TheRetroCritic

What's this?! A movie that's both perfect for Christmas AND Halloween, not to mention a treat for Burtonites and Oingo Boingo aficionados? What. Is. This? It's The Nightmare Before Christmas , of course. Henry Selick's stop-motion Disney classic based on the gothic surrealism of Tim Burton who contributed the story and the characters while Danny Elfman not only took on the music and the lyrics but voiced the Pumpkin King himself, Jack Skellington, during the songs with Chris Sarandon on voicing duties the rest of the time. The film quickly became a Christmas and Halloween tradition since its plot cleverly merged both holidays in a unique way without coming off as overly gimmicky. After a thrilling opening number, "This Is Halloween", which introduces us to Halloweentown and its spooky inhabitants (vampires, witches, you name it), we finally meet Skellington, the bony showman who has been making the best out of every single Halloween, wowing the to

I break my own promise to not go and see another Hunger Games movie by... Going to see the new Hunger Games movie .

Review now available on the new website . 

Here's a movie which, on paper, couldn't have sounded like a good idea. Peter Sellers playing an Indian guy in a film where basically nothing in the way of a plot happens? Ok... Luckily, with Blake Edwards directing, Sellers' slapstick genius at its peak and that kitsch 60's charm in full force, The Party manages to not only recapture some of that Pink Panther magic but work completely as its own concept movie. The concept being that pretty much the entire film takes place during a party in one single location: a giant fancy Hollywood home complete with parrots, defective toilets, button-operated furniture, alcoholic waiters and many more things conveniently designed to give Peter Sellers' candid character plenty to trip on, fall into or mistakenly destroy. Hrundi V. Bakshi (Sellers) is a bumbling film extra who accidentally explodes a set he's working on and is soon told he'll never work in Hollywood again. Through a clerical error, however, in

I review Christopher Nolan's latest. It's called Interstellar , in case you don't know.

I finally talk about Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . Had to happen.

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 14th episode, we discuss the tenth episode of  Gotham , Alfred, Will Smith, Viola Davis and Danny Elfman. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

Not content with painting his face green in The Mask and wearing nothing but green as The Riddler in Batman Forever , Jim Carrey decided to cover himself in green fur for Ron Howard's live-action version of Dr Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas . This decision did pay off in that Carrey turned out to be the perfect choice to play the moody Grinch and, whether you like the movie or not, it's hard to deny the rubber-faced actor's energy makes his portrayal of the classic character a lot of fun from start to finish. Who else could have pulled off such a cartoonish role so convincingly? He even aces the old "You're A Mean One, Mr Grinch" tune in one of the movie's best and most memorable sequences. The make-up effects on Carrey as well as on all the actors playing the Whos of Who-ville are impressive and spot-on, bringing Dr Seuss' unique visual style to a live-action setting beautifully. Unfortunately, while the film boasts tons of Christma

In-between directing more arty/trendy flicks, Terry Zwigoff tried his hand at a somewhat more commercial effort with Bad Santa , a Christmas movie with a difference. The main difference being that our "bad Santa" is a shady, foul-mouthed, boozing thief who pisses his pants. Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox's Christmas tradition in this movie is posing as a mall Santa and Elf then robbing the whole place after the busiest shopping day of the year. Unfortunately, Willie (Thornton) is struggling to keep both his alcoholism and his sex addiction under control so he soon becomes a liability in grave danger of messing up the whole plan. Along the way, Willie meets Sue (Lauren Graham), a girl with a Santa fetish and they begin a relationship of sorts. He also meets a clingy overweight young boy amusingly called Thurman Merman, played by an appropriately wide-eyed Brett Kelly, who, for whatever reason, believes Willie to be the real Santa Claus. And although the kid annoys

If anyone was going to save Christmas, it had to be Ernest P. Worrell. Those of you unfamiliar with Jim Varney's somewhat cult creation may be missing out on some fun times, though Ernest Goes To Africa was pretty brutal... Yeah, I watched that. Ernest Saves Christmas , luckily, is one of the good ones. Not only because Varney once again delivers his own brand of rubber-faced, fast-talkin', cartoonish madness but also because Douglas Seale makes one loveable Santa and adds a lot of heart to an otherwise purely slapsticky farce. The film sees Santa search for a worthy successor and seeing as Ernest, who kindly drives Santa around in a cab, is all about that Christmas spirit, there's no better candidate to help Santa achieve his goal. Except maybe the elves who actually do have their own subplot in this movie, as do the reindeers, believe it or not. Actually, come to think of it, this movie has more subplots than it does have a plot as Noelle Parker becomes Ernest&#