The Screengrab : henry selick

Five 3-D-tastic Films

Nick Schager — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:30:00 GMT

What’s better than a night out at the movies? A night spent having the movies come right out at you! In honor of today’s release of Henry Selick’s dark, enchanting stop-motion 3-D fantasy Coraline, here are five films that take thrilling and/or unintentionally hilarious advantage of the gimmicky special effects process.

Creature From the Black Lagoon

As a child, Creature From the Black Lagoon’s 3-D effects (viewed on TV) just about blew my mind. While that likely wouldn’t happen today, Jack Arnold’s 1954 three-dimensional horror show remains a classic of its time, thanks largely to its iconic fiend. His likeness imitated many times (I’m looking at you, Monster Squad) but never quite surpassed for pure aquatic creepiness, the Black Lagoon’s gilled villain is one of Universal’s finest (and most unheralded) movie monsters, and the cheesy terror he spreads in this memorable scare-fest – and, to a far lesser extent, in 1955’s sequel Revenge of the Creature (which featured Clint Eastwood’s big-screen debut) – is definitely amplified by the illusion that he’s coming. Right. Off. The. Screen.

Amityville 3-D and Friday the 13th Part 3

In the ‘80s, quite a few horror films attempted to augment their scares via 3-D, and failed miserably. Two of the most amusing examples of the genre’s use of the technology for cheap, corny chills were the third installments of the Amityville and Friday the 13th franchises – and, a few years later, the sixth Nightmare on Elm St. as well – which both figured that a few shots of spears, eyeballs and candles jutting out at the viewer were enough to electrify audiences, as well as overshadow embarrassingly tossed-off threequel stories. In fairness, though, at least Friday the 13th’s 3-D installment has something else going for it, as it stands as the series’ first to feature Jason in his signature hockey mask.

Jaws 3-D

“The third dimension…is terror” proclaims the trailer for 1983’s Jaws 3-D. Really? I seem to remember it being pretty silly in this case, but then, I was only seven at the time of the film’s theatrical release, and probably didn’t understand why the sight of a young Dennis Quaid trying to flush his career down the toilet with this watery dreck was so frightening. Despite the needlessness of a Jaws without Roy Scheider, much less one that required red-and-blue glasses, Joe Alves’ film does use its 3-D for one great climactic shot, in which the great white shark bursts through a control room’s plate glass barrier and directly into your lap.

House of Wax

A 3-D pioneer, André De Toth’s 1953 gem was the film that solidified Vincent Price’s status as the master of the macabre, as well as featured a young Charles Bronson as the evil Professor Jarrod’s (Price) deaf-mute man-servant, Igor. In an ironic twist, despite expertly helming the project, De Toth was blind in one eye and thus couldn’t properly experience the project's special effects. His handicap, however, didn’t hinder his ability to create a handful of memorable three-dimensional moments, from the superlative final sequence inside Jarrod’s melting museum of horrors, to the long, kicking legs of a can-canning dance troupe.

Trailer Review: Coraline

Paul Clark — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

After The Nightmare Before Christmas, I had high hopes for the career of its director, Henry Selick. But while producer Tim Burton has continued to be one of Hollywood’s most distinctive and bankable filmmakers, Selick’s career has foundered, producing only two features since then- 1996’s middling James and the Giant Peach and the 2001 flop Monkeybone. Finally, with Coraline, his first new feature in eight years, Selick appears to be back in track. Basing his project on Neil Gaiman’s beloved fantasy book surely helps, supplying the creative backbone for the film in a way that not even James, itself based on a children’s book, did. Yet it’s Selick’s bravura stop-motion animation that comes through most clearly in this trailer, with bravura flights of fancy that surely needed computer assistance but which nonetheless look to be fully integrated into the old-school effects. Plus, it’s hard not to love a family movie in which Ian McShane and John Hodgman provide voices. All in all, this should be one of the more satisfying movies of early 2009.

The Screengrab's 12 Days of Christmas Marathon: "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:20:00 GMT

If you are anything like me -- and why wouldn't you be? -- you're a sucker for Christmas. The arbitrary yet somehow natural-seeming traditions; the carols which somehow only sound right when you've got just enough bourbon-fortified eggnog in you; the extra days off from work; the fact that people give you free stuff wrapped in shiny paper; the way everyone pretends to be nice to each other for a change: what's not to like? It's also one of those Western cultural touchstones so universal (suck it, Judaism!) that pretty much everybody gets into the act; despite the bogus claims from pouty conservatives about a "war on Christmas", the birth of Baby Jesus is still commemorated on almost every TV show on the air, and Yuletide is second only to summer as a Hollywood high holy day.

So, in the spirit of this year's Summerfest series -- where I lazily Netflixed a dozen or so movies with "summer" in the title and reviewed them so you'd know what to watch while the pool guy skimmed the drowned crow out of your Jacuzzi -- I present the Screengrab's 12 Days of Christmas Marathon, where I get drunk and watch some of the finest Christmas movies that Hollywood has crammed down our throats, and ask: will this movie fill you with holiday cheer or seasonal depression?

First up is 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3-D, although a more accurate name for it would be Not Actually Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas or even Hi Everybody We're Henry Selick and Caroline Thompson and We Directed and Wrote This Movie Respectively And What Do We Have To Do To Get a Little Credit For That?'s The Nightmare Before Christmas. While Burton created the lead characters and wrote a poem that served as the movie's inspiration, he had very little to do with making the film itself, and the fact that he's generally given all the kudos for it is a shame, because if nothing else, it proves how other people are capable of taking his quirky, creepy aesthetic and running with it.

Made using a daring, innovating, and highly striking form of 3-D animation, The Nightmare Before Christmas uses the clever (and somewhat underexplored) notion that all holidays are represented geographically in an otherworldly tableau to tell the story of Halloween bigwig Jack Skellington -- voiced by Chris Sarandon, with song vocals by the film's composer, Burton stalwart Danny Elfman. Jack happens upon the existence of Christmastown, and, meaning well but flummoxed -- and slightly jealous -- of the universal love showered on its big shot, one "Sandy Claws", resolves to cut in on his action. Hilarity ensues, lessons are learned, and all that standard Christmassy crap, but filtered through a truly weird visual sensibility.

One thing that director Selick and screenwriter Thompson share with Tim Burton is a sort of whimsical disregard for the conventions of storytelling. Setpieces ramble one to the other, and the story rolls gregariously along without ever making a lot of sense -- you get the idea that the filmmakers were as impatient as some of their younger audience to get on to the next bit of cool stuff. That said, the movie is breathtakingly gorgeous, with incredibly clever and intricate visuals that took as much time and effort as the story didn't. (There's currently an exhibit of some of the models used in the film on display at an art museum here in San Antonio, where I live, and seeing them up close, you get an unexpected sense of how elaborate and careful the building of them was; it's clearly no accident the movie looks as good as it does.) Kids old enough not to be freaked out by some of the jarring elements of the movie will adore its highly successful visual style, which blends cute and creepy in a way rarely seen outside of Japanese animation, and adults will be engaged by the swell performances and the overall intricacy of the movie's design.

Despite the Halloweeny themes and the often shocking visual play, there's really nothing gloomy or depressing about The Nightmare Before Christmas; it's an old-fashioned entertaining all-ages romp like rarely gets made any more, and the songs, while not exactly unforgettable, are loads of fun while you're experiencing them, especially "The Oogie Boogie Song", a monster's rollicking threat towards a kidnapped Santa Claus. In contrast to Burton's own weepy-assed Christmas effort, Edward Scissorhands, the only bummer to be found is that some of the great talents on display in the voice cast -- including Paul Reubens, Catherine O'Hara, and Glenn Shadix -- don't get nearly as much work as their talent deserves.

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS RATING: A solid 8 Maids a-Milking. The story and the script won't stay with you past Christmas morning, but it's a pure good time you can sing along to after you've gotten deep in the punch bowl Christmas Eve -- and you won't even have to chase the kids out of the living room.

Related Posts:

Summerfest '08: A Summer Place

Summerfest '08: Wet Hot American Summer

DVD Roundup for August 26, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week’s bumper crop of Westerns necessitates a temporary name change for this column.

DVD of the Week: 1962’s How the West Was Won may not have been the greatest classic Western ever made, but it was almost certainly the biggest, boasting three directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall) and an all-star cast (led by John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, and Richard Widmark) to tell a Western family saga spanning half a century. In addition, the film boasting some stunning Western vistas designed to fully exploit the three-screen Cinerama process- this was one of only two narrative features to be exhibited using honest-to-goodness Cinerama. The biggest advantage of this week’s new Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner, also Blu-Ray) of the film is that it comes closer than any DVD edition to date to replicating the look of Cinerama in digital form. Instead of the “join lines” and standard 2.35:1 ‘Scope framing of previous editions, this new edition of the film features a new technology that effectively unifies the three Cinerama frames into the original aspect ratio of 2.89:1. There are also a number of special features, notably the 2002 documentary Cinerama Adventure that explores the famed camera process, as well as a trailer, archival featurette, audio commentary, and plenty of collectible memorabilia about the film and its stars. Nothing will be quite like watching How the West Was Won in Cinerama, but this new edition makes the home viewing experience better than ever.

In other oater news, this week also brings the Warner Home Video Western Classics Collection, which includes the 1960 remake Cimarron, Escape From Fort Bravo, Many Rivers to Cross, Saddle the Wind, The Law and Jake Wade, and The Stalking Moon, with each film also sold individually. In addition, Warner is also releasing the Errol Flynn Westerns Box Set (Warner), which contains Montana, Rocky Mountain, San Antonio, and Virginia City. And don’t overlook the Blu-Ray only release of Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider (Warner).

Meanwhile, this week’s recent releases coming to DVD include: Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in What Happens in Vegas (Fox, also Blu-Ray); David Mamet MMA drama Redbelt (Sony, also Blu-Ray); the acclaimed documentary Chicago 10 (Paramount), Lynch (Ryko Entertainment), a documentary about the ever-popular David Lynch; Uwe Boll’s must-see Postal (Universal Music & Video Distribution), costarring former DVD Digest contributor David Huddleston; and the latest release from our pals at Benten Films, Team Picture.

Other classics coming to DVD this week include: a new pressing of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious final film Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Criterion); the Henry Selick-directed The Nightmare Before Christmas Collector’s Edition (Disney); Jeunet and Caro’s Delicatessen Special Edition (First Look); and Monica Bellucci’s nude body transforming into a rolling landscape for your enjoyment in Brotherhood of the Wolf: Director’s Cut (Universal).

In TV on DVD, there’s Entourage Season 4 (HBO), Everybody Hates Chris Season 3 (Warner), Heroes Season 2 (Universal, also Blu-Ray), NCIS Season 5 (Paramount), and The Shield Season 6 (Sony).

Finally, this week’s action-packed lineup of Blu-Ray only releases includes: Errol Flynn (again) in The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner); Gov. Schwarzenegger fighting Satan in End of Days (Universal); the first season of NBC’s Heroes (Universal); Crockett and Tubbs hitting the big screen in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (Universal), and the submarine thriller U-571 (Universal).