Ben Kingsley, and featuring Ralph Fiennes as Roald Dahl who acts as a connecting point between the films often breaking the fourth wall to add context to the stories. This collection features many of the staples associated with Wes Anderson’s directing. The character acting is quick-witted and dry. Most of the films are shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio giving it a classic movie feel. Adding to this is Anderson’s insistence on using traditional visual effects such as models and stop motion. As a stylistic choice the sets are incredibly low budget by film standards, resembling the sets of a live stage performance. The film calls metacontextual reference to this by having the actors act as s...

  Created by Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke is a historical fantasy epic set in a mythical interpretation of 14th century Japan. The story follows Ashitaka, prince of the Emishi tribe. After being forced to kill a demon boar Ashitaka is left with a cursed wound. The curse grants Ashitaka strength when angry; but using this strength exacerbates the curse. Ashitaka is informed that he is fated to die from the curse unless he travels west to investigate the wrongs that led to the demon’s creation. Out west, Ashitaka discovers a violent struggle between the gods of the forest and the humans of Irontown who are destroying the forest to mine iron. Fighting alongside the gods is San, a human girl raised by the wolf god Moro. She personifies the god’s hatred of humanity’s greed. Ashitaka hates this war and wishes to end it peacefully. He must resist his anger, or the curse will spread. Similarly, San must learn to overcome her hatred of humanity to work...