Coraline (2009) Movie || Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders || Review & Facts

[Music] e hello movie lovers welcome to my YouTube channel where we dive deep into the world of Cinema and explore the magic of the Silver Screen today we're stepping into a film that promises to capture our imagination and stir our emotions so grab your popcorn settle in and let's embark on this cinematic journey together ready to find out if Coraline is a must see or a Miss let's get started Coraline is a 2009 American stop motion animated Dark Fantasy horror film written for the screen and directed by Henry selich it is based on the 2002 Nolla of the same name by Neil Gaiman five produced by Leica as the Studio's first feature film six it features the voices of Dakota Fanning Terry Hatcher Jennifer Saunders Don French Keith David John Hodgman Robert Bailey Jr and Ian McShan the film tells the story of its aonomus character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home unaware that it contained something dark and Sinister just as Gaiman was finishing his Nolla he met celic and invited him to make a film adaptation as Gaiman was a fan of celik's other stopmotion works The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 and James and the Giant Peach 1996 when celic thought that a direct adaptation would lead to maybe a 47-minute movie the screenplay was expanded looking for a design different from that of most animation celic discovered the work of Japanese illustrator tadahiro yusi and invited him to become the concept artist his biggest influences were on the color palette which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the other world as in The Wizard of Oz to capture stereoscopy for the 3D release the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions production of the stop motion animation took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro Oregon Coraline made a strong impression on me when I first saw it I would have been 11 the same age as the protagonist flipping channels one weekend before the rest of my family was awake as I often did and encountering it already underway I can't remember exactly where I jumped in except I know I saw Coraline's first journey through the little door the tunnel unfurled for her wonderfully a glow and I was as hooked as she was another image of that magical passageway would be burned into my young Psyche on that viewing a dark mirror of the first the tunnel now looks dead and abandoned littered with cobwebs and forgotten toys that speak to Decades of luring children to worse than deaths Coraline frantically crawls toward her world while the Monstrous Beldum whales and pounds on the locked door behind her the barrier hold hold s somehow despite the sickly green light that breaks through with each blow but the force contracts the tunnel and sudden spurts the other world chases her and hurdles toward the camera that sequence was and remains grippingly terrifying it's also why I've come to believe there's no better movie to be scared by as a child than this one and with Coraline returning to theaters for its 15th anniversary I'd like to make the case for a whole new generation of kids being taken to experience its traumatic Delights the bones of the story will feel familiar drawing as it does on The rhythms of a fairy tale Coraline Jones Dakota Fanning has moved into a new home in a new state with her exhausted inattentive parents Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman everything is foreign but her life is filled with boredom the neighbors are old and odd except for YB Robert Bailey Jr who is Young and odd the only things that hold her attention are a little door behind behind the wallpaper and a doll wbe found that looks exactly like her she soon finds herself drawn through that little door into a version of her life filled with wonder the other mother waits for her there as do the other father the other wbe and the other neighbors they smile at her dot on her and do their best to provide an answer to each of her discontents but however pretty the packaging the buttons they all have in place of eyes keep them at a distance from her they know that if she wishes to stay they eventually tell her she'll have to sew buttons into her eyes too things go horribly wrong from there as we know they must but Coraline is more than just a well-executed take on an age-old storytelling pattern it has something to say about our world and its dangers and it says it with rhythm and style this movie is very deliberately paced it doesn't Rush us to the other world nor does it hurry to have that dreamy Place crumble into to a nightmare there are a few practical reasons for this it allows us to take in fully how the Two Worlds mirror each other for example but perhaps most importantly it gives the film its emotional texture run your hand along its Edge and Trace the fear and you'll find it unsettling from the very beginning when the Coraline doll is sewn by a spindly metallic hand and sent off into the ether but it's not just Supernatural things that disturb us reality is dingy gross and macabra disgusting food whether unappetizing or rotten is a motif wbe is introduced in a scull mask rearing his bike like the headless horsemen middle-aged acrobat Mr babinsky Ian mcshain is unkempt and unusually blue Jennifer Saunders and forcible Dawn French have a wall full of Taxidermy dogs the other world save for its uncanny button eyes is perfect Beauty by contrast and the contrast is precisely the Point Coraline's world full of oddities though it is is fundamentally mundane its imperfections are an exaggerated gesture at eccentricities we know to be based in truth it is also benign offut putting only on the surface the other world is the exact opposite its glittering facade hides true danger visible only when the illusion decays along with the beldums patience then the horror really starts this is why I think of Coraline as one of Cinema's best unions of form and content director Henry celic deploys stop motion animation not just for its look but its feel in the real world he draws on the forms inherent physicality like live action stop motion materials exists and are photographed in the physical world the mundanity Coraline achieves is helped by what's on camera feeling real however stylized it is in the other world celic instead emphasizes the mediums meticulous controlled detail the love care and attention that goes into stop motion is usually a positive but in Coraline the way everything has been carefully manicured triggers in us a sense of the unnatural especially when compared to the mess of reality we sense The beldums Guiding hand before we are shown her grand design what this teaches Coraline and young viewers is to look beyond the surface what scares us at first might just be something unfamiliar that takes getting used to and what we're initially Enchanted by might be concealing something we need to truly fear it's a good lesson that's never voiced but baked into the film itself celic and Co don't stop there either Coraline also teaches its audience what to do with this knowledge at the heart of this is Coraline Jones herself a force of a child protagonist she may be vulnerable to the Beldum but she isn't easily taken in she's inquisitive observant and intuitively skeptical her role in the story is always active she runs tests plays tricks and strategizes she has helped from a cat Keith David who slips Between Worlds at will but his advice is hardly an instruction manual for the most part she's piecing the rules of this world together herself and so are we celic takes a show don't tell approach to this story where he can and the visual Clarity of the direction means that we learn the same way Coraline does this film may want to scare us but it also strives to make us as observant and inquisitive as its heroine we become active viewers learning and making connections that fill the gaps left open in the world bitting as Coraline overcomes her fear to outsmart the Beldum we get to experience doing the same to 11-year-old me Coraline was as empowering as it was chilling and I don't think it's a coincidence that I became increasingly drawn to horror movies in the years that followed it practically teaches you how to watch them actively and work through the fear to get at what's really going on underneath whether thematically or technically on top of being something I wouldn't hesitate to describe as a masterpiece it's the perfect Gateway horror film so whether you already bear its scars or not I implore you to take advantage of this opportunity to see Coraline on the big screen and if you have children of the right age bring them along the odds are good you 'll be showing them a movie they'll never forget following on from My Bloody Valentine this is the second in my impromptu series of 3D films viewed in glorious flat vision and I'm moving from horror to Children's films it isn't as much of a swerve as you might think as Coraline was originally conceived and written by Neil Gaiman The celebrated author of classic paranormal graphic novels including the Sandman series as well as 25's movie mirror mask this is a fairy tale has more in common with r doll than Walt Disney and director Henry celik has instilled it with the same joy of the macabra as his previous stopmotion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas Coraline is a deliciously creepy tale of good versus evil that will enchant and Delight young and old our heroine Coraline is a little girl with loving but busy parents she wants to Garden in the rain they want to write a plant catalog in peace bored and lonely having rejected the company of her land lady's grandson and his cat she discovers a tiny door that leads to another world there she finds her other mother and other father living in a house just like hers only better her other mother and other father doed upon her lavishing her with gifts delicious food and most importantly attention but of course there is a price to pay the best animated films succeed not because of the medium nor in spite of it from Bambi through to Toy Story Each succeeds because the tale is well crafted Coraline finds success in the same way while the animated style enhances the film's ability to carry us on its wildest flights of imagination as well as giving complete creative control over the style and images Coraline's tale could stand proud and obviously has done with Gaiman writing the original novel in another format one of its greatest strengths lies in its detailed characters Coraline Jones depth comes from more than a pair of red and green filters gaimon and celic have made her lovable but flawed and Dakota Fanning brings her churlishness arrogance and fear to life as well as her nobler traits you'll forget that she is a doll long before this film is through her parents voiced by John Hodgman and Terry Hatcher might not get quite the same level of nuance but they to work very well they aren't bad people at all they are just busy finding it hard to find time for their daughter I've seen plenty of real people in films who were less believable than these manquin the animation itself is stunning as might be expected from celic the work is even more impressive than nightmare with the human faces being wonderfully expressive it also works perfectly in two Dimensions at the start of the film I noticed occasions where the film was obviously using abusing the gimmick of 3D but these quickly vanished that isn't to say that there weren't later moments that were designed to take advantage of the virtual depth that real D provides but they were slipped in gracefully and the film worked perfectly as a two-dimensional production so my second dip into the 3D 2D pool was a world away from the first I may not have been immersed in the film's virtual realm but I was immersed in the tale and that not binocular vision is the important thing some have suggested that this film might be too dark for children but I think think that apart from the very young they'll be fine of course the first film that I ever saw in a theater was Waters shipped down a cartoon about fluffy bunnies adapted from a novel it's also a tale of murder and betrayal with rabbits fighting to the death in a whirlwind of spit and blood it is far scarier than this film and I survive just fine sure children might grab a cushion to hide behind but they won't be able to take their eyes off the screen and neither will you orig published in 22 gon's young adult novel is something akin to Alice in Wonderland by way of Edward gory or Edgar Allen Poe it tells the tale of Coraline a young girl who one day discovers a small door in her new home that leads to another world not unlike her own there she finds her other mother and other father seemingly Superior versions with buttons instead of eyes that at first seemed too good to be true and as they try to stop her from ever leaving Coraline learns really are alas director Henry celik the stop motion animation Visionary Behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach has forced me to eat crow regarding my passionate disdain for Hollywood's Resurgence of 3D indeed my stubborn belief that this gimmick cannot work in accord with any narrative has been proven incorrect though not absolutely my disregard still has uncounted reservations since the device's superficial use is readily applied to horror fodder and two-dimensional computer animation to enhance what cannot be enhanced but with Coraline celic finds a unique balance between story and presentation that functions harmoniously the effect of stop motion animation contains an odd sense of dimensionality in that celex environments and characters move and appear like a diorama come to life each has tangibility that the 3D mechanism supports and given that stop motion in 3D find this curious synchronization in celic picture the result is nothing short of amazing of course there are the usual failures such as how the 3D glass is dim the film's image and inevitable visual downfall since the picture is ripe with vibrant colors but it's nonetheless an improvement over one red and one blue lens perhaps as technology improves audiences will be able to enjoy both faux space and bright colors together if you didn't already know stop motion animation involves an environment ment created out of any number of materials ranging from clay to metals and so on the filmmakers take a single photo of the setting move the figures in the scene a tiny amount and take another photo thousands of photos and years of diligent work later a film is assembled early Motion Picture Pioneers combined the realistic Style with live action on the original King Kong 1933 Ray harwen popularized the method in Escapist Yarns like the seventh Voyage of Sinbad 1958 in Jason and the Argonauts 1963 but today with the ease of computer Graphics stop motion has been confined primarily to Children's films and yet there's a side of Coraline that's wholly unchildlike based on the 2in and2 novel by Neil Gaiman The Story contains creepy dolls talking cats performing mice and evil spiders all elements further brought to life by celik's approach essentially a reworking of Alice and Wonderland this frightening story book features the impetuous eccentric Title Character voiced by Dakota Fanning discovering another world hiding in her new home in Rural Oregon a place shared with strange neighbors above and below her family's flat her boring writer parents voices of Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman plug away at a gardening catalog while she investigates her neighbors and determines her new life is mundane and dreary one night through a tunnel inside a secreted doorway no bigger than a child Coraline crawls and finds a more pleasant World seemingly created to please her every whim her other mother cooks comfort food and her other father sings and plays piano and while every other detail seems identical to her world her alternate parents have buttons for eyes and they soon disclose that she can stay in this better world with them if she sews buttons over her eyes too is this other world a dream possibly probably hopefully but be careful what you wish for theme comes crashing down when Coral lines other mother kidnaps her real parents offering a very real danger generated from too much dreaming fear is an integral part of childhood development so if you have children show them Coraline and expose them to imagination and the possibility of dreams and all the frightening aspects therein allow them to acknowledge and surpass Elementary fears and perhaps you'll confront some latent fears of your own in the process because once they and you start recognizing the elusory unreality of fantasy that of course there's nothing to be afraid of except fear itself real life suddenly won't seem so bad in comparison a Wonder of visual Artistry the film represents an epicenter of patience and faculty from those involved though celk collaboration with Tim Burton eventually spawned and after the fact 3D Revival of The Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters that film was never intended for 3D and the result Sal looks like a piffy relief sculpture Coraline was filmed and designed with this apparatus in mind and makes fine use of its benefits with every stylized figure and dreamlike impression from celic and gaiman's Fantastical and occasionally disturbing imaginations it was a sweet relief to have all my fears allayed Coraline isn't a perfect flick either in its story or its rendering which is a mixture of stop motion solid animation and computer generated imagery but it's so got him close that the distinction becomes purely academic Neil Gaiman as with any of the greats when it comes to working in the areas of fantasy or what are often derisively dismissed as children's fairy tales understands the Deep psychological underpinnings of what he's working with in the way that the brothers grim and the creators of Mythology throughout the ages have always understood it's not just childhood fears that these people have to approach and understand they have to know the different motivations and intensities of feeling that children possess and most of us adults have forgotten when people like Henry celik and Neil Gaiman get it right they forcefully remind us again of course there are similarities with other Tales From he Miyazaki Studio gly stuff to Alice and Wonderland to more ancient stuff but I should really learn to stay on message and deal with the subject at hand without feeling the need to start enumerating everything else I've ever thought of in excruciating detail what I absolutely loved about coral the most was the fact which seems really obvious on the surface that Coraline makes choices and has to act in order to achieve anything in this story she's not just a character that stuff happens to until a cliche ending where every bit of a status quo is restored she's a bit of a brat who almost gets everything she could ever have wished for only to realize that if she doesn't work really hard everything will become terrible forever for a lot of people especially herself I'm utterly and thly sick of kid stories where a child is an anointed one of some description that a whole bunch of stuff happens to as they wander blly through their own story as plot device more than character and is acted upon rather than actor Coraline is the antithesis of that which is why she reminded me so much of some of my other favorite heroins from children's stories such as Chihiro sen from Spirited Away or Lyra silvertung from the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip pulman damn it I just did it again Coraline and her parents have just moved to a new house it's called the Pink Palace and it seems to be a nice place in the middle of nowhere subdivided into a bunch of Apartments Coraline's parents are nice enough but they're more focused on their own lives rather than catering to Coraline's every whim and fair enough two Coraline is a bit bummed out about having moved and finds it frustrating when her parents elect to you know work and stuff and not just bask in the glor I that is Coraline and as an added irony they are gardening writers who hate gardening because of all that iky dirt left to her own devices Coraline gets to know of the other Denis of the Pink Palace including a perhaps handicapped boy called wbe whose grandmother is the land lady and who is always calling out for her worthless grandson to come home Coraline dislikes wbe the way any sensible girl dislikes most boys at that age and if there was any justice or logic in the World they dislike them until at least 20 but he is a diversion at least there are also two grand Dames of the stage in another apartment a and a Mis forceable one of whom possesses a tremendous um deage which would look more appropriate on the prow of a ship the other has a tremendous ah seat that would Inspire the members of spinal tap to sing their classic Anthem big bottom no end then there's the strange acrobatic man who trains jumping rats all of this seems like it's a cast of Misfits who will dislike each other at first but will learn to come together in order to battle a common enemy that couldn't be further from the truth the thing is there's this world our world for lack of a better descriptor and then there's another world seemingly created entirely for Coraline's benefit after becoming irritated with her parents she finds a place with the aid of a button-eyed doll that looks suspiciously like Coraline down to the blue blue hair and upturn nose where everything is more to her liking in this other world where her mother is a great cook and super attentive to her every need and her father is fun exciting and does a whole heap of things to inspire and Delight Coraline the only problem is that these other parents have button eyes too and whilst everything still seems way too good to be true she gets the offered Devil's bargain in the form of an exchange stay here in this realm of Perpetual wishful forever and all you have to do is hand over your eyes it would seem to be a small price to pay I guess the thing is though this other mother seems like she's all sweetness and light and pancakes for dinner but perhaps there's something sinister about someone who constructs a world precisely to your liking and plus there's the whole button I thing as well that can't be good at first we think this other realm is just a fantasy of coral lines because it seems to coincide with coralin nightly sleeps her first journey seems like a dream her second is out of anger as a rejection of her real parents and the real world being painful messy and dissatisfying much of the time it's around this time that we start realizing that this dreamy realm where Coraline gets everything She Wants instantly is an actual place and that there is someone who is real and is creating everything to her liking in order to convince her to stay and there can never be anything wrong with that as a form of Storytelling there's just something so solidly enjoyable about the way they've put all this together both from a story point of view and getting the look of it right there's a solidity a weight to the characters even at their most spindly and wispy that you just don't get with computer animation alone I'm not getting into the old school versus new school animation argument because truth be told it's a stupid argument and it's pointless since this film meshes the two together in order to best tell it story and presumably it was cheaper and quicker though laborious as stop motion is by its very nature to do so since I'm guessing they didn't want 300 animators working on it for a couple of years to get that eyelash rendering just right it's a delightful and dark story just like the best most resonant and most lasting of fairy tales of course all these kinds of stories seem like they're entirely intended as cautionary tales as in kids do what we tell you or horrible things will happen to you and sure there's an element of that here but it's not a moralistic finger wagging bore which would have the protagonist stuff things up out of selfishness and have to be rescued by some Woodsman or handsome prince she gets targeted by a malevolent creature that weaves a fiction best suited to capturing her but it is Coraline herself who has to eventually do battle with her Nemesis save herself and save her parents sure there are little convenient plot devices and mini deos X machas but at least they re not happening as our little lady passively looks on in horror she is what she does and I love her for it though of course my daughter is too young for something like this just yet I'd be happy for her to watch it in a few years time because aart from some of the frights on offer and some of the scary images Coraline is a positive female lead in an inspired and Dark Fantasy tale that looks tremendous to me even as a lot of kids would be blurting W this don't look nothing like Shrek W get me some more coke sweet relief Henry celik is still at the top of his game and Neil Gaiman you demented genius please keep up the great work there was only one other kid's flick that resonated with me more this year but this is clearly still one of the best flicks of 2009 the story is simple enough precocious young Coraline voiced by Dakota Fanning is bored with life in her new home and unengaged by her aloof workaholic parents voiced by Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman when she discovers a secret door in the house this passageway leads her to the other world a parallel reality that seems close to her world but is far more colorful and enjoyable her other mother is seemingly the perfect mom who dots on her the way she wishes her real mother would all is well except for the Curious fact that everyone in the other world has buttons for eyes before you can click your heels three times and cry there's no place like home Coraline realizes just how twisted and cruel her other mother really is the grass doesn't seems so green on the other side to Coraline now and she has to muster the strength and courage to confront and defeat her monstrous other mother if she's to rescue her real parents and get back to where she truly belongs I had the opportunity to visit the set of Coraline last summer and witness the meticulous attention to detail craftsmanship and JBL like patience required to make a stop motion film these artists have a lot of passion for what they do which makes my lukewarm reaction to the final film all the more disappointing heart and creativity only count for so much when the story there in service of leaves the viewer cold celic use of stopmotion puppetry may have been the wisest way to bring gaimon's surreal fairy tale to life but for all its wonderfully macabra puppets sets and visual elements Coraline is dramatically inert and listlessly paced things just happen with no real narrative momentum until the last 15 minutes it's a shame that a film is visually Sumptuous and imaginative as this ends up feeling so dreary there are a lot of tried and true fairy tale elements utilize the wicked stepmother another world within our own a little girl on a scary Mission talking animals but what may have worked splendidly on the page is hit and miss when adapted to the screen the antics of Coraline's neighbors Mr babinsky voiced by Ian M Shan Miss and Miss forcible as well as her arbitrary friendship with webe a character invented for the film distract from the main thrust of the plot which is Coraline's dealings with the other mother and her Rescue of the ghost children and her parents these are the movies most Darkly delightful and thematically Rich aspects and when it focuses on them the film Rouses to life but in the end it's too little too late to fully re-engage you Coraline May ostensibly be aimed at kid kids but if the reaction of one little girl at the screening I attended is any indication is this still going she asked her parent just a bit too loudly then they too might find this sleepy film tough to sit through without growing Restless those that aren't ansy might be too scared to keep watching another child had to be removed screaming and crying within the first 10 minutes of entering the film's ghoulish world but maybe that kid's just a wuss shockingly a story where a mother plucks out kid eyes and replaces them with buttons or sews their mouths shut might be a wee bit too torture porn for some members of tuno crowd to stomach a lot has been made about Coraline being the first stop motion animated film in 3D but there are only a few noteworthy moments that truly showcase the format or demonstrate why it was even necessary to use after the first few times you see how clearly delineated the foregrounds and backgrounds are the 3D aspect becomes gimmicky and forgettable this won't be a 3D film that will lose much when viewed in 2D I saw this movie several years ago and then I found out that the book it was based on was written by comic book writer Sandman and dark Storyteller Neil Gaiman who decided one day he wanted to write a children's novel through curiosity I read the book which had an interesting dilemma the language was very clear and it was a very easy read but at the same time Neil Gaiman managed to write a story that was terrifying so you have a book that was too simple to challenge adults in the literary Department while at the same time it was far too scary for its intended demographic awesome today I rewatched the film having read the book whether or not it was intended for me keep in mind I might refer to it for myself as a creative and now we can talk about it while referring to its source material so Coraline not Caroline set in the outskirts of Ashlin Oregon our story centers around an 11-year-old girl from Michigan named Coraline who has just moved into a new apartment in the Pink Palace Apartments a 150-year-old mansion that was renovated into different homes along with Coraline and her parents residents include retired burles dancers named Miss and Miss forcible and their many Scottish Terrier dogs and an eccentric Russian acrobat named Mr babinsky known as Mr Bobo in the book who runs a mouse circus Coral line is bored out of her mind but she takes the time to explore her new environment which leads her meeting a boy named wyborn whose first impressions are instantly shot down a black cat with a secret finding a well and finding a secret door that was wallpapered over after asking her mother to open it they find that the door has been bricked up however that night a mouse appears and scurries downstairs Coraline follows it leading her to the little door which is no longer bricked up and has become a little tunnel she goes through the tunnel to find a duplicate of her new home only it was different the colors were brighter the pictures happier and her parents were there playing music and making amazing meals in the middle of the night or rather these are her other parents parents from a parallel universe with buttons instead of eyes like the doll webborn reveals to Coraline which looks like Coraline the world seems perfect in this universe as her parents and the surrounding World seemed to give her everything she ever wanted but is it all too good to be true the voice acting is Awesome with some wonderful choices and even some Star Quality that suits it down to the ground Miss and Miss forcible are voiced by Don French and Jennifer Saunders very well-known comedy duo in the UK Terry Hatcher Susan mayor from Desperate Housewives voices Mel Jones Coraline's mother as well as her other mother humorous John Hodgman voices both Charlie Coraline's dad and her other dad Ian McShan Al Swearingen in Deadwood Ray the community leader in that season six episode of Game of Thrones voices Mr babinsky Keith David Childs in John Carpenters the thing and the shadow man in The Princess and the Frog voices the black cat and a 15-year-old Dakota Fanning voices Coraline some performances you couldn't tell it was the voice actors because they were very much in character and in the process you see their talent shine through as performers the characters are brilliant and some of them are even better in the movie than they are in the book especially Coraline's parents Mel and Charlie in the book were not given much of a reason as to why Coraline's parents seem to neglect her but in the film we given a reason they've just moved into a new house which is one of the two most stressful things a person can experience in everyday life the other is marriage on top of this they both work at home home and have a closing deadline to meet a gardening catalog where Charlie writes the Articles and Mel edits them they meet their deadline halfway into the film and this is when they seem to lighten up and start to come around as parents even when Coraline doesn't notice for the first half of the film they're stressed and exhausted so they can't give everything their daughter wants right away they do the most they can and telling their daughter to explore their new home is at least a decent way to give her something to do the neighbors are delightfully mad as are the other parents and much like a protagonist should Coraline grows as a person the story in the film is a little different to the book and in its own way that's Grand the inclusion of the character whyborn lava the grandson of the land lady was a good idea from a creative standpoint and makes the film more Universal in the book Coraline talks to herself which is fine in a Japanese anime manga and a novel but perhaps a family film so include a boy who is the same age as Coraline for her to interact with good choice also the emphasis on doll eyes is both creepy and oddly symbolic many would compare this film St to Alice and Wonderland and it definitely falls into that archetype but they're not the same story some could also argue that there are a lot of symbolic aspects of sin slavery thevery and selfishness mixed in Coraline is presented with scenar I that are too good to be true only to be told if you want more you'll have to do this which then puts her at a Crossroads these things are enjoyable and wonderful but can she really give up what she has for it even during the trying time that her has is going through the music was composed by Bruno koolle who has been nicknamed the French Danny Elfman due to his slightly similar but evidently different Melodies a number of the tunes include light singing from children's choirs in front French and other songs such as the song that French and Saunders do in their play in the other world are great in the film but they might not be pleasant to listen to on a train the soundtrack in general is excellent and really captures the essence of both childhood and Dark Adventure the art style oh the art style the film's director Henry celik might ring a bell to some while The Nightmare Before Christmas has Tim Burton's name attached to it he was the producer Henry celic made that film a reality as director due to this experience in puppets and stop motion animation his other work includes the stop motion version of James and the Giant Peach in 1996 also produced by Burton and the quirky visual effects in Wes andren The Life Aquatic with Steve zissu so you know you're in for on a treat on a visual level and he doesn't disappoint here this film also has a distinction because it's the first stop motion animated movie to shot for 3D cinemas and Blu-rays I saw it on 3D Blu-ray and it looks great I could look at this movie all day and get ideas from it the animation is amazing in this one some could argue about a slight choppiness here and there but you can say that about most Japanese anime everything flows wonderfully and the fact that it's done with stop motion puppets makes it all the more amazing as there is constantly something going on even in the little things would I recommend Coraline absolutely I really lik the film the first time I watched it and the second viewing oddly enough is even better yes I might know the story but I love looking at this film and seeing it play out are there plot holes yes a few but it's still a very tight solid and gripping experience even the slower moments catch your attention the movie surprisingly is an adaptation of the Dark Fantasy children's Nolla Coraline penned by British author Neil Gaiman initially written for his daughters the book was developed over a 10-year period amusingly the total production period for the film was close to 5 years both the movie and the novela have enjoyed immense success and critical appreciation as one of the people who have enjoyed both of then I can confidently state that this is a movie adaptation that really brings the story to screen in the best possible way Coral line despite being primarily aimed at children manages to please adults too and not just with the horror elements but with the intelligence of the script and the visuals one of my favorite moments feature a beautiful blue and gold Sky a nod to Vincent van goes starry night that particular scene is quite genius initially lulling watchers into a sense of false security with the free Souls of the trapped children before delivering another round of bad news that she's still in danger that there's a super creepy metallic hand out to steal the key and drag Coraline back to the other world much like the actual plot I was drawn in by its stunning visuals that I barely remembered that it was in fact a horror movie this shot is immediately followed by an even creepier one Coraline who I must remind you is 11-year-old girl decides to throw away the key in an abandoned well that is located in the large Woods in the middle of the night in a horror movie this scene had me metaphorically slamming my head into the wall for three reasons the first being the lack of common sense that we normally experience with the protagonist in horror movies the second being her fearlessness that one could consider Reckless the third being the absolute irresponsibility of her parents whilst sneaking out of the house at midnight for a secret Rendevous is a right of passage a tween definitely shouldn't be able to pull it off that being said Coraline makes the right decision As proved by the rather intense fight seen seconds later she and webborn yet another tween who happens to enjoy taking Moonlight strolls in the woods at midnight managed to drop both key and hand into the well and end the reign of terror the movie also features a rather philosophical excerpt what a piece of work is man from Shakespeare's Hamlet 1603 a soliloquy that I unfortunately immediately recognized from my days of attempting to master h let however to my delight it is now performed in the movie's most cringy scene supposedly apparent approved source of entertainment Coraline is treated to a stage turned acrobatic performance by two elderly actresses as they attempt to recreate both Greek goddess Aphrodite's birth and the Odyssey 1614 singing siren whilst it does end up becoming a rather endearing scene especially the acrobatic portion the initial shock of the nearly naked women does make me cringe each time when analyzing what really makes Coraline the exception to my no horror rule I'm a scaredy cat and I'm not afraid to admit it the visuals is the first thing that comes to mind originally planned to be a live adaptation director Henry celik makes the decision to use stop motion to animate Coraline and her world celic best known for his directorial work in The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 another children's Dark Fantasy stop motion film handles Coraline with a veteran hand despite being a risky gamble Coraline paved the way for the increased use of stop motion animation with the Production Studio Lea who later produced the critically acclaimed Cubo and the two strings 2016 an example of the breath taking visuals and my favorite scene in the movie is the opening sequence it really sets the tone for the movie as a whole by featuring a doll being remodeled to resemble Coraline which is complemented well with the music that initially appears to be light-hearted yet holds an underlying tension beneath the scene both intrigues and excites the audience and I commend the designers for creating the fantasy element of the open window as the doll slowly ascends into the sky celic maintains the power of the visuals throughout the movie whilst the jumping mice sequence routine never fails to leave me impressed it's the slow shots that really creep up on me the first shot of the other mother leaves me reeling each time as does her transformation into the shattered monster that she becomes whilst the latter plays on the horror movie genre by fixating on scarier elements and a screechy voice hats off to debut actress Terry Hatcher it is the unsettling button eyes of the first that scares me more despite the movie being rated PG I would personally advise against showing your younger children this movie Personally having been shown the movie at age 9 in school I along with several other of my classmates were left traumatized by the movie that being said this movie has become a favorite movie of mine and I have consistently watched it multiple times a year ever since hello movie lovers welcome to my YouTube channel where we dive deep into the world of Cinema and explore the magic of the Silver Screen today we're stepping into a film that promises to capture our imagination and stir our emotions so grab your popcorn settle in and let's embark on this cinematic journey together ready to find out if Coraline is a must-see or a Miss let's get started Coraline is a 2009 American stop motion animated Dark Fantasy horror film written for the screen and directed by Henry celic it is based on the 2002 Nolla of the same name by Neil Gaiman five produced by Leica as the Studio's first feature film six it features the voices of Dakota Fanning Terry Hatcher Jennifer Saunders Don French Keith David John Hodgman Robert Bailey Jr and Ian mcshain the film tells the story of its aonomus character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home unaware that it contains something dark and Sinister just as Gaiman was finishing his Nolla he met celic and invited him to make a film adaptation as Gaiman was a fan of cel's other stopmotion works the nightmare Before Christmas 1993 and James and the Giant Peach 1996 when celic thought that a direct adaptation would lead to maybe a 47-minute movie the screenplay was expanded looking for a design different from that of most animation celic discovered the work of Japanese illustrator tadahiro yusi and invited him to become the concept artist his biggest influences were on the color palette which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the other world as in The Wizard of Oz to capture stereoscopy for the 3D release the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions production of the stop motion animation took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro Oregon Coraline made a strong impression on me when I first saw it I would have been 11 the same age as the protagonist flipping channels one weekend before the rest of my family was awake as I often did and encountering it already underway I can't remember exactly where I jumped in except I know I saw Coraline's first journey through the little door the tunnel unfurled for her wonderfully a glow and I was as hooked as she was another image of that magical passageway would be burned into my young Psyche on that viewing a dark mirror of the first the tunnel now looks dead and abandoned littered with cobwebs and forgotten toys that speak to Decades of luring children to worse than deaths Coraline frantically crawls toward her world while the Monstrous Beldum whales and pounds on the locked door behind her the barrier holds somehow despite the sickly green light that breaks through with each blow but the force contracts the tunnel and sudden spurts the other world chases her and hurdles toward the camera that sequence was and remains grippingly terrifying it's also why I've come to believe there's no better movie to be scared by as a child than this one and with Coraline returning to theaters for its 15th anniversary I'd like to make the case for a whole new generation of kids being taken to experience its traumatic Delights the bones of the story will feel familiar drawing as it does on The rhythms of a fairy tale Coraline Jones Dakota Fanning has moved into a new home in a new state with her exhausted inattentive parents Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman everything is foreign but her life is filled with boredom the neighbors are old and odd except for whyb Robert Bailey Jr who is Young and odd the only things that hold her attention are a little door behind the wallpaper and a doll wbe found that looks exactly like her she soon finds herself drawn through that little door into a version of her life filled with wonder the other mother waits for her there as do the other father the other wbe and the other neighbors they smile at her dot on her and do their best to provide an answer to each of her discontents but however pretty the packaging the buttons they all have in place of eyes keep them at a distance from her they know this if she wishes to stay they eventually tell her she'll have to sew buttons into her eyes too things go horribly wrong from there as we know they must but Coraline is more than just a well-executed take on an age-old storytelling pattern it has something to say about our world and its dangers and it says it with rhythm and style this movie is very deliberately paced it doesn't Rush us to the other world nor does it hurry to have that dreamy Place crumble into a nightmare there are a few practical reasons for this it allows us to take in fully how the Two Worlds mirror each other for example but perhaps most importantly it gives the film its emotional texture run your hand along its Edge and Trace the fear and you'll find it unsettling from the very beginning when the Coraline doll is sewn by a spindly metallic hand and scent off into the ether but it's not just Supernatural things that disturb us reality is dingy gross and macabra disgusting food whether unappetizing or rotten is a motif wbe is introduced in a skull mask rearing his bike like the headless horsemen middle-aged acrobat Mr babinsky Ian mcshain is unkempt and unusually blue Jennifer Saunders and forcible Don French have a wall full of Taxidermy dogs the the other world save for its uncanny button eyes is perfect Beauty by contrast and the contrast is precisely the point Coraline's world full of oddities though it is is fundamentally mundane its imperfections are an exaggerated gesture at eccentricities we know to be based in truth it is also benign off putting only on the surface the other world is the exact opposite its glittering facade hides true danger visible only when the illusion decays along with the the beldums patience then the horror really starts this is why I think of Coraline as one of Cinema's best unions of form and content director Henry celic deploys stop motion animation not just for its look but its feel in the real world he draws on the forms inherent physicality like liveaction stop motion materials exist and are photograph in the physical world the mundanity Coraline achieves is helped by what's on camera feeling real however stylized it is in the other world celic instead emphasizes the mediums meticulous controlled detail the love care and attention that goes into stop motion is usually a positive but in Coraline the way everything has been carefully manicured triggers in us a sense of the unnatural especially when compared to the mess of reality we sense The beldums Guiding hand before we are shown her grand design what this teaches Coraline and young viewers is to look beyond the surface what scares us at first might just be something unfamiliar that takes getting used to and what we're initially Enchanted by might be concealing something we need to truly fear it's a good lesson that's never voiced but baked into the film itself celic and Co don't stop there either Coraline also teaches its audience what to do with this knowledge at the heart of this is Coraline Jones herself a force of a child protagonist she may be vulnerable to the Beldum but she isn't easily taken in she's inquisitive observant and intuitively skeptical her role in the story is always active she runs tests plays tricks and strategizes she has helped from a cat Keith David who slips Between Worlds at will but his advice is hardly an instruction manual for the most part she's piecing the rules of this world together herself and so are we celic takes a show do tell approach to this story where he can and the visual Clarity of the direction means that we learn the same way Coraline does this film may want to scare us but it also strives to make us as observant and inquisitive as its heroine we become active viewers learning and making connections that fill the gaps left open in the world bitting as Coraline overcomes her fear to outsmart the Beldum we get to experience doing the same to 11-year-old me Coraline was as empowering as it was chilling and I don't think it's a coincidence that I became increasingly drawn to horror movies in the years that followed it practically teaches you how to watch them actively and work through the fear to get at what's really going on underneath whether thematically or technically on top of being something I wouldn't hesitate to describe as a masterpiece it's the perfect Gateway horror film so whether you already bear its scars or not I implore you to take advantage of this opportunity to see Coraline on the big screen and if you have children of the right age bring them along the odds are good you'll be showing them a movie they'll never forget following on from My Bloody Valentine this is the second in my impromptu series of 3D films viewed in glorious flat vision and I'm moving from horror to Children's films it isn't as much of a swerve as you might think as Coraline was originally conceived and written by Neil Gaiman The celebrated author of classic paranormal graphic novels including the Sandman series as well as 25's movie mirror mask this is a fairy tale has more in common with r doll than Walt Disney and director Henry celic has instilled it with the same joy of the macabra as his previous stopmotion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas Coraline is a deliciously creepy tale of good versus evil that will enchant and Delight young and old our heroine Coraline is a little girl with loving but busy parents she wants to Garden in the rain they want to write a plant catalog in peace bored and lonely having rejected the company of her landlady's grandson and his cat she discovers a tiny door that leads to another world there she finds her other mother and other father living in a house just like hers only better her other mother and other father doed upon her lavishing her with gifts delicious food and most importantly attention but of course there is a price to pay the best animated films succeed not because of the medium nor in spite of it from Bambi through to Toy Story Each succeeds because the tail is well-crafted Coraline finds success in the same way while the animated style enhances the film's ability to carry us on its wildest flights of imagination as well as giving complete creative control over the style and images Coraline's tale could stand proud and obviously has done with Gaiman writing the original novel in another format one of its greatest strengths lies in its detailed characters Coraline Jones depth comes from more than a pair of red and green filters Gaiman and celic have made her lovable but flawed and Dakota Fanning brings her churlishness arrogance and fear to life as well as her nobler traits you'll forget that she is a doll long before this film is through her parents voiced by John Hodgman and Terry Hatcher might not get quite the same level of nuance but they to work very well they aren't bad people at all they are just busy finding it hard to find time for their daughter I've seen plenty of real people in films who were less believable than these manquin the animation itself is stunning as might be expected from celic the work is even more impressive than nightmare with the human faces being wonderfully expressive it also works perfectly in two Dimensions at the start of the film I noticed occasions where the film was is obviously using abusing the gimmick of 3D but these quickly vanished that isn't to say that there weren't later moments that were designed to take advantage of the virtual depth that real D provides but they were slipped in gracefully and the film worked perfectly as a two dimensional production so my second dip into the 3D 2D pool was a world away from the first I may not have been immersed in the film's virtual realm but I was immersed in the tale and that not binocular ision is the important thing some have suggested that this film might be too dark for children but I think that apart from the very young they'll be fine of course the first film that I ever saw in a theater was Waters shipped down a cartoon about fluffy bunnies adapted from a novel it's also a tale of murder and betrayal with rabbits fighting to the death in a whirlwind of spit and blood it is far scarier than this film and I survive just fine sure children might grab a cushion to hide behind but they won't be able to take their eyes off the screen and neither will you originally published in 22 gaimon's young adult novel is something akin to Alice in Wonderland by way of Edward gory or Edgar Allen Poe it tells the tale of Coraline a young girl who one day discovers a small door in her new home that leads to another world not unlike her own there she finds her other mother and other father seemingly Superior versions with buttons instead of eyes that at first seemed too good to be true and as they try to stop her from ever leaving Coraline learns really are alas director Henry celik the stop motion animation Visionary Behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach has forced me to eat crow regarding my passionate disdain for Hollywood's Resurgence of 3D indeed my stubborn belief that this gimmick cannot work in accord with any narrative has been proven incorrect though not absolutely Ely my disregard still has uncounted reservations since the device's superficial use is readily applied to horror fodder and two-dimensional computer animation to enhance what cannot be enhanced but with Coraline celic finds a unique balance between story and presentation that functions harmoniously the effect of stop motion animation contains an odd sense of dimensionality in that selex environments and characters move and appear like a diorama come to life each has tangibility that the 3D mechanism supports and given that stop motion and 3D find this curious synchronization in celix picture the result is nothing short of amazing of course there are the usual failures such as how the 3D glasses dim the films image and inevitable visual downfall since the picture is ripe with vibrant colors but it's nonetheless an improvement over one red and one blue lens perhaps as technology improves audiences will be able to enjoy both both faux space and bright colors together if you didn't already know stop motion animation involves an environment created out of any number of materials ranging from clay to metals and so on the filmmakers take a single photo of the setting move the figures in the scene a tiny amount and take another photo thousands of photos and years of diligent work later a film is assembled early Motion Picture Pioneers combined the realistic Style with live action on the original King Kong 1933 Ray harwen popularized the method in Escapist Yarns like the seventh Voyage of Sinbad 1958 and Jason and the Argonauts 1963 but today with the ease of computer Graphics stop motion has been confined primarily to Children's films and yet there's a side of Coraline that's wholly unchildlike based on the 22 novel by Neil Gaiman The Story contains creepy dolls talking cats performing mice and evil spiders all elements further brought to life by celk approach essentially a reworking of Alice in Wonderland this frightening story book features the impetuous eccentric Title Character voiced by Dakota Fanning discovering another world hiding in her new home in Rural Oregon a place shared with strange neighbors above and below her family's flat her boring writer parents voices of Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman plug away at a gardening catalog while she investigates her neighbors and determines her new life is mundane and dreary one night through a tunnel inside a secreted doorway no bigger than a child Coraline crawls and finds a more pleasant World seemingly created to please her every whim her other mother cooks comfort food and her other father sings and plays piano and while every other detail seems identical to her world her alternate parents have buttons for eyes and they soon disclose that she can stay in this better world with them if she sews buttons over her eyes too is this otherw world a dream possibly probably hopefully but be careful what you wish for theme comes crashing down when Coral lines other mother kidnaps her real parents offering a very real danger generated from too much dreaming fear is an integral part of childhood development so if you have children show them Coraline and expose them to imagination and the possibility of dreams and all the frightening aspects therein allow them to acknowledge and surpass Elementary fears and perhaps you'll confront some latent fears of your own in the process because once they and you start recognizing the elusory unreality of fantasy that of course there's nothing to be afraid of except fear itself real life suddenly won't seem so bad in comparison a Wonder of visual Artistry the film represents an epicenter of patience and faculty from those involved though celk collaboration with Tim Burton eventually spawned and after the fact 3D Revival of The Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters that film was never intended for 3D and the result looks like a pithy relief sculpture Coraline was filmed and designed with this apparatus in mind and makes fine use of its benefits with every stylized figure and dreamlike impression from celic and gaiman's Fantastical and occasionally disturbing imaginations it was a sweet relief to have all my fears allayed Coraline isn't a perfect flick either in its story or it rendering which is a mixture of stop motion solid animation and computer generated imagery but it's so got him close that the distinction becomes purely academic Neil Gaiman as with any of the greats when it comes to working in the areas of fantasy or what are often derisively dismissed as children's fairy tales understands the Deep psychological underpinnings of what he's working with in the way that the brothers grim and the creators of Mythology throughout the ages have always understood it's not just child Ood fears that these people have to approach and understand they have to know the different motivations and intensities of feeling that children possess and most of us adults have forgotten when people like Henry celik and Neil Gaiman get it right they forcefully remind us again of course there are similarities with other Tales From he Miyazaki Studio gly stuff to Alice and Wonderland to more ancient stuff but I should really learn to stay on message and deal with the subject at hand without feeling the need to start enumerating everything else I've ever thought of in excruciating detail what I absolutely loved about Coraline the most was the fact which seems really obvious on the surface that Coraline makes choices and has to act in order to achieve anything in this story she's not just a character that stuff happens to until a cliche ending where every bit of a status quo is restored she's a bit of a brat who almost gets everything she could ever have wished for only to realize that if she doesn't work really hard everything will become terrible forever for a lot of people especially herself I'm utterly and thoroughly sick of kid stories where a child is an anointed one of some description that a whole bunch of stuff happens to as they wander blly through their own story as plot device more than character and is acted upon rather than actor Coraline is the antithesis of that which is why she reminded me so much of some of my other favorite heroins from children's stories such as Chihiro s from Spirited Away or Lyra silvertongue from the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip pman damn it I just did it again Coraline and her parents have just moved to a new house it's called the Pink Palace and it seems to be a nice place in the middle of nowhere subdivided into a bunch of Apartments Coraline's parents are nice enough but they're more focused on their own lives rather than catering to Coraline's every whim and fair enough two Coraline is a bit bummed out about having moved and finds it frustrating when her parents elect to you know work in stuff and not just bask in the gloriousness that is Coraline and as an added irony they are gardening writers who hate gardening because of all that ikey dirt left to her own devices Coraline gets to know of the other denisons of the Pink Palace including a perhaps handicapped boy called webe whose grandmother is the land lady and who is always calling out for her worthless grandson to come home Coraline dislikes wbe the way any sensible girl dislikes most boys at that age and if there was any justice or logic in the world they dislike them until at least 20 but he is a diversion at least there are also two grand Dames of the stage in another apartment and IM Mis forceable one of whom possesses a tremendous um deage which would look more appropriate on the prow of a ship the other has a tremendous a seat that would Inspire the members of spinal tap to sing their classic Anthem big bottom no end then there's the strange acrobatic man who trains jumping rats all of this seems like it's a cast of Misfits who will dislike each other at first but will learn to come together in order to battle a common enemy that couldn't be further from the truth the thing is there's this world our world for lack of a better descriptor and then there's another world seemingly created entirely for Coraline's benefit after becoming irritated with her parents she finds a place with the aid of a button-eyed doll that looks suspiciously like Coraline down to the blue hair and upturn nose where everything is more to her liking in this other world where her mother is a great cook and super attentive to her every need and her father is fun exciting and does a whole heap of things to inspire and Delight Coraline the only problem is that these other parents have button eyes too and whilst everything still seems way too good to be true she gets the offered Devil's bargain in the form of an exchange stay here in this realm of Perpetual wish fulfillment forever and all you have to do is hand over your eyes it would seem to be a small price to pay I guess the thing is though this other mother seems like she's all sweetness and light and pancakes for dinner but perhaps there's something sinister about someone who constructs a world precisely to your liking and plus there's the whole button I think as well that can't be good at first we think this other realm is just a fantasy of coralin because it seems to coincide with Coraline's nightly sleeps her first journey seems like a dream her second is out of anger as a rejection of her real parents and the real world being painful messy and dissatisfying much of the time it's around this time that we start realizing that this dreamy realm where Coraline gets everything She Wants instantly is an actual place and that there is someone who is real and is creating everything to her liking in order to convince her to stay and there can never be anything wrong with that as a form of Storytelling there's just something so solidly enjoyable about the way they've put all this together both from a story point of view and getting the look of it right there's a solidity a weight to the characters even at their most spindly and wispy that you just don't get with computer animation alone I'm not getting into the old school versus new school animation argument because truth be told it's a stupid argument and it's pointless since this film meshes the two together in order to best tell its story and presumably it was cheaper and quicker though laborious as stop motion is by its very nature to do so since I'm guessing they didn't want 300 animators working on it for a couple of years to get that eyelash rendering just right it's a delightful and dark story just like the best most resonant and most lasting of fairy tales of course all these kinds of stories seem like they're entirely intended as cautionary tales as in kids do what we tell you or horrible things will happen to you and sure there's an element of that here but it's not a moralistic finger wagging bore which would have the protagonist stuff things up out of selfishness and have to be rescued by some Woodsman or handsome prince she gets targeted by a malevolent creature that weaves a fiction best suited to capturing her but it is Coraline herself who has to eventually do battle with her nemesis save herself and save her parents sure there are little convenient plot devices and mini deos X machas but at least they re not happening as our little lady passively looks on in horror she is what she does and I love her for it though of course my daughter is too young for something like this just yet I'd be happy for her to watch it in a few years time because apart from some of the frights on offer and some of the scary images Coraline is a positive female lead in an inspired and dark fanty tale that looks tremendous to me even as a lot of kids would be blurting W this don't look nothing like Shrek W get me some more coke sweet relief Henry celik is still at the top of his game and Neil Gaiman you demented genius please keep up the great work there was only one other kids's flick that resonated with me more this year but this is clearly still one of the best flicks of 2009 the story is simple enough precocious Young Coraline voiced by Dakota Fanning is bored with life in her new home and unengaged by her aloof workaholic parents voiced by Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman when she discovers a secret door in the house this passageway leads her to the other world a parallel reality that seems close to her world but is far more colorful and enjoyable her other mother is seemingly the perfect mom who dots on her the way she wishes her real mother would all is well except for the Cure curious fact that everyone in the other world has buttons for eyes before you can click your heels three times and cry there's no place like home Coraline realizes just how twisted and cruel her other mother really is the grass doesn't seem so green on the other side to Coraline now and she has to muster the strength and courage to confront and defeat her monstrous other mother if she's to rescue her real parents and get back to where she truly belongs I had the opportunity to visit the set of Coraline last summer and witnessed the meticulous attention to detail craftsmanship and job likee patience required to make a stop motion film these artists have a lot of passion for what they do which makes my lukewarm reaction to the final film all the more disappointing heart and creativity only count for so much when the story there in service of leaves the viewer cold cel's use of stopmotion puppetry may have been the wisest way to bring gaiman's surreal fairy tale to life but for all its wonderful macabra puppets sets and visual elements Coraline is dramatically inert and listlessly paced things just happen with no real narrative momentum until the last 15 minutes it's a shame that a film is visually Sumptuous and imaginative as this ends up feeling so dreary there are a lot of tried and true fairy tale elements utilize the wicked stepmother another world within our own a little girl on a scary Mission talking animals but what may have worked splendidly on the page is hit and miss when adapted to the screen the antics of Coraline's neighbors Mr babinsky voiced by Ian McShan Miss and Mis forceable as well as her arbitrary friendship with webe a character invented for the film distract from the main thrust of the plot which is Coraline's dealings with the other mother and her Rescue of the ghost children and her parents these are the movies most Darkly delightful and thematically Rich aspects and when it focuses on them the film Rouses to life but in the end it's too little too late to fully re-engage you Coraline May ostensibly be aimed at kids but if the reaction of one little girl at the screening I attended is any indication is this still going she asked her parent just a bit too loudly then they too might find this sleepy film tough to sit through without growing Restless those that aren't antsy might be too scared to keep watching another child had to be removed screaming and crying within the first 10 minutes of entering the film ghoulish world but maybe that kids just a wuss shockingly a story where a mother plucks out kids eyes and replaces them with buttons or sews their mouths shut might be a wee bit too torture porn for some members of tuno crowd to stomach a lot has been made about Coraline being the first stop motion animated film in 3D but there are only a few noteworthy moments that truly showcase the format or demonstrate why it was even necessary to use after the first few times you you see how clearly delineated the foregrounds and backgrounds are the 3D aspect becomes gimmicky and forgettable this won't be a 3D film that will lose much when viewed in 2D I saw this movie several years ago and then I found out that the book it was based on was written by comic book writer Sandman and dark Storyteller Neil Gaiman who decided one day he wanted to write a children's novel through curiosity I read the book which had an interesting dilemma the language was very clear and it was a very easy read but at the same time Neil Gaiman managed to write a story that was terrifying so you have a book that was too simple to challenge adults in the literary Department while at the same time it was far too scary for its intended demographic awesome today I rewatched the film having read the book whether or not it was intended for me keep in mind I might refer to it for myself as a creative and now we can talk about it while referring to its source material so Coraline not Caroline set in the outskirts of Ashlin Oregon our story centers around an 11-year-old girl from Michigan named Coraline who has just moved into a new apartment in the Pink Palace Apartments a 150-year-old mansion that was renovated into different homes along with Coraline and her parents residents include retired burles dancers named Miss and Miss forcible and their many Scottish Terrier dogs and an eccentric Russian acrobat named Mr babinsky known as Mr Bobo in the book who runs a mouse circus Coraline is bored out of her mind but she takes the time to explore her new environment which leads her meeting a boy named webborn whose first impressions are instantly shot down a black cat with a secret finding a well and finding a secret door that was wallpapered over after asking her mother to open it they find that the door has been bricked up however that night a mouse appears and scurries downstairs Coraline follows it leading her to the little door which is no longer bricked up and has become a little tunnel she goes through the tunnel to find a duplicate of her new home only it was different the colors were brighter the pictures happier and her parents were there playing music and making amazing meals in the middle of the night or rather these are her other parents parents from a parallel universe with buttons instead of eyes like the doll wyborn revealed to Coraline which looks like Coraline the world seems perfect in this universe as her parents and the surrounding World seem to give her everything she ever wanted but is it all too good to be true the voice acting is Awesome with some wonderful choices and even some Star Quality that suits it down to the ground Miss and Miss forcible are voiced by Don French and Jennifer Saunders very well-known comedy duo in the UK Terry Hatcher Susan mayor from Desperate Housewives voice voices Mel Jones Coraline's mother as well as her other mother humorous John Hodgman voices both Charlie Coraline's dad and her other dad Ian McShan Al swaringen and Deadwood Ray the community leader in that season six episode of Game of Thrones voices Mr babinsky Keith David Childs and John Carpenters the thing and the shadow man in The Princess and the Frog voices the black cat and a 15-year-old Dakota Fanning voices Coraline some performances you couldn't tell it was the voice actors because they were very much in character and in the process you see their talent shine through as performers the characters are brilliant and some of them are even better in the movie than they are in the book especially Coraline's parents Mel and Charlie in the book were not given much of a reason as to why Coraline's parents seem to neglect her but in the film were given a reason they've just moved into a new house which is one of the two most stressful things a person can experience in everyday life the other is marriage on top of this they both work at home and have a closing deadline to meet a gardening catalog where Charlie writes the Articles and Mel edits them they meet their deadline halfway into the film and this is when they seem to lighten up and start to come around as parents even when Coraline doesn't notice for the first half of the film they're stressed and exhausted so they can't give everything their daughter wants right away they do the most they can and telling their daughter to explore their new home is at least a decent way to give her something to do the neighbors are delightfully mad as are the other parents and much like a protagonist should Coraline grows as a person the story in the film is a little different to the book and in its own way that's Grand the inclusion of the character webborn lava the grandson of the landl was a good idea from a creative standpoint and makes the film more Universal in the book Coraline talks to herself which is fine in a Japanese anime manga and a novel but perhaps not a family film so include a boy who is the same age as Coraline for her to interact with good choice also the emphasis on doll eyes is both creepy and oddly symbolic many would compare this film St to Alice and Wonderland and it definitely falls into that archetype but they're not the same story some could also argue that there are a lot of symbolic aspects of sin slavery thievery and selfishness mixed in Coraline is presented with scenarios that are too good to be true only to be told if you want more you'll have to do this which then puts her at a Crossroads these things are enjoyable and wonderful but can she really give up what she has for it even during the trying time that her has is going through the music was composed by Bruno koolle who has been nicknamed the French Danny Elfman due to his slightly similar but evidently different Melodies a number of the tunes include light singing from children's choirs in French and other songs such as the song that French and Saunders do in their play in the other world are great in the film but they might not be pleasant to listen to on a train the soundtrack in general is excellent and really captures the essence of both childhood and Dark Adventure the art style oh the art style the film's director Henry celik might ring a bell to some while The Nightmare Before Christmas has Tim Burton's name attached to it he was the producer Henry celic made that film a reality as director due to this experience in puppets and stop motion animation his other work includes the stop motion version of James and the Giant Peach in 1996 also produced by Burton and the quirky visual effects in Wes andren The Life Aquatic with Steve zissu so you know you're in for on a treat on a visual level and he doesn't disappoint here this film also has a distinction because it's the first stopmotion animated movie to be shot for 3D cinemas and Blu-rays I saw it on 3D Blu-ray and it looks great I could look at this movie all day and get ideas from it the animation is amazing in this one some could argue about a slight choppiness here and there but you can say that about most Japanese anime everything flows wonderfully and the fact that it's done with stop motion puppets makes it all the more amazing as there is constantly something going on even in the little things would I recommend Coraline absolutely I really like the film the first time I watched it and the second viewing oddly enough is even better yes I might know the story but I love looking at this film and seeing it play out are there plot holes yes a few but it's still a very tight solid and gripping experience even the lower moments catch your attention the movie surprisingly is an adaptation of the Dark Fantasy children's Nolla Coraline penned by British author Neil Gaiman initially written for his daughters the book was developed over a 10-year period amusingly the total production period for the film was close to 5 years both the movie and the Nolla have enjoyed immense success and critical appreciation as one of the people who have enjoyed both of then I can ID L state that this is a movie adaptation that really brings the story to screen in the best possible way Coraline despite being primarily aimed at children manages to please adults too and not just with the horror elements but with the intelligence of the script and the visuals one of my favorite moments feature a beautiful blue and gold Sky a nod to Vincent Van Go's starry night that particular scene is quite genius initially lulling watchers into a sense of false security with the free Souls of the trapped children before delivering another round of bad news that she's still in danger that there's a super creepy metallic hand out to steal the key and drag Coraline back to the other world much like the actual plot I was drawn in by its stunning visuals that I barely remembered that it was in fact a horror movie this shot is immediately followed by an even creepier one Coraline who I must remind you is 11-year-old girl decides to throw away the key in an abandoned well that is located in the large Woods in the middle of the night in a horror movie this scene had me metaphorically slamming my head into the wall for three reasons the first being the lack of common sense that we normally experience with the protagonist in horror movies the second being her fearlessness that one could consider Reckless the third being the absolute irresponsibility of her parents whilst sneaking out of the house at midnight for a secret Ru is a right of passage a tween definitely shouldn't be able to pull it off that being said Coraline makes the right decision As proved by the rather intense fight seen seconds later she and webborn yet another tween who happens to enjoy taking Moonlight strolls in the woods at midnight managed to drop both key and hand into the well and end the reign of terror the movie also features a rather philosophical excerpt what a piece of work is man from Shakespeare's Hamlet 1603 a soliloquy that I unfortunately immediately recognized from my days of attempting to master Hamlet however to my delight it is now performed in the movie's most cringey scene supposedly apparent approved source of entertainment Coraline is treated to a stage turned acrobatic performance by two elderly actresses as they attempt to recreate both Greek goddess afrodite's birth and the Odyssey 1614 singing siren whilst it does end up becoming a rather endearing scene especially the acrobatic portion the initial shock of the Nearly Naked Women does make me cringe each time when analyzing what really makes Coraline the exception to my no horror rule I'm a scaredy cat and I'm not afraid to admit it the visuals is the first thing that comes to mind originally planned to be a live adaptation director Henry selich makes the decision to use stop motion to animate Coraline and her world celic best known for his directorial work in The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 another children's Dark Fantasy stop motion film handles Coraline with a veteran hand despite being a risky gamble Coraline paved the way for the increased use of stop motion animation with the Production Studio Lea who later produced the critically acclaimed Cubo and the two strings 2016 an example of the breath taking visuals and my favorite scene in the movie is the opening sequence it really sets the tone for the movie as a whole by featuring a doll being remodeled to resemble Coraline which is complemented well with the music that initially appears to be light-hearted yet holds an underlying tension beneath the scene both intrigues and excites the audience and I commend the designers for creating the fantasy element of the open window as the doll slowly ascends into the sky celic maintains the power of the visuals throughout the movie whilst the jumping mice sequence routine never fails to leave me impressed it's the slow shots that really creep up on me the first shot of the other mother leaves me reeling each time as does her transformation into the shattered monster that she becomes whilst the latter plays on the horror movie genre by fixating on scarier elements and a screechy voice hats off to debut actress Terry Hatcher it is the unsettling button eyes of the first that scares me more despite the movie being rated PG I would personally advise against showing your younger children this movie Personally having been shown the movie at age 9 in school I along with several other of my classmates were left traumatized by the movie that being said this movie has become a favorite movie of mine and I have consistently watched it multiple times a year ever since hello movie lovers welcome to my YouTube channel where we dive deep into the world of Cinema and explore the magic of the Silver Screen today we're St stepping into a film that promises to capture our imagination and stir our emotions so grab your popcorn settle in and let's embark on this cinematic journey together ready to find out if Coraline is a must-see or a Miss let's get started Coraline is a 2009 American stop motion animated Dark Fantasy horror film written for the screen and directed by Henry celik it is based on the 2002 Nolla of the same name by Neil Gaiman five produced by Leica as the Studio's first feature film six it features the voices of Dakota Fanning Terry Hatcher Jennifer Saunders Don French Keith David John Hodgman Robert Bailey Jr and Ian McShan the film tells the story of its ayous character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home unaware that it contains something dark and Sinister just as Gaiman was finishing his Nolla he met celic and invited him to make a film adaptation as Gaiman was a fan of celik's other stopmotion works The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 and James and the Giant Peach 1996 when celic thought that a direct adaptation would lead to maybe a 47-minute movie the screenplay was expanded looking for a design different from that of most animation celic discovered the work of Japanese illustrator tahiro yusi and invited him to become the concept artist his biggest influences were on the color palette which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the other world as in The Wizard of Oz to capture stereoscopy for the 3D release the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions production of the stop motion animation took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro Oregon Coraline made a strong impression on me when I first saw it I would have been 11 the same age as the protagonist flipping channels one weekend before the rest of my family was awake as I often did and encountering it already underway I can't remember exactly where I jumped in except I know I saw Coraline's first journey through the little door the tunnel unfurled for her wonderfully AOW and I was as hooked as she was another image of that magical passageway would be burned into my young Psyche on that viewing a dark mirror of the first the tunnel now looks dead and abandoned littered with cobwebs and forgotten toys that speak to Decades of luring children to worse than deaths Coraline frantically crawls toward her world while the Monstrous Beldum whales and pounds on the locked door behind her the barrier holds somehow despite the sickly green light that breaks through with each blow but the force contracts the tunnel in sudden spurts the other world chases her and hurdles toward the camera that sequence was and remains grippingly terrifying it's also why I've come come to believe there's no better movie to be scared by as a child than this one and with Coraline returning to theaters for its 15th anniversary I'd like to make the case for a whole new generation of kids being taken to experience its traumatic Delights the bones of the story will feel familiar drawing as it does on The rhythms of a fairy tale Coraline Jones Dakota Fanning has moved into a new home in a new state with her exhausted inattentive parents Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman everything is foreign but her life is filled with boredom the neighbors are old and odd except for WB Robert Bailey Jr who is Young and odd the only things that hold her attention are a little door behind the wallpaper and a doll wbe found that looks exactly like her she soon finds herself drawn through that little door into a version of her life filled with wonder the other mother waits for her there as do the other father the other wbe and the other neighbors they smile at her dot on her and do their best to provide an answer to each of her discontents but however pretty the packaging the buttons they all have in place of eyes keep them at a distance from her they know this if she wishes to stay they eventually tell her she'll have to sew buttons into her eyes too things go horribly wrong from there as we know they must but Coraline is more than just a well-executed take on an age-old storytelling pattern it has something to say about our world and its dangers and it says it with rhythm and style this movie is very deliberately paced it doesn't Rush us to the other world nor does it hurry to have that dreamy Place crumble into a nightmare there are a few practical reasons for this it allows us to take in fully how the Two Worlds mirror each other for example but perhaps most importantly it gives the film its emotional texture run your hand along its Edge and Trace the fear and you'll find it unsettling from the very beginning when the Coraline doll is sewn by a spindly metallic hand and sent off into the ether but it's not just Supernatural things that disturb us reality is dingy gross and macabra disgusting food whether unappetizing or rotten is a motif wbe is introduced in a skull mask rearing his bike like the headless horsemen middle-aged acrobat Mr babinsky Ian mcshain is unkempt and unusually blue Jennifer Saunders and forcible Dawn French have a wall full of Taxidermy dogs the other world save for its uncanny button eyes is perfect Beauty by contrast and the contrast is precisely the point Coraline's world full of oddities though it is is fundamentally mundane its imperfections are an exaggerated gesture at eccentricities we know to be based in truth it is also benign off putting only on the surface the other world is the the exact opposite its glittering facade hides true danger visible only when the illusion decays along with the beldums patience then the horror really starts this is why I think of Coraline as one of Cinema's best unions of form and content director Henry selich deploys stop motion animation not just for its look but its feel in the real world he draws on the forms inherent physicality like live action stop motion materials exist and are photographed in the physical world the mundanity Coraline achieves is helped by what's on camera feeling real however stylized it is in the other world celic instead emphasizes the mediums meticulous controlled detail the love care and attention that goes into stop motion is usually a positive but in Coraline the way everything has been carefully manicured triggers in us a sense of the unnatural especially when compared to the mess of reality we sense The beldums Guiding hand before we are shown her grand design what this teaches Coraline and young viewers is to look beyond the surface what scares us at first might just be something unfamiliar that takes getting used to and what we're initially Enchanted by might be concealing something we need to truly fear it's a good lesson that's never voiced but baked into the film itself celic and Co don't stop there either Coraline also teaches its audience what to do with this knowledge at the heart of this is Coraline Jones herself a force of a child protagonist she may be vulnerable to the Beldum but she isn't easily taken in she's inquisitive observant and intuitively skeptical her role in the story is always active she runs tests plays tricks and strategizes she has helped from a cat Keith David who slips Between Worlds at will but his advice is hardly an instruction manual for the most part she's piecing the rules of this world together herself and so are we celic takes a show don't tell approach to this story where he can and the visual Clarity of the direction means that we learn the same way Coraline does this film may want to scare us but it also strives to make us as observant and inquisitive as its heroine we become active viewers learning and making connections that fill the gaps left open in the world bitting as Coraline overcomes her fear to out smart the Beldum we get to experience doing the same to 11-year-old me Coraline was as empowering as it was chilling and I don't think it's a coincidence that I became increasingly drawn to horror movies in the years that followed it practically teaches you how to watch them actively and work through the fear to get at what's really going on underneath whether thematically or technically on top of being something I wouldn't hesitate to describe as a masterpiece it's the perfect Gateway horror film so whether you already bear its scars or not I implore you to take advantage of this opportunity to see Coraline on the big screen and if you have children of the right age bring them along the odds are good you'll be showing them a movie they'll never forget following on from My Bloody Valentine this is the second in my impromptu series of 3D films viewed in glorious flat vision and I'm moving from horror to Children's films it isn't as much of a swerve as you might think as Coraline was originally conceived and written by Neil Gaiman The celebrated author of classic paranormal graphic novels including the Sandman series as well as 25's movie mirror mask this is a fairy tale has more in common with r doll than Walt Disney and director Henry celic has instilled it with the same joy of the macabra as his previous stop motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas Coraline is a deliciously creepy tale of good versus evil that will enchant and Delight young and old our heroine Coraline is a little girl with loving but busy parents she wants to Garden in the rain they want to write a plant catalog in peace bored and lonely having rejected the company of her land lady's grandson and his cat she discovers a tiny door that leads to another world there she finds her other mother and other father living in a house just like hers only better her other mother and other father doed upon her lavishing her with gifts delicious food and most importantly attention but of course there is a price to pay the best animated films succeed not because of the medium nor in spite of it from Bambi through to Toy Story Each succeeds because the tail is well crafted Coraline finds success in the same way while the animated style enhances the film's ability to carry us on its wildest flights of imagination as well as giving complete creative control over the style and images Coraline's tale could stand proud and obviously has done with Gaiman writing the original novel in another format one of its greatest strengths lies in its detailed characters Coraline Jones depth comes from more than a pair of red and green filters Gaiman and celic have made her lovable but flawed and Dakota Fanning brings her churlishness arrogance and fear to life as well as her nobler traits you'll forget that she is a doll long before this film is through her parents voiced by John Hodgman and Terry Hatcher might not get quite the same level of nuance but they to work very well they aren't bad people at all they are just busy finding it hard to find time for their daughter I've seen plenty of real people in films who were less believable than these mannequins the animation itself is stunning as might be expected from celic the work is even more impressive than nightmare with the human faces being wonderfully expressive it also works perfectly in two Dimensions at the start of the film I noticed occasions where the film was obviously using abusing the gimmick of 3D but these quickly vanished that isn't to say that there weren't later moments that were designed to take advantage of the virtual depth that real D provides but they were slipped in gracefully and the film worked perfectly as a two-dimensional production so my second dip into the 3D SL 2D pool was a world away from the first I may not have been immersed in the film's virtual realm but I was immersed in the tale and that not binocular vision is the important thing some have suggested that this film might be too dark for children but I think that apart from the very young they'll be fine of course the first film that I ever saw in a theater was Waters shipped down a cartoon about fluffy bunnies adapted from a novel it's also a tale of murder and betrayal with rabbits fighting to the death in a whirlwind of spit and blood it is far scarier than this film and I survive just fine sure children might grab a cushion to hide behind but they won't be able to take their eyes off the screen and neither will you originally published in 22 Damon's young adult novel is something akin to Alice in Wonderland by way of Edward gory or Edgar Allen Poe it tells the tale of Coraline a young girl who one day discovers a small door in her new home that leads to another world world not unlike her own there she finds her other mother and other father seemingly Superior versions with buttons instead of eyes that at first seemed too good to be true and as they try to stop her from ever leaving Coraline learns really are alas director Henry celik the stop motion animation Visionary Behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach has forced me to eat crow regarding my passionate disdain for Hollywood's Resurgence of 3D indeed my stubborn belief that this gimmick cannot work in accord with any narrative has been proven incorrect though not absolutely my disregard still has uncounted reservations since the device's superficial use is readily applied to horror fodder and two-dimensional computer animation to enhance what cannot be enhanced but with Coraline celic finds a unique balance between story and presentation that functions harmoniously the effect of stop motion animation contains an odd sense of dimensional in that celex environments and characters move and appear like a diorama come to life each has tangibility that the 3D mechanism supports and given that stop motion and 3D find this curious synchronization in celic picture the result is nothing short of amazing of course there are the usual failures such as how the 3D glasses dim the film's image and inevitable visual downfall since the picture is ripe with vibrant colors but it's nonetheless an improvement over one red and one blue lens perhaps as technology improves audiences will be able to enjoy both faux space and bright colors together if you didn't already know stop motion animation involves an environment created out of any number of materials ranging from clay to metals and so on the filmmakers take a single photo of the setting move the figures in the scene a tiny amount and take another photo thousands of photos and years of diligent work later a film is assembled early Motion Picture Pioneers combined the realistic Style with live action on the original King Kong 1933 Ray harwen popularized the method in Escapist Yarns like the seventh Voyage of Sinbad 1958 and Jason and the Argonauts 1963 but today with the ease of computer Graphics stop motion has been confined primarily to Children's films and yet there's a side of Coraline that's wholly unchildlike based on the 2 novel by Neil Gaiman The Story contains creepy dolls talking cats performing mice and evil spiders all elements further brought to life by celik's approach essentially a reworking of Alice in Wonderland this frightening story book features the impetuous eccentric Title Character voiced by Dakota Fanning discovering another world hiding in her new home in Rural Oregon a place shared with strange neighbors above and below her family's flat her boring writer parents voices of Terry hat ER and John Hodgman plug away at a gardening catalog while she investigates her neighbors and determines her new life is mundane and Drey one night through a tunnel inside a secreted doorway no bigger than a child Coraline crawls and finds a more pleasant World seemingly created to please her every whim her other mother cooks comfort food and her other father sings and plays piano and while every other detail seems identical to her world her alternate parents have buttoned for eyes and they soon disclose that she can stay in this better world with them if she sews buttons over her eyes too is this other world a dream possibly probably hopefully but be careful what you wish for theme comes crashing down when Coraline's other mother kidnaps her real parents offering a very real danger generated from too much dreaming fear is an integral part of childhood development so if you have children show them Coraline and expose them to imagination and the possibility of dreams and all the frightening aspects therein allow them to acknowledge and surpass Elementary fears and perhaps you'll confront some latent fears of your own in the process because once they and you start recognizing the elusory unreality of fantasy that of course there's nothing to be afraid of except fear itself real life suddenly won't seem so bad in comparison a Wonder of visual Artistry the film represents an epicenter of patience and fact faculty from those involved though celic collaboration with Tim Burton eventually spawned and after the fact 3D Revival of The Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters that film was never intended for 3D and the result looks like a piffy relief sculpture Coraline was filmed and designed with this apparatus in mind and makes fine use of its benefits with every stylized figure and dreamlike impression from celic and gaiman's Fantastical and occasionally disturbing imaginations it was a sweet relief to have all my fears allayed Coraline isn't a perfect flick either in its story or its rendering which is a mixture of stop motion solid animation and computer generated imagery but it's so gotam close that the distinction becomes purely academic Neil Gaiman as with any of the greats when it comes to working in the areas of fantasy or what are often derisively dismissed as children's fairy tales understands the Deep psychological underpinnings of what he's working with in the the way that the brothers grim and the creators of Mythology throughout the ages have always understood it's not just childhood fears that these people have to approach and understand they have to know the different motivations and intensities of feeling that children possess and most of us adults have forgotten when people like Henry celik and Neil Gaiman get it right they forcefully remind us again of course there are similarities with other Tales From he Miyazaki Studio gly stuff to Alice and Wonderland to more ancient stuff but I should really learn to stay on message and deal with the subject at hand without feeling the need to start enumerating everything else I've ever thought of in excruciating detail what I absolutely loved about Coraline the most was the fact which seems really obvious on the surface that Coraline makes choices and has to act in order to achieve anything in this story she's not just a character that stuff happens to until a cliche ending where every bit of a status quo is restored she's a bit of a brat who almost gets everything she could ever have wished for only to realize that if she doesn't work really hard everything will become terrible forever for a lot of people especially herself I'm utterly and thoroughly sick of kid stories where a child is an anointed one of some description that a whole bunch of stuff happens to as they wander blly through their own story as plot device more than character and is acted upon rather than actor Coraline is the antithesis of that which is what she reminded me so much of some of my other favorite heroins from children's stories such as Chihiro sen from Spirited Away or Lyra silver tongue from the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip pulman damn it I just did it again Coraline and her parents have just moved to a new house it's called the Pink Palace and it seems to be a nice place in the middle of nowhere subdivided into a bunch of Apartments Coraline's parents are nice enough but they're more focused on their own lives rather than catering to Coraline's every whim and fair enough two Coraline is a bit bummed out about having moved and finds it frustrating when her parents elect to you know work and stuff and not just bask in the gloriousness that is Coraline and as an added irony they are gardening writers who hate gardening because of all that ikey dirt left to her own devices Coraline gets to know of the other denisons of the Pink Palace including a perhaps handicapped boy called ybe whose grandmother is the land lady and who is always calling out for her worthless grandson to come home Coraline dislikes wbe the way any sensible girl dislikes most boys at that age and if there was any justice or logic in the world they dislike them until at least 20 but he is a diversion at least there are also two grand Dames of the stage in another apartment a and a Mis forceable one of whom possesses a tremendous um decalage which would look more appropriate on the of a ship the other has a tremendous a seat that would Inspire the members of spinal tap to sing their classic Anthem big bottom no end then there's the strange acrobatic man who trains jumping rats all of this seems like it's a cast of Misfits who will dislike each other at first but will learn to come together in order to battle a common enemy that couldn't be further from the truth the thing is there's this world our world for lack of a better descriptor and then there's another world seemingly created entirely for Coraline's benefit after becoming irritated with her parents she finds a place with the aid of a button-eyed doll that looks suspiciously like Coraline down to the blue hair and upturn nose where everything is more to her liking in this other world where her mother is a great cook and super attentive to her every need and her father is fun exciting and does a whole heap of things to inspire and Delight Coraline the only problem is that these other parents have button eyes too and whilst everything still seems way too good to be true she gets the offered Devil's bargain in the form of an exchange stay here in this realm of Perpetual wish fulfillment forever and all you have to do is hand over your eyes it would seem to be a small price to pay I guess the thing is though this other mother seems like she's all sweetness and light and pancakes for dinner but perhaps there's something sinister about someone who constructs the world precisely to your liking and plus there's the whole button I thing as well that can't be good at first we think this other realm is just a fantasy of coralin because it seems to coincide with Coraline's nightly sleeps her first journey seems like a dream her second is out of anger as a rejection of her real parents and the real world being painful messy and dissatisfying much of the time it's around this time that we start realizing that this dreamy realm works Coraline gets everything She Wants instantly is an actual place and that there is someone who is real and is creating everything to her liking in order to convince her to stay and there can never be anything wrong with that as a form of Storytelling there's just something so solidly enjoyable about the way they've put all this together both from a story point of view and getting the look of it right there's a solidity a weight to the characters even at their most spindly and wispy that you just don't get with computer animation alone I'm not getting into the old school versus new school animation argument because truth be told it's a stupid argument and it's pointless since this film meshes the two together in order to best tell its story and presumably it was cheaper and quicker though laborious as stop motion is by its very nature to do so since I'm guessing they didn't want 300 animators working on it for a couple of years to get that eyelash rendering just right it's a delightful and dark story just like the best most resonant and most lasting of fairy tales of course all these kinds of stories seem like they're entirely intended as cautionary tales as in kids do what we tell you or horrible things will happen to you and sure there's an element of that here but it's not a moralistic finger wagging bore which would have the protagonist stuff things up out of selfishness and have to be rescued by some Woodsman or handsome prince she gets targeted by a malevolent creature that weaves a fix best suited to capturing her but it is Coraline herself who has to eventually do battle with her Nemesis save herself and save her parents sure there are little convenient plot devices and manyi deos X machas but at least they re not happening as our little lady passively looks on in horror she is what she does and I love her for it though of course my daughter is too young for something like this just yet I'd be happy for her to watch it in a few years time because apart from some of the frights on offer and some of the scary images Coraline is a positive female lead in an inspired and Dark Fantasy tale that looks tremendous to me even as a lot of kids would be blurting wah this don't look nothing like Shrek W get me some more coke sweet relief Henry celic is still at the top of his game and Neil Gaiman you demented genius please keep up the great work there was only one other kid's flick that resonated with me more this year but but this is clearly still one of the best flicks of 2009 the story is simple enough precocious young Coraline voiced by deota Fanning is bored with life in her new home and unengaged by her aloof workaholic parents voiced by Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman when she discovers a secret door in the house this passageway leads her to the other world a parallel reality that seems close to her world but is far more colorful and enjoyable her other mother is seemingly the perfect mom who dots on her the way she wishes her real mother would all is well except for the Curious fact that everyone in the other world has buttons for eyes before you can click your heels three times and cry there's no place like home Coraline realizes just how twisted and cruel her other mother really is the grass doesn't seem so green on the other side to Coraline now and she has to muster the strength and courage to confront and defeat her monstrous other mother if she's rescue her real parents and get back to where she truly belongs I had the opportunity to visit the set of Coraline last summer and witness the meticulous attention to detail craftsmanship and joob likee patience required to make a stopmotion film these artists have a lot of passion for what they do which makes my lukewarm reaction to the final film all the more disappointing heart and creativity only count for so much when the story there in service of leaves the viewer cold celex use of stopmotion puppetry may have been the wisest way to bring gaiman's surreal fairy tale to life but for all its wonderfully macabra puppets sets and visual elements Coraline is dramatically inert and listlessly paced things just happen with no real narrative momentum until the last 15 minutes it's a shame that a film is visually Sumptuous and imaginative as this ends up feeling so dreary there are a lot of tried and true fairy tale elements utilize the wicked stepmother another world within our own a little girl on a scary Mission talking animals but what may have worked splendidly on the page is hit and miss when adapted to the screen the antics of Coraline's neighbors Mr binsky voiced by Ian mcshain Miss and Miss forcible as well as her arbitrary friendship with wbe a character invented for the film distract from the main thrust of the plot which is Coraline's dealings with the other mother and her Rescue of the ghost children and her parents these are the movies most Darkly delightful and thematically Rich aspects and when it focuses on them the film Rouses to life but in the end it's too little too late to fully re-engage you Coraline May ostensibly be aimed at kids but if the reaction of one little girl at the screening I attended is any indication is this still going she asked her parent just a bit too loudly than they too might find this sleepy film tough to sit through without growing Restless those that aren't antsy might be too too scared to keep watching another child had to be removed screaming and crying within the first 10 minutes of entering the film's ghoulish world but maybe that kid's just a wuss shockingly a story where a mother plucks out kids eyes and replaces them with buttons or sews their mouths shut might be a wee bit too torture porn for some members of tuno crowd to stomach a lot has been made about Coraline being the first stop motion animated film in 3D but there are only a few noteworthy moments that truly showcase the format or demonstrate why it was even necessary to use after the first few times you see how clearly delineated the foregrounds and backgrounds are the 3D aspect becomes gimmicky and forgettable this won't be a 3D film that will lose much when viewed in 2D I saw this movie several years ago and then I found out that the book it was based on was written by comic book writer Sandman and dark Storyteller Neil Gaiman who decided one day he wanted to write a children's novel through curiosity I read the book which had an interesting dilemma the language was very clear and it was a very easy read but at the same time Neil Gaiman managed to write a story that was terrifying so you have a book that was too simple to challenge adults in the literary Department while at the same time it was far too scary for its intended demographic awesome today I rewatched the film having read the book whether or not it was intended for me keep in mind I might refer to it for myself as a creative and now we can talk about it while referring to its source material so Coraline not Caroline set in the outskirts of ashin Oregon our story centers around an 11-year-old girl from Michigan named Coraline who has just moved into a new apartment in the Pink Palace Apartments a 150-year-old mansion that was renovated into different homes along with Coraline and her parents residents include retired burlesque dancers named Miss and Miss forcible and their many Scottish Terrier dogs and an eccentric Russian acrobat named Mr babinsky known as Mr Bobo in the book who runs a mouse circus Coraline is bored out of her mind but she takes the time to explore her