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Movie time: "Brotherhood of the Wolf" and "Nightmare Before Christmas"


Brotherhood of the Wolf is very stylish-looking, but it's also derivative; you can watch it and think "Oh, they're Matrix-ing this fight" or "Hey, this is their Crouching Tiger scene`. The plot is somewhat parallel to that of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, which we rewatched just last night. Both movies are about an investigator sent out to investigate a series of deaths in a remote provincial area. In Sleepy Hollow, the investigator is eccentric and only semi-competent, recoiling at the sight of blood and hacking up a body in a clumsy autopsy as memorably performed by Johnny Depp (who has the field of quirky smart guy portrayals sewn up). In Brotherhood, the investigator is de Fronsac, the super-competent taxidermist to the King, and his Iroquois sidekick, and he's investigating a series of attacks by some ferocious beast.


In Sleepy Hollow, the plot moves quickly through various twists and turns. In Brotherhood, the plot moves sluggishly with much, much padding -- side trips to the court, pointless battles with peasants, a lengthy brothel sequence -- that consumes time but doesn't make what's happening any more coherent. It finally winds up with an explanation, but I can't say that I really understood it -- the Vatican was responsible, or something like that.


Nightmare Before Christmas (I keep wanting to type "Nightmare Before Elm Street") is a lot more fun. I only saw it once, when it was running in theatres, but had a tape of the soundtrack for many years, and I could still remember most of the songs, almost well enough to sing along.

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