The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993)

 After they throw another great Halloween, the people of Halloween town are convinced by Jack Skellington to take the task of doing Christmas this year. After he visits the world of Christmas and discovers many elements of the classic holiday. But you can’t ask monsters and ghouls to celebrate Christmas without being frightening and scary. On top of that, Jack falls in love with Sally the creation of the mad scientist of the village.

Manhattan Murder Mystery

Manhattan Murder Mystery (Woody Allen, 1993)

Larry Lipton (Woody Allen) and his wife Carol (Diane Keaton) meet their new next-door neighbors Paul (Jerry Adler) and Lilian (Lynn Cohen) House. They meet at the Houses' apartment for coffee, and they discover they have common interests. The next night, Larry and Carol find the Houses' door open and a crowd forming in the hallway. Lilian has died of a heart attack. The Liptons are surprised by the death because Lilian seemed so healthy.

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

This article is a part of a series of imposed movie reviews in the participation of this films critic to the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Club. It is an attempt at catching up the reviews that I’ve missed in my recent period of inactivity in the blogosphere.

Back in 1993, I was 10 years old and the movie Jurassic Park was on the lips of everyone. It was the Star Wars, the E.T., or the Avatar of my childhood. I vividly remember when my father bought the VHS and we would sit in front of the television to watch the film. It is one of the films I’ve seen the most times in my life. TO illustrate that : in 2006, I was in Italy with my wife and I watched the film in Italian and I could cite every line in French with the right intonation. I can play the movie in my head and I remember every frame and camera movement. Lately it has been announced that the movie that made 900 millions of dollars, when it came out, will be re-released in 3D for its 20th anniversary. This mean two things : the fact that this movie could have easily came out this year and that it passed through time and that I’ll be thirty years old this summer.

Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)

Of the many films I planned to watch from the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time list from They Shoot Pictures, Dazed and Confused was one of the most anticipated. I caught it on IFC and taped it on my DVR. Well, what a marvelous thing is this DVR, I acquired it late august and it gave me the gift of time! Simply because I can easily save several hours of television and movies and I don't have to tape it on VHS or be at the right moment in front of my TV!

Dazed and Confused is the kind of movie coming with a cult surrounding it. It tells, the final day of school of 1976 lived by freshmens and High Schoolers. Depicting a somewhat simpler time of our teenage years. Despite the time period, the occupations look the same and I remember having hang out with approximately the same kind of characters back then. The time of your first drunken evening, first love, the discovery of the possibilities of life and everything that surrounds drugs, alcohol, hanging out with friends, and partying. Dazed and Confused has a thin plot and luckily, Linklater (Slackers, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Waking Life, Me and Orson Welles, School of Rock) knows how to direct a film with no real tension but human interactions. He also understands teenage years and translate it in a way that brings us back to this time of our lives.

When I got into this film I did not knew how to perceived it, first because I tend not to like smoke head movies, since I haven't been one when I was at the High School but also because I don't really like them at all. In this case, there are many scenes of drug and alcohol abuse, but unlike Larry Clark's Kids or any pothead flick around it is a meditation of the effects of our actions as teenagers and the intercourses involved in this confusing time in a human's life. I think I may have liked this film even more than I actually expected. Recommended.