Now we come to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton’s 1993 stop-motion feature that has now become a holiday 3-D staple. Honestly, I did not like this film whatsoever. I didn’t find it funny, interesting or appealing in any way. With a running time of only 75 minutes you would think I would have no problem sitting through it. Instead, I fell asleep about 30 minutes into it the first time. The second time I started where I last remembered and sure enough, about 15 minutes later I was asleep again. When I finally got to the end I quickly ejected the disc, packed it into the Netflix envelope and tossed in the outgoing mail. What the fascination with this flick is I will never understand, to each their own.
We will end this edition with two films from the Coen brothers. I would say it is appropriate as they just pulled down Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men, don’t yah think? The two I recently watched were Fargo and the brothers’ first film Blood Simple. I had always meant to check out Fargo, but I picked up Blood Simple because I now intend on checking out all the films the brothers have made so far. To this point I haven’t seen Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy or The Man Who Wasn’t There. Yeah, I still have a long way to go, at least what’s left are primarily considered to be their better films.
As for the two I watched, I can honestly say both of them are real gems. It would be hard for me to say one is better than the other, but if it came down to it I think I would have to prefer Blood Simple even though it is far rougher than Fargo. My fascination with the film is hard to put a finger on, but I think it is the overall confusion between all of the characters that captured my attention, and you just may find it popping up on a top ten of mine very soon, and one you wouldn’t traditionally consider it to be on.
Fargo has far more comedic elements to it, whereas Blood Simple is more of a straight forward dramatic-thriller, but they both have a fair share of violence, it just comes down to whether you prefer humans in wood chippers or a bit of hand stabbage to fill your violence quota. The fun with Fargo is the path to catch the criminals and Marge Gunderson’s (Frances McDormand) ho-hum style. Blood Simple is more of a character study and an attempt to get into the heads of each character as they all head down the wrong path at every turn.
In terms of filmmaking Fargo is certainly better, the brothers have shown so much growth in their technique it is amazing, but from a story standpoint Blood Simple is a lot of fun. I know people love to remember the “Yeah’s” of Fargo, and they are funny, but that doesn’t quite throw it over the edge for me, but maybe it will for you… Here’s a taste:
On a side note, regarding Fargo, when I interviewed Jason Reitman, the Juno director, and we got to talking and it came up that I hadn’t seen Fargo just yet he asked me, “And you do what for a living?” Well, maybe I am in his good graces now and my opinion is more valid. I mean, after all, I just yearn to gain the approval of others.
Hopefully you will check a few of these out if you haven’t before, but if you have opposing opinions or agree with me you will share below. I hope to get more of these up sooner rather than later as I do enjoy taking a look back in time as well as upping my film resume. I do it all in an effort to impress and perhaps one day become a “major critic” worthy of your praise… Yeah, right! Let’s watch movies and simply agree to hate and love with free will!
