Once upon a time, in an old castle atop a hill, lived an old inventor whose masterpiece was a young man named Edward (Johnny Depp). He was perfect in every way - except one. The Inventor's untimely death left him incomplete, with metal shears for hands. And then, he was all alone. Until one fateful day, when sweet Avon lady Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) comes knocking.
Now Edward moves in with the Boggses: Peg, her everyman husband Bill (Alan Arkin), their cheerleader daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) and mischievous younger son Kevin (Robert Oliveri). Edward becomes a hit around town with his talents for hedge-trimming, dog-grooming and hairdressing, and even appears on a TV talk show. But the most significant experience Edward's new life gives him is when he falls instantly in love with Kim, whose oafish boyfriend Jim (Anthony Michael Hall) will go out of his way to keep them apart. Even if it IS Christmas.
I have favourite movies, and then there are movies that are just sacred relics to me. Edward Scissorhands (1990) is forever in that second group; suffice it to say I have NEVER connected psychologically with a movie more. The incomparable Tim Burton channeled it from his own upbringing in Burbank, California as the son of parents who never quite understood him and as a boy who didn't fit in at school either. He even created the role of the Inventor specifically for his childhood idol Vincent Price (in his last screen appearance); his work here proves there's just nothing more passionate and meaningful than an artist publicly exorcising their demons.
The same can also be said of Johnny Depp, who gives what remains his finest performance with under a hundred words and in a heavy leather costume that reportedly made him faint from heat exhaustion; upon reading Caroline Thompson's beautiful screenplay he apparently cried like a baby. Furthermore, Winona Ryder and Dianne Wiest are superbly natural and understated, a very much cast-against-type Anthony Michael Hall shows he can play more than just nerds in John Hughes flicks, the production design (a Burton specialty) is strikingly original and detailed, the cinematography (especially in the unforgettable ice angel scene) is exquisitely lush and Danny Elfman has never written a better score.
Edward Scissorhands brings me to tears time after time. But something else I love about it is its satirical undercurrent, which is often missed and which I myself only just recently noticed. Every minor character is a deliberate suburban stereotype: the black police chief (Dick Anthony Williams), the frisky housewife Joyce (an hilarious Kathy Baker), the religious nut Esmeralda (Burton bit-part regular O-Lan Jones, who actually composed all the organ pieces she plays here), the eccentric retired veteran (Stuart Lancaster) and even, to a lesser extent, the Boggses themselves.
Another beautiful touch is in an elderly Kim telling Edward's story in flashback to her young granddaughter, in the best fairytale tradition.
And, in my heart at least, Edward Scissorhands and everybody who helped bring him to life will live happily ever after.
Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon; singing by Danny Elfman) is an upstanding, proud young stick figure citizen of Halloweentown, until he lands in nearby Christmastown, which instantly astonishes him. So much so, in fact, that on returning home he tells his fellow Halloweentowners about this wonderful other holiday and persuades them to also celebrate IT this year. Jack then takes over from Santa (shown here as an obsolete pushover) and vows to spread Christmas joy of his own. But while well-meaning, Jack is naturally evil, and equally preoccupied with finding his sewn-together true love, Sally (Catherine O'Hara).
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) began as a poem Tim Burton wrote in 1982 while working as an animator at Disney, but by the time they finally greenlit the project (somewhat surprisingly, as Disney now largely considered him a traitor for abandoning them), Burton was busy filming Batman Returns and so handed it over to his colleague Henry Selick. Selick rose to the challenge admirable, retaining the macabre atmosphere and poetic rhyme of Burton's story while giving it an energetic vibe of his own. Plus, he and Elfman work the narrative cohesively around all those fabulously subversive and catchy songs: Kidnap the Sandy Claws, Sally's Song, This Is Halloween, Making Christmas and, of course, What's This? But the piece de resistance for me will always be The Oogie Boogie Song, a showstopper for the potato-sack bogeyman who loves to torture Santa on a spinning wheel.
You simply must commend the painstaking detail that went into this Gothic stop-motion world. 227 puppets were built to populate it, and Jack had roughly 400 heads for every possible expression. The Nightmare Before Christmas was nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar and though it lost to a certain movie about a theme park with dinosaurs (which in fairness is also brilliant and must've required at least as much effort), not a frame of it has aged in 23 years. This is one Nightmare I'll happily have night after night.
You simply must commend the painstaking detail that went into this Gothic stop-motion world. 227 puppets were built to populate it, and Jack had roughly 400 heads for every possible expression. The Nightmare Before Christmas was nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar and though it lost to a certain movie about a theme park with dinosaurs (which in fairness is also brilliant and must've required at least as much effort), not a frame of it has aged in 23 years. This is one Nightmare I'll happily have night after night.
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