I think the last review was the first time I’d seen this movie and I’ve not seen it since. This movie is a masterpiece, it made me realise just how much was missing from Corpse Bride. And really, though the movie feels so much like everything Tim Burton has to say, it’s far more Danny Elfman’s achievement than anyone else’s.

Visually, every single character is so much more interesting and surprising than those seen in Burton’s latest stop-motion extravaganza. The world is so designed and roamed by the camera that you get to know almost exactly where you are. The whole thing is so much more operatic than I remembered, it’s a real fully-fledged musical, no kids’ movie really, it goes exactly where it needs to to tell its story, there’s no sense of, “oh well sure we’d like to show that but this has to be a family affair,” behind the whole thing. There’s so much more to write about this movie but I’m playing catch-up today. I love it.

6th October 2004:

This is quintessential Tim Burton. Weird, beautiful, tragic, eerie, romantic, extreme to extreme, and Danny Elfman’s glorious musical skills.

I just want to concentrate on the scene in which Jack Skellington enters Christmastown and sings the song, “What’s This?” The pacing of this whole sequence, Jack’s gestures and pauses and the music itself, has got to be the most gloriously happy sequence I’ve ever seen. I thought I’d seen this movie before but there’s no way I ever picked up on this tragi-comic-romantic side of the whole story. Jack has such a sad natural expression when his face is at rest, such a longing for things like Christmastown even though he’s thoroughly at home not to mention skilled at doing the Halloween stuff. It just slays me in this sequence where he’s so happy.

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