Tim Burton Productions

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Rating: 7.6/10
Genre: Animation
Overall value for money and time: 8.0/10

Revisited this 1993 production which was a pivotal movie in Tim Burton's career. Now I see why it was so outstanding. The pumpkin king, Jack Skellington grew tired off his boring Halloween Town and chanced upon Christmas Town while wondering in the woods. There, he found what was lacking inside of him, joy and purpose. Thus, he gathered all his towns' monsters in hope of taking over Christmas.

This animation created a new genre of animations, "puppet-like" animations. The director was able to bring out the novelty of such a concept and revolutionized them by creating his very own characters and score for the movie. It wasn't just an animation, it was a dark, musical animation with a good storyline and imagination. Though its a classic masterpiece, it's not my cup of tea. Comparing it to his most recent animation production, "9", the later had more depth in the plot but the former does exceed "9" in terms of entertainment value.

Especially loved the classic scene with the couple advancing towards each other on a slanted cliff with a big yellow moon in the backdrop. Enter a light hearted, darkly comic, imaginative world of what makes Halloween, and what makes Christmas, truly Christmas.

Corpse Bride

Rating: 6.8/10

Genre: Animation

Overall value for money and time: 6.5/10

A groom-to-be fails to make his vows due to nervousness and "accidentally" asks a corpse bride to be his wife while practising in the graveyard. Unable to break his promise, he must find ways to get back to his "living" wife.

The musical aspect of Tim Burton's productions are kept, as well as the creativity of the characters. Though it does have an original plot, this animation somehow lost its appeal to me. What was outstanding about this movie is the score itself, the piano piece to be exact but the story progression felt a little haphazard. Using a similar ending review from the Nightmare Before Christmas:

Though this movie lacked the additional spice of romance in it, prepare yourself to enter a light hearted, darkly comic, imaginative world between the living and the dead.

Coraline

1. Rating: 7.5/10
2. Genre: Animation
3. Overall value for money and time: 7.7/10

With the sub-heading, "From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas", it gave me the impression that this movie was another Tim Burton productions. However, it was directed by Henry Selick, and checking imdb.com, I realised that Tim Burton only produced Nightmare Before Christmas but not direct it.

Initially, I was surprised that Coraline didn't have the musical element in it, but later realised why it was so. Still, it was a great movie which opens your eyes once again to a highly imaginative world. It holds some essence of Alice in Wonderland and looking at Tim Burton's next movie production "Alice in Wonderland", I can only spectulate the friction arising between the 2 directors.

A bored girl by the name of Coraline finds the "perfect" world on the other side of a door which she found in her new house, with magic in the air and loving parents, she gradually falls prey to the ruler of the other world who wants to claim Coraline as her own.

This animation has it's own unique qualities, it's not as dark as the rest, and though it's "unfair" to compare it to the previously mentioned animations since this movie was not produced by Tim Burton, it being a "puppet-like" animation falls perfectly in its category. Throughout the movie, there were a good number of scenes which made it feel very fairytale like, enhanced by the score and cinematography.

Alas, the plot felt too rushed and everything ended too conveniently. Apart from that, it's another light-hearted, darkly comic, imaginative world on what lies on the other side of the door, on the other side of our world.