The Movie Pool gets in the holiday spirit with the Nutcracker: The Motion Picture DVD!

The Set-up

Tchaikovsky's classic ballet comes to life, thanks to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company.

Directed by: Carroll Ballard

The Delivery

Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet is an absolute Christmas classic, but I do not remember it being this creepy.  Director Caroll Ballard (The Black Stallion) delivers a faithful cinematic presentation of a staged performance of the ballet, which can be a good and bad thing. Seeing the ballet performed onstage is nice, but by keeping faithful to the original story, it highlights the fact that Drosselmeier, the toymaker/magician/godfather who inspires the tale, acts like a child predator the entre film. A number of times in the film, he openly leers at the young Clara, so much so that she gets uncomfortable and moves away from him, and even other characters look at...