Weekly Witch Hunt: The Nightmare Before Christmas & The Sea of Trees

We decide what artistic endeavour passed approval to earn the Scorcher label from the past seven days & what also had the dishonour of being that week's Torture...

I have interrogated a few comedies this last week such as Bad Moms and Mascots which nearly got my Scorcher vote.  With Halloween in mind I have also seen a couple of horrors and thrillers.  The two selected here are a bit different to the normal fare and I thought it fitting to cover them.
 

The Scorcher

This was actually the first time I have seen this Tim Burton classic and I am so sorry I haven't caught it sooner.  I am a big fan of stop motion, particularly the creature features of Ray Harryhausen, so I don't really know why it has taken me this long to check out The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The music and songs go so well with the story.  I have a soft spot for musicals when done well and Nightmare certainly fits the bill.  Danny Elfman is one of Burton's usual collaborators.  Because of that close relationship you get the feeling that they are very much in synch with one another.  I am sure the process of creating the tunes for this musical would have been quite easy for Elfman because of the level of trust he shares with Burton.
The casting of Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman to do the voice of Jack Skellington was pretty seamless.  It was very hard to spot the difference between the singing and speaking voices.
The figurines themselves have so much life to them and the stop motion is excellent.  It is such a slow, painstaking process but the rewards are on the screen for all to see.  There are also no scenes that are there just to show off the stop motion; there is no need when the story being told is doing that all on its own.  Why resort to technique trickery when you don't have too?
I loved the design of Oogie Boogie the most out of all the characters.  He really would be the stuff of nightmares and he didn't have Burton's normal big eyed design, he felt more unique that way.
It isn't a film that outstays its welcome either, it tells the story in a nice succinct way.  It does this without wasting a minute on exposition.  This was Henry Selick's directorial debut too and it shows a lot of faith from Burton that he trusted him to bring his vision to the screen.
I can certainly see this becoming one of my favourite Halloween films to throw on when I want something nice and short at this time of year.

The Torture

 

I recently watched The Forest with Natalie Dormer about the Aokigahara Forest in Japan; a forest renowned for the amount of suicides that take place there each year.  To say I was disappointed with this mind numbingly boring horror would be an understatement.
With this in mind I was hopeful that The Sea of Trees would be an improvement considering Aokigahara was once again the main setting for the movie.  There was also the added incentive of seeing Ken Watanabe and Naomi Watts who are two reliable actors.  Not only did it boast these two fine thespians but also Matthew McConaughey whose recent run of roles have seen him win much acclaim.
Oh how my faith was so misguided to believe that this would be any better.
The actors overall aren't too bad; Watanabe's Takumi Nakamura suffers most as he doesn't have a lot to do but moan and groan as he follows McConaughey's Arthur Brennan as the two try to find a way out of the forest.
I will admit that the scenery and the way the film is shot is quite beautiful.  Considering the majority of the film takes place in a forest you would think that the scenes would become a bit repetitive but the cinematography of Kasper Tuxen has to be commended.
The pace of the film however is just too slow and pondering.  The story of the Brennan's is told in flashback so we learn why Arthur has travelled to Japan.  The relationship he has with his wife Joan is clearly not in a good place.  It only seems to mildly improve as events unfold; you therefore feel very little sympathy for what they are going through.
It is hardly surprising that I had a hard time trying to reconcile his current behaviour and bleak outlook considering how poorly the couple relate to one another.  Neither of the Brennan's do anything to give you a positive emotional connection to them.
To top this off we get some supernatural mumbo jumbo at the end of the film to try and give it a spiritual and uplifting finale that just falls flat.  At no point during the preceding events do you get an inkling that the story will end this way and it feels so out of place when it unfolds.