Porn Fu

Porn Fu: The Single Greatest Movie Ever Made (Now in SUPER-VIBRO-VISION!!!)

I've seriously been considering whether I should talk about Porn Fu, the feature film I've been writing for two years and am thisclose to finishing the final draft. Not that I don't think people want to see the film (far from it: from what I can gather, everyone I mention this film to want to see it), nor do I think it's a good idea (I wouldn't have devoted two years of my life to writing something I didn't think was a good idea). But I've been seriously worried about sharing the idea simply because, well, I don't know if I'm good enough to write it.
The movie concerns the aptly named Long Wang, a master in ancient art of porn fu, a martial art that is derived from pent up sexual energy. Every time Long Wang uses his skills, he must have sex in order to regain his energy, but he cannot climax, or he loses all that energy and must start over. His mother, a prostitute, was murdered by a member of the Yakuza when Wang was very young, and in the film he travels to the place of her murder in order to avenge her. But...along the way, he gets stuck in a gang-run town and must help an old man, Temura, rid the town of both gangs before he can be let out, as well as recover his mother's necklace, her last physical possession and his only reminder of her. Yep. Think of the plot as Yojimbo meets Kung Fu Hustle with a whole bunch of Johnny Wadd thrown in. Did I mention there is a Goth chick with a broadsword, cat ears, a cat tail, and is a badass motherfucker? Or her assisstant, a kung fu schoolgirl in possession of a teacup terrier with a taste for blood? Or Goatse...the character with the single most insane character trait I think I've ever created?
There is lots of blood, lots of sex, and lots of comedy. Trust me when I say that I am putting everything I love about action movies into this film. You want a fight scene while the main character is getting a blowjob? Check. You want a fight scene in a narrow hallway between the main character and 30 bad guys? Check. You want a fight scene where a villain is exploded by the sheer force of the protagonist's crotch? Checkity check check.
So here I am, tightening up lot points, cleaning up the dialogue, and going through the script for a sixth time and I've been thinking about sharing this idea without whoever it is that reads this. The budget would be exorbitant (at least $1 million...and that's a low estimate), shotting would be difficult, but I will settle for the end result being nothing less than amazing. Director Wai Choy, with whom I've worked before in the past (and is a very gifted director), is eager to get started on this project, and has a crew assembled (I myself have assembled a preliminary second-unit crew, and have been searching for performers for the more...um...well, not to mince words, for the sex scenes.) Casting the main roles of Long Wang and Goatse will the most pivotal components, but if done correctly, we would see this film expand in the sequel, which would conceivably be shot in New York's Chinatown (and involve an S&M dominatrix, a free-running sequence on the rooftops, and a fight between Wang and about 20 bad guys in the middle of rush-hour traffic with cars racing about...simply kick-ass). Again, everything I would want to see in a film.
Is this a film you would want to see, that you would want your friends to see? It's the simplest concept: combine action with sex and set it free. Would you be willing to see witness the journey of Long Wang over the course of Porn Fu, and Porn Fu 2: Year Of The Cock? Because I sure as hell know I would.
Whoever wants to see this film, let me know. Let me know what you want to see, what ideas you might have for action or sex scenes (and fear not: the crazier the idea, the funnier it will be and the more likely it will be in the film). I want to know what you think, as I'm trying to write this film for you to enjoy. Enough of the pretentious art films and stupid film school student projects (mine included in that description). Let's have some fucking fun already!



A future review of the film, as featured in a future issue of The New York Times:

“Porn Fu: A Review” by A.O. Scott

I still don't know whether to jump up and down for cinematic joy, or be horribly depressed and offended after watching Porn Fu. A parody of vintage adult films from the Seventies, and the chop-socky imports from the East during that same era (some scenes feel cribbed right out of Fists Of Fury, The Chinese Connection, and Five Fingers Of Death, as well as Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter series), Porn Fu is a film that also pushes the limits of what the MPAA will allow...and what audiences can stomach. The title suggests a lot...and the film delivers so much more. Much more. Much much more than you'd ever care to even imagine about knowing.
The plot (if it matters) concerns Long Wang (yep, this is that sort of film), a young master of porn fu who, as a child, witnessed the rape and murder of his mother. Now that he has matured and is a formidable fighter, he ventures to the City (an anonymous place) to find her killer and avenge her. It's as simple as that...except that he spends the entire film at a small, walled town called Fukiyaka in order to defeat two competing gangs, one led by Lady Ichi and the other by Lady Kiochi. Why? Well, they stole his dead mother's necklace, and, after a particularly amazing battle (which we are told about, but never see...one of the film's many non-sex-related jokes) befriends an old man. If this all sounds familiar, it should, as the plot bears striking resemblance to The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, which itself is a remake of Yojimbo. The structure is identical, but in this interpretation, the main character is capable of fighting dozens of bad guys at a time, make love like Peter North, and explode a human being with a pelvic thrust. Again, this is that kind of movie.
It's hard to tell whether this film is insensitive to racial stereotypes, or whether it is sexist, or whether it is simply a throwback to the relative political incorrectness of the 1970's, a time when there was major social change, yet men still thought they were on top of everything. Despite the fact that the women play the most important roles (one is the villain, and the other changes sides after sleeping with Wang, and they each use Wang more ofte nthan he uses them), the men are duplicitous and naïve (especially Wang, who is the most naïve until the end of the second act; and the duplicitous Kyo, the jealous boyfriend to Lady Kiochi), and the violence has real weight to it. And the sex scenes, while seemingly superfluous, is anything but. Wang's skills are derived from pent-up sexual energy: every time he makes love, he must fight, and vice versa. On the surface, the film is nothing but penis jokes, double-entendres, and suggestive character names (some of which I can't even print). But, in light of all this, the title of the film is Porn Fu; if you honestly think the film is a treatise of current social situations you should relax and sit back and just enjoy the show.
Enjoyable this show is. Throughout the course of the film Long Wang beds about seven beautiful women (including one who seemed ripped right out of a Japanese manga), kills about a hundred bad guys, explodes about ten others, saves an old man, and fights one of the most outright original characters I've seen in some time: a fedora-topped assassin named Goatse who has a skill so crazy you won't know how to react. The plot is solid enough, although the first half of the second act has Wang meander for a bit before getting down to business, but once he fights off about thirty bad guys in a single-shot fight set in the narrowest hallway in the world, you'll realize that this is a film that is doing more than just showing people have sex. It is pushing the boundaries of what action movies can do and get away with.
While the film is considerably better than the so-called “parodies” that have flooded our theatres twice a year, it still suffers from an incomplete story: one gets the feeling that this is all just a set-up for a sequel. Not that I would mind that: Long Wang still has to find his mother's killer and enact bloody, sex-fueled revenge. If that were all to it, though, then maybe we should have gotten to it this time around. All in all a mindless diversion to the halcyon days of 1970's action and sex films, a combination that perhaps more people should have done. As it is, I'm looking forward to Porn Fu 2: Year Of The Cock.

Below is a scene from the opening of the film:

EXT HILLSIDE – MORNING

A beautiful, clear day; sun shining; green, thick grass; mountains. Wang climbs to top of a small hill, and as we follow him, we see A GREAT CITY in the distance. He sits down and takes out some food.

We HEAR A WOMAN SCREAM a short distance away. Wang turns, and at the bottom of the hill we see…

EXT WANG POV --- SAME

…A WOMAN (mid-20’s) being assaulted by a group of A DOZEN THUGS. The thugs stand in a circle with the girl in the center, pushing her from one side to the other, laughing all the while.

EXT HILLSIDE --- SAME

Wang watches.

EXT BOTTOM OF HILL --- SAME

One of the thugs holds onto the WOMAN, while another takes off her shirt: the woman is now topless, she has an unbelievable body. Two other thugs begin fondling her, his friends laughing and goading him on. They go a bit further with the girl as one after another joins in…

Wang walks towards them.

LEADER
(To Wang)
You want some of this?

WANG
Let her go.

LEADER
This is none of your business.

WANG
Let her go.

WOMAN
(To Wang)
Help me! Please!

LEADER
(to Wang)
Stay out of this.

The Leader PUSHES Long Wang, who stands his ground. Another of the thugs, THUG #1, rushes up, standing next to his Leader. Wang steps forward. THUG #1 SLAPS LONG WANG in the face, hard. SLAP!

Wang remains calm. Another thug, THUG #2 rushes over, laughing, and taunts LONG WANG.

THUG #1
(To THUG #2)
Take his necklace!

THUG #2 RIPS OFF Wang’s necklace, and stares at it. Wang closes his eyes, and breathes in deeply.

LEADER
(Turning to face the rape)
Kill him. He’s nobody.

Thug #2 pulls out a KNIFE and approaches Long Wang. The knife comes CLOSER, almost DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA, filling the entire screen, its blade SHARP…

The woman SCREAMS as the LEADER removes his CLOTHES and stands over her…

The knife SLASHES ACROSS THE SCREEN, we hear only the woman SCREAMING…

WIDE SHOT as Long Wang CATCHES THE BLADE between two fingers and SNAPS IT in half all in one move. THUG #2 stares in disbelief. All are quiet, including the woman.

THUG #2
(To his partners in crime)
Uh, guys…?
Long Wang flings the SNAPPED BLADE, which cuts a thug in the NECK, bleeding him to death.

Long Wang KICKS Thug #2 so hard in his crotch that Wang’s foot gets stuck in Thug #2’s pelvis. As the other thugs run towards him, Wang kicks THUG #2 into them, sending them sprawling.

The thugs attack Long Wang, who dispatches them efficiently and coldly, with the minimal of theatrics.

Lots of kicks and throws, Wang barely loses his ground or gives up any space; no flashy or wasted moves. The Leader faces off briefly with Wang, who throws him against a tree effortlessly.

LEADER
(To Thug #1)
What's he doing?

THUG #1
He is doing kung fu!

LEADER
Can he do any more?

THUG #1
Of course he can! He has plenty of kung fu!

The Leader and Thug #1 return to the fight.

Meanwhile, the WOMAN the Leader and his men were raping gathers her clothes and runs off, hiding in some bushes some distance off, watching Long Wang as she gets dressed…

We return to the action to see Long Wang standing over TWO UNCONSCIOUS THUGS, in including Thug #2, as the others run off down the road and into the woods bordering the road.

Wang takes a step forward and then COLLAPSES: he is spent, his energy depleted. The WOMAN tentatively walks to Wang, checks to see if he is alive.

FADE TO BLACK

EXT. RIVERBANK --- AFTERNOON

We open on LONG WANG’S EYES as they open slowly, painfully.

He is lying on a riverbank. His bag is placed under his head as a pillow, and the Woman’s shirt is underneath him as a makeshift sheet. There is a flask of WATER at his side, and he drinks.

Woods surround the area. The Woman he saved emerges, carrying some SMALL LOGS.

WOMAN
Oh. You're awake.

WANG
What happened?

WOMAN
You collapsed after they ran off

WANG
I feel weak…too weak. Drained…

WOMAN
Thank you for helping me. My name is Tushi.

WANG
How long have I been out?

TUSHI
Two hours.

Wang tries to sit up: he can’t.

TUSHI
(She gives him water)
How did you fight like that?

WANG
I know Porn Fu, an ancient, forgotten martial art.

TUSHI
“Porn fu”?

WANG
My skill is derived from the pent-up life-giving energy created in the art of love-making. Lovemaking and fighting go hand-in-hand. Both can be animalistic, but both contain a beauty unfound anywhere else in human existence.

TUSHI
You use up your energy in fighting?
(Touches his hand)
And how do you regain that energy?

Wang leans in close to her face. Cue highly-synthesized, cheesy PORN MUSIC.

WANG
By doing the opposite of fighting.

TUSHI
Is there anything I can do to help?.

WANG
Yes. You might be able to give me a hand.

They kiss, not passionately, but expectantly. From kissing they move into a bit of foreplay, and end with Tushi giving Long Wang a HANDJOB.

TUSHI
(Giving him a handjob)
Oh my, what power!

Taken

Taken

After a trailer like that, how could you not want to see it?
When I first saw the preview for Taken attached to Punisher: War Zone, I was stoked. Luc Besson (of Leon the Professional and La Femme Nikita fame) produced this thriller which has little on logic, less on plausibility, and loads of ass-kicking. Director Pierre Morel previously worked as either camera operator or cinematographer on several of Besson's work, and his previous directorial effort is the parkour-centered thriller District B13. His latest effort is less fantastic than that film, but no less implausible...and no less fun.
The plot concerns Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills' (a retired special ops agent) growing concern over his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). Bryan and his wife Lenore (an underused Famke Janssen) are divroced, and she married to a rich businessman who spoils Kim and is undeinably charismatic (much to Bryan's chgrin). Kim takes a trip with her friend Amanda to Europe, intending to backpack throughout the continent while tracing thetour of U2, all while an unsuspecting yet anally worried Bryan worries about his daughter.
However, his worries prove to be founded as Amanda and Kim are kidnapped by white slavers. Using a recorded telephone call from Kim as a clue, Bryan has 72 hours to find his daughter before she is sold and he never finds her again. In order to find her he fights, chases, tortures, and drives cars into boats and Schindler kills hundreds of bad guys. And I loved it.
Neeson carries the film alot better than I'd expected, and that's saying a lot. The leading man in an action film is a new role for him, and the release date of the film gave me reservations (the first month or two of the year are usually dumping grounds for bad movies that can't get higher-profile releases). Neeson propels the film with an unerring energy, and his persona helps give Mills' world-weariness a visible reality. Neeson looks dogged and tired, having seen too much unspeakable horror...and that helps greatly with this film.
Unfortunately, I couldn't remember many of the secondary characters' names (and a lot of them looked too similar...blame that on ethnocentrism if you must), which is a shame because there were many standouts and none seemed to milk their scenes or ham it up (something that could have easily happened). And despite Famke Janssen's underused Lenore (why cast her and then not use her so much? I guess she's got to eat too...), and a few improbable situations (Mills at one point gets hit with a car and then shot...and just limps away), none of these gripes kept me from enjoying the film. (Oh, and I couldn't help but find Bryan exceedingly protective of his daughter. Sure, he was right about the world being a dangerous place...but he was WAAAAYYYY too protective and anal towards her even before the plot started rolling; and what was it with ALL the villains being Middle Eastern?)
Michel Abramowicz's cinematography provides a very cool palatte for much of the film once the action starts, with very saturated colors and vibrant lighting in the opening scenes and coda (a distinction which accentuates the dangerous foreign territories with the relative security of civilian life stateside). Abramowicz's fine cinematography also provides a picturesque view of the settings, showcasing the beautiful vistas and the grungy underworlds with equal attention to detail. The production design by Hugues Tissandier allows for a very grungy, dirty, gritty feel to the world in which these characters live, which, again, helps the story.
However, it is Morel who is to be applauded here. He shapes the script (written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) into a sparse, action-oriented thriller. Morel knows how to shoot a chase scene, how to shoot a fight scene, and how to pace the film expertly (finally! An action movie that knwos to put the camera far enough back, and to cut slow enough, for me to know what the hell is going on!). It is apparent that his prior work with Besson allowed him to hone his directorial skills.
I suppose the praise I heap upon this film is earned not only on the part of the filmmakers (obviously), but also on the audience with whom I saw this film. I saw this in Puerto Rico during my spring break earlier this year, and my girlfriend was with me (of the selections playing, this was the best). The theatre was moderately full (there were a few rows of empty seats), and we were relieved when the film had subtitles and wasn't dubbed (I could understand Spanish...but not that well). And, well, the audience loved the movie; their reactions really ramped up the experience for me and made me enjoy it that much more. Normally theatre audiences (at least most of the theatres I go to) tend to ruin the movie with their cell phones and texting and babies and blah blah blah...but these people, like us, were there just to see a kick-ass movie. And, well, again, it helped me enjoy the film that much more. If every movie-going experience were like this, I'd go every weekend (and if I had to money to do so, of course...)
As soon as this film comes out on DVD I'm picking it up (although it presumably already is, it was released in Europe over a year ago...), and I suggest you do the same if you love action movies and watching historical figures blow up bad guys.

Once again, leave it to Besson to show us how action movies should be made.

Watchmen

Watchmen

Zack Snyder almost did what directors and producers such as Joel Silver, Terry Gilliam, and Paul Greengrass (amongst others) stalled: he almost made a Watchmen movie. Almost. He came close. The characters are all there (or at least 90% there), the plot is the same (except for a change in the the villain's MO, one which I actually didn't mind), and some of the themes are mentioned.
But Snyder is not one for subtlety. At all. And that is this film's largest problem: it's a film with so many ideas and themes and characters commanded by a director whose previous films are a decent zombie film remake and a bombastic, nihilistic adaptation of a graphic novel by an author who has lost sense of subtlety. To give him reign over a complex story such as Watchmen wasn't the worst crime in the world, but it wasn't the smartest move either. It's like a man with developing cataracts was asked to drive a schoolbus of open cans of paint. Sure, he'll get them to where they need to go, but in the process he'll take some detours, wrong turns, and dead ends and every individual color and shade will get mixed into a warped blur. But it's a pretty blur...or something (wow, what a bizarre metaphor I'd concocted right there).
But while I didn't hate the film, there are reservations I have (the old-age make-up, the Nixon make-up, Malin Ackerman's stiff performance, a complete lack of nuance and subtlety from some of the actors and themes), and there are some things Snyder did that added to the story.
First off, the ending HAD to change. There was no way the batshit-insane-climax from the graphic novel would translate well on screen, and the way Snyder worked aroudn that worked...although the aftermath of the villain's destruction is merely hinted at: an act of destruction in each of the world's major cities that kills millions, and what we witness are a wide shot, and a few moments of Dr. Manhattan and Laurie walking around a crater where 42nd Street should be. The scope of destruction, and the toll it takes on both the villain and the heroes, are muted significantly from the graphic novel, and, as a movie, become a spectacle without depth. The audience doesn't understand the scope of the villain's plot because the aftermath isn't shown the way it should have been. (Not only that...but the villain himself is barely featured in the film AT ALL).
Then again, the lack of violence in that scene is more than made up for within the rest of the film, but not always the way it should have been done (in my opinion). For a film attempting to deal with mature themes and situations (rape, separated parents, abusive childhood, failing to live up to your parent's ideals, etc. etc.), I thought the violence was goofy. The opening fight scene, set to Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" was well staged, and the slow-motion shot of the Comedian falling out of the window worked...but later in the iflm the violence becomes too stylized, too slick, and too blatantly bloody. Snyder is no doubt an adept action director...but Watchmen is not at all an action movie. While the graphic novel certainly had moments that could translate well on screen (Dr. Manhattan's self-imposed exile to Mars; the prison breakout; Laurie and Dan's attempted mugging), in Snyder's hands those scenes (aside from the Mars sequence, which was pitch-perfect) become spectacle, yet another superhero scene, and the violence (along with the CGI-added blood) become at once both more intense and wholly unbelievable. Had Snyder shot the action without the aid of slow-mo effects (which he used less extensively than in 300, yet still often enough to to notice and thus take me out of the movie).
And although I'm trying to differentiate between the graphic novel and the film and to view the film on its own terms, the film owes so much to the source material as to make it impossible to separate. In fact, if the graphic novel hadn't existed, a film like this might not have been considered at all: a big budget, two-and-a-half-hour superhero film with little action, psychotic characters, a convoluted plot set in an alternate 1985 and featuring no-name actors (face it: Carla Gugino, Billy Crudup and former child-star Jackie Earle Haley are the biggest names this film has)? No one would consider a film like that without it being based on a previous medium.
Snyder does pull a lot of things together nicely, however. The aforementioned opening credits were perfect, and summed up nearly five-decades' worth of backstory without slowing down the film and was itself shot beautifully; the Mars sequence (my favorite in the graphic novel and in the film) was perfect; and Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup were absolutely perfect as Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach respectively (it was the Mickey Rourke-as-Marv-in-Sin City sort of perfection).
When Snyder put aside the theatrics and actually allowed emotion (REAL emotion) to enter into the scene, the film clicks. He understood the distance Manhattan felt towards the rest of mankind, a being so beyond any of us that his detatchment is evident in his voice and every nuance of mannerism. He understood the alienation of Rorschach, coming form a broken "home" and forced to work the streets...but still just barely missed explaining why exactly he became a vigilante. The subtlties of Dan's impotence were hinted at...but never explanded upon. Half the time I felt as if Snyder had done it, he'd adapted the unadapatable. But the other half...it felt like he as winging it ("You guys want Big Figure? Here's a midget overacting." "You guys want the rape scene to be intense? Here's the whole thing with exaggerrated sound effects and oddly overacting on Jefferey Dean Morgan's part." "You guys want a prison riot? Here it is in SUPER SLOW MOTION".)
At the end of the day I felt like what small moments of greatness and many moments of decentness combined with the terrible decisions, the ill-advised decisions, and the miscasting to provide a barely decent adaptation of the most dense graphic novel (and arguably the greatest) ever written. Alan Moore was right: Watchmen can't be adapted successfully as a film. This is as close as we've gotten. This isn't so much a review of the film as it is a comparison between the film and the movie, and I think that's fine since the film is too devoted to the source material to truly transcend it and become its own thing.

I was really hoping he'd nailed it too.

Oh, and when I saw the movie there was an 8-year-old (or thereabouts) in the audience, and my favorite moment came when Rorschach hacks a rapist to death, and the kid screams, "I saw the blood hit his mask!"

And you know what's immature? People giggling like little children every time they saw Dr. Manhattan's giant blue space dick. (In fact, his nudity is one of the prime reasons why the film is a commercial failure. Go figure. Welcome to 2009)

Coraline

Coraline (3D)

Henry Selick is a genius and one of the best animation directors working today. I wasn't able to see the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D when it was rereleased a few years ago but it remains one of my favorite animated films (but I'm not a fan of his James And The Giant Peach). Based on the book by Neil Gaiman and released by Focus Features (my favorite domestic art-house production company), Coraline is about a girl who lives with her uninvolved parents, and how, after moving into a new house, discovers a doorway to antoher reality where she is center of all attention and everything she wants is for the taking...but for a price.

Dakota Fanning voices the purple-haired heroine who is constantly searching for adventure, for something interesting to do, for distraction from...her boring parents and humdrum world. Well, to be fair, her parents aren't "boring", just mired in their repetitious lives and tedious work, providing little entertainment for their daughter, and even little attention. Attention is something she does obtain, at first from a pernicious black cat that wanders around her house, and also from Wybie Lovat, a boy from a few houses down who is a bit eccentric and seems overly needy to be her friend (or anyone's friend, for that matter). Her neighbors, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, are retired burlesque dancers who collect their stuffed terriers and decades-old candy; and Mr. Babinsky (voiced with zest by Ian McShane) a Russian acrobat who longs wo perfect his mouse circus. All three, as you can imagine, are eccentric and do nothing to ease Coraline's life.Coraline discovers a hidden doorway in her house one day, and discovers a brighter, more vibrant world on the other side where she is the center of attention, and everything she ever wanted is hers for the taking. Or so it seems.

I had never read the short story upon which this is based, but from those who have read it I am told that the tone was perfect, and the additions (particularly of Wybie, who doesn't appear in the story) actually improve upon the source material. Selick's slick direction does what few stop-motion animated movies do: keep the camera moving, and allowing the characters each small moments and gestures that make them seem alive and real. Despite the fantasy elements, Coraline is perhaps Selick's most real-feeling animated film. The employment of 3D effects also adds an new element to the story, but he doesn't ham it up: not every scene requires 3D, so not every scene employs it. His use of the technology is subtle enough to go unnoticed (even when the point of a pin strikes staright at the audience) and actually made me a fan of the technique (I still consider it a gimmick, but if done right it can elevate a film).

Nearly every element of the film clicked, from the direction, to the character and set designs, to the voicework (Dakota Fanning wasn't as annoying as she was in War Of The Worlds, and Teri Hatcher really surprised me with her different inflections for the two Moms, even Keith David as the Cat worked). However, the music was solid, beautiful, and haunting (especially that first theme). Composer Bruno Coulais's opening theme created the perfect melancholic melody that the film needed, composing a dirge-like choral piece sung by a children's choir...as soon as I heard the music I knew the film was going to be good, and I wasn't wrong. The score added heaps of emotion in a film that was already deeply seeped in emotion (loneliness; helplessness; fear; these are common themes) an instances that anyone, including kids, could relate (weird neighbors; inattentive parents; a boring home/life; the temptation of a perfect life; the price one must pay for happiness). It's not every day a kid's movie is this experimental (not just with style, but with substance), but every so often kid's movies need to be this classic.

However, the second act moved too quickly for me (Coraline needs to find three eyes of three other children who got trapped in the dreamworld before she can be set free), and while her finding of the first two were rather difficult, her loss and reaquitsition of the third one just seemed like a throwaway move; some time needed to pass between her losing the third eye and finding it again. But that's pretty much the only issue I noticed with the entire film. Everything else worked perfectly.

I had seen this film immediately after seeing The Curious case Of Benjamin Button, and despite my being exhausted after that meandering movie (see my review below) this one picked me right up again and was definitely the better of the two. Mr. Selick is 2 out of 3 with me, and those are good odds in my book. Here's to hoping his next film doesn't take eight years to make.

If you didn't get to see this in 3D when it was in theatres, I hoep you are somehow able to do so when the DVD and Blu-Ray are released.