企鹅（penguin）

      

      一直以来对企鹅的印象都只是动画片里那只憨态可掬的小动物。走路左摇右晃的，挺可爱的。可这部《帝企鹅日记》让我对企鹅的印象发生了彻底的改变，原来它们在南极的生活是如此的艰辛。

 

      企鹅们在远离大海的冰川上结出爱情的结晶。而后虚弱的雌企鹅把蛋交给雄企鹅，自己回到大海为即将出生的小宝宝寻找食物，由于这里离大海相当远，这一走就是几个月。雄企鹅为了孵化自己的小Baby可以在寒风中抱成一团地站立几个月的时间，不吃不喝。小Baby出生后，企鹅爸爸就必须出去寻找食物，一去又是几个月。此时，小企鹅就交由刚从外面觅食归来的企鹅妈妈继续照顾，一直等到爸爸的归来。

      这部片子的确挺了不起，真实而完整地记录了企鹅的爱情、繁衍、育儿、觅食、迁徙以及与大自然的抗争。导演肯定付出了相当大的代价。在南极那么恶劣的环境下还要拍摄出画制精美的纪录片，真是不容易啊。

 

      当然了，小企鹅是很可爱的，它们从出生到长大一直由爸妈轮流照顾。可以躲在爸妈的羽毛地下躲避寒风的侵袭。虽说企鹅实行的是一夫一妻制，可是它们个个都长得一模一样，又过着群居的生活，我有点怀疑它们怎么分得清谁是谁阿，小企鹅又怎么能分得清谁才是它的亲生父母呀？

      值得一提的当然还有南极的风景。

 

 

Genre: Animation | Family |

           Fantasy | Musical

 

 

Directed by      

Henry Selick 

 

Tim Burton (story)

Michael McDowell (adaptation)

 

     Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween -- but alas, they can't get it quite right.

 

                                                     plotted by John Reeves 

 

    The movies can create entirely new worlds for us, but that is one of their rarest gifts. More often, directors go for realism, for worlds we can recognize. One of the many pleasures of "Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas" is that there is not a single recognizable landscape within it. Everything looks strange and haunting. Even Santa Claus would be difficult to recognize without his red-and-white uniform.
    The movie, which tells the story of an attempt by Halloween to annex Christmas, is shot in a process called stop-action animation.
    In an ordinary animated film, the characters are drawn. Here they are constructed, and then moved a little, frame by frame, so that they appear to live. This allows a three-dimensional world to be presented, instead of the flatter universe of cel animation. And it is a godsend for the animators of "Nightmare," who seem to have built their world from scratch - every house, every stick and stone - before sending their skeletal and rather pathetic little characters in to inhabit it.
    The movie begins with the information that each holiday has its own town. Halloweentown, for example, is in charge of all the preparations for Halloween, and its most prominent citizen is a bony skeleton named Jack Skellington, whose moves and wardrobe seem influenced by Fred Astaire.
    One day Jack stumbles into the wrong entryway in Halloweentown, and finds himself smack dab in the middle of preparations for Christmas. Now this, he realizes, is more like it! Instead of ghosts and goblins and pumpkins, there are jolly little helpers assisting Santa in his annual duty of bringing peace on earth and goodwill to men.
    Back in Halloweentown, Jack Skellington feels a gnawing desire to better himself. To move up to a more important holiday, one that people take more seriously and enjoy more than Halloween. And so he engineers a diabolical scheme in which Santa is kidnapped, and Jack himself plays the role of Jolly Old St. Nick, while his helpers manufacture presents. (Some of the presents, when finally distributed to little girls and boys, are so hilariously ill-advised that I will not spoil the fun by describing them here.) Tim Burton, the director of "Beetlejuice," "Edward Scissorhands" and the "Batman" movies, has been creating this world in his head for about 10 years, ever since his mind began to stray while he was employed as a traditional animator on an unremarkable Disney project.
    The story is centered on his favorite kind of character, a misfit who wants to do well, but has been gifted by fate with a quirky personality that people don't know how to take. Jack Skellington is the soul brother of Batman, Edward and the demon in "Beetlejuice" - a man for whom normal human emotions are a conundrum.
    "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a Tim Burton film in the sense that the story, its world and its look first took shape in Burton's mind, and he supervised their filming. But the director of the film, a veteran stop-action master named Henry Selick, is the person who has made it all work. And his achievement is enormous.
    Working with gifted artists and designers, he has made a world here that is as completely new as the worlds we saw for the first time in such films as "Metropolis," "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or "Star Wars." What all of these films have in common is a visual richness, so abundant that they deserve more than one viewing. First, go for the story. Then go back just to look in the corners of the screen, and appreciate the little visual surprises and inspirations that are tucked into every nook and cranny.
    The songs by Danny Elfman are fun, too, a couple of them using lyrics so clever they could be updated from Gilbert & Sullivan. And the choreography, liberated from gravity and reality, has an energy of its own, as when the furniture, the architecture and the very landscape itself gets into the act.
    PARENTAL ADVISORY The movie is rated PG, maybe because some of the Halloween creatures might be a tad scary for smaller children, but this is the kind of movie older kids will eat up; it has the kind of offbeat, subversive energy that tells them wonderful things are likely to happen. As an adult who was not particularly scared by the abduction of Santa (somehow I knew things would turn out all right), I found the movie a feast for the eyes and the imagination. 

 

                                                       reviewed by Roger Ebert

 

    The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of Tim Burton's most peculiar and curious films, and I can imagine it being hard to fully appreciate it if you're not a big fan of the director. The style of the film is genuine Burton x 10. The dark, gothic surroundings and the strange characters - they're all there, making The Nightmare Before Christmas the entertaining film it is. And let's not forget about Danny Elfman's music...

    The Nightmare Before Christmas is considered by many to be one of composer Danny Elfman's finest and best achievements. It certainly is one his most entertaining and ambitious efforts to date. With Elfman composing the score and all the songs - as well as writing the lyrics - and performing in many of them, The Nightmare Before Christmas is like... well, Christmas for all Elfman fans.

    Being a huge Elfman fan myself, this is a soundtrack I enjoy from start to finish - from the bombastic "Overture" (followed by Patrick Stewart's excellent voice over introduction in "Opening") to the exciting "End Title", together creating a great bookend to the score and soundtrack.

    The songs are all entertaining and range from excitement in "What's This?" and "Town Meeting Song", sadness in "Sally's Song" and "Poor Jack" to great drama in songs like the groovy "Oogie Boogie's Song" - one of the soundtracks' absolute highlights, together with "This is Halloween" and the already mentioned "Town Meeting Song". All songs have fully orchestral backing and the orchestrations by Mark McKenzie - another one of my favorites - are superb.

    The score cues work mainly as instrumental bridges between the songs, making this soundtrack extremely entertaining and easy listening to. If I had to recommend one score by Elfman to anyone not familiar with the composers' music, I would probably pick Edward Scissorhands or The Nightmare Before Christmas. They really have nothing in common apart from the fact that they both succeed in creating a world of their own. Just like Tim Burton. It's not hard to understand why he has chosen to collaborate with Danny Elfman. Few people complement each other as well as they do.

 

                                                  reviewed by Andreas Lindahl

 

 

 

---

 

类别: 动画 | 家庭 |

         幻想 | 音乐

 

导演                
Henry Selick     

 

Tim Burton (原著)
Michael McDowell (改编)

 

      南瓜骷髅Jack是Halloween镇的大王，正因为每年都为准备万圣节做同样的事情而感到无聊。一天，他无意之中走进了Christmas镇，被镇里过圣诞节的欢快的气氛深深吸引。于是他决定让在Halloween镇里的居民蝙蝠、食尸鬼、精灵等一起准备过一次圣诞节，然而他们并不能真正了解圣诞节的内涵。

 

                                                  作者    John Reeves

                                                  翻译    Oliver

 

      电影可以为我们创造全新的世界，但这只是它所带给我们的珍贵的礼物之一。导演们经常强调真实性、强调我们所熟悉的世界。Tim Burtom的《圣诞夜惊魂》的乐趣之一就是里面没有一个我们熟悉的景象。所有东西看起来都显得奇怪且令人难忘。如果没有身穿红白制服，我们连圣诞老人都认不出来。      

 

     《圣诞夜惊魂》是Tim Burton的最奇特、古怪的电影之一，我能想象到如果你不是导演的忠实影迷，那么你很难完全理解这部电影。电影的风格是真实的Burton x 10。黑暗、哥特式的环境以及奇怪的人物角色都使得《圣诞夜惊魂》成为一部有趣的电影。我们也不能忘记Danny Elfman的音乐……

      To be contined…………