Movie Of The Week - 4

Let's step away from some of the depressing and indie films for a bit and throw a classic out there...a classic which I am watching as I post.

This weeks movie is...

Goblins, crying babies, and David Bowie...I can't think of a more perfect movie.

Synopsis:
Young Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is left home alone by her parents and she has to babysit her little brother Toby. But the baby keeps crying and Sarah, while telling him a story to make him sleep, inadvertently conjures from a fantasy world the Goblin King (David Bowie) who steals the child and brings him to his castle in the middle of a labyrinth. Sarah has to rescue him before midnight, or the baby will became a goblin...

Director:
Jim Henson

Cast:
David Bowie
Jennifer Connelly
Toby Froud

Some Interesting Trivia:

The full costume for Hoggle was lost for some time. It turns out that it was lost on an airplane and later bought from the airline by 'The Unclaimed Baggage Center', a store in Scottsboro Alabama. It is now on display in their museum.


The sources of the characters can be seen in Sarah's bedroom at the beginning of the movie. She has a stuffed animal that looks like Sir Didymus on her dresser, a doll that looks like Ludo on the shelves next to her door, a Firey doll on a shelves next to her bed, bookends with with Goblins reminiscent of Hoggle on her dresser, and figurine of Jareth on the right hand side of her desk. In addition, the dress that she wears in the ballroom scene can also been seen adorning the miniature doll in her music box, and a wooden maze game on her dresser next to her books is reminiscent of the hedge section of the Labyrinth. There is also a small painting on her wall that depicts a contraption much like the one operated by the "Cleaners" that Sarah and Hoggle had to escape from.

Cheryl McFadden, one of the choreographers, also goes by the name Gates McFadden. McFadden plays Dr. Beverly Crusher in the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987) and in the Star Trek movies: Star Trek: Generations (1994); Star Trek: First Contact (1996); Star Trek: Insurrection (1998); and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).


David Bowie was one of the three choices for Jareth. The other two were Michael Jackson and 'Sting'.

To help the puppeteer inside him to see, there was a miniature video camera in Ludo's right horn that fed to a small television monitor mounted inside the puppet's stomach.

The various things that Jareth does with the crystal balls (rolling them around his arms and in his hands and so forth) are not camera tricks or any other kind of special effect. They are actually done by choreographer Michael Moschen, who is an accomplished juggler.

The upside-down room in the Goblin City is directly inspired by a drawing by M.C. Escher (entitled "Relativity") - which can been seen in Sarah's room at the beginning of the film.

The owl in the title sequence is computer generated - the first attempt at a photo-realistic CGI animal character in a feature film.

Trailer: