Tim Burton Storytelling At Its Finest

Rating: 10/10 (23 October 2011)

Tim Burton wanted to work on Nightmare for years but couldn't direct it due to filming Batman Returns. So he got someone who shared in his artistic style, Henry Selick and together they made one of the best animated films of all time.
Nightmare Before Christmas takes place in three worlds. Halloweentown, Christmastown and our world. The story is about a skeleton brilliantly named Jack Skellington who is tired of always scaring people and wants more out of his life(or lack there-of). While walking in the woods he stumbles across a circle of trees with doors to other worlds. He enters the Christmas one and is immediately swept away by the bright and colorful atmosphere of Christmastown. He returns to Halloweentown and tells all the other citizens about it. They soon decide they should try Christmas for themselves. Only one person/rag doll experiment thinks this is a bad idea, Sally who is smitten for Jack(and him unaware of it).
The citizens try their best but all they can make are scary toys to give to the children. At one point Santa Claus himself is taken to the resident bogeyman, Oogie Boogie after Jack borrows his hat to complete his costume. As Santa Claus is about to be forced to play a deadly gambling game, Jack goes out into the real world to deliver the presents. Things go horribly wrong and soon the citizens of the real world call the military to shoot the impostor Santa Claus down. Merry Christmas right?
This film is magnificent. It's perfect to watch on Halloween or Christmas or anytime of the year. The characters are each unique in their own way and the songs in the movie are all extremely catchy and wonderfully orchestrated by Danny Elfman. Personally I can't think of any flaw in this film. Even with the relatively short run-time of 76 minutes the pacing is still pretty good and nothing really seems to drag on. This is just one of those movies you could watch forever and never tire of. Only Tim Burton could think of something this insane and awesome.