22nd Feb 2009
Movie Review - Coraline
It caught my attention when I saw “Directed by Henry Selick”, who had directed “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, one of my favorite stop-motion movie and sound track. Read a couple reviews at IMdb and Rotten Tomatos I decided to give it a go - somehow I know it’s going to be on par or better than my expectations. Went for the 3:35pm show at the Silvercity Riverport Theater in Richmond with Wendy. There were a couple annoying senior people sitting behind us, constantly chatting about boring stuff, and making really stupid grinning noise throughout the show at scenes that weren’t even funny. Well but other than that, it was an amazing experience.
The story talks about Coraline, an ordinary 11-year old girl that was in an ordinary family with mom and dad both working as a gardener (I think they are, not 100% sure as the story didn’t talk too much about what they do.) The entire family just moved to this pretty giant 150 year-old mansion located in the middle or nowhere, but it’s huge, old, dusty, just as what you would expect an old mansion be like. Coraline’s parents were always busy preparing their garden catalog so that they could start getting some income flow, so she was told by them to leave them alone so they could focus on their work. There Coraline started wandering around the enormous house, counting “the number of leaky windows”, “number of boring paintings” as she was told to do so by her dad. She found this tiny little “door” that that was covered up with bricks during the day, but at night it was connected to “another world”, a world that was parallel to her “regular” world, just that everything seemed to be “better”. In this other world, Coraline has her “other mother” and “other father”, treating her like a princess. She was given the best food, the best decorated room of her own, surprises in the beautifully lit-up garden, and all kinds of “good” things that she’s never imagined that she would have been able to perceive. In this other world, her mom was very nice, and her dad knew how to play a piano and sung her songs. The only thing that was different was that, everyone in this “other” world has buttoned eyes - eyes that had buttons sewed on.
When everything seemed to be better, Coraline’s “other” parents requested Coraline to get buttons sewed onto her eyes, in order to become “part of them”. She was freaked out and was unwilling to have buttons sewed on her eyes, but her other mother insisted her to do so. She tried to run away, and the all of a sudden, her other mother turned into a tall, skeletonal witch-liked monster. Coraline was then put into a dark room where she met the souls of three kids. The kids told her about how they were just like Coraline, were lured to this other world and had been wanting more and more of the nice things, and ended up having their lives sucked up by the witch. That was when Coraline realized that this was a trap. The witch also caught Coraline’s parents up in the other world, and Coraline had to try her best to fight the witch in order to save her parents and return to her own world.
It was a very creative, imaginative, and beautiful journey in a perfect world. I completely forgot it was a dark tale, when everything seemed to be so magical and enchanting, until the scares filled the air. The story was also filled with highly fun and amusing characters, which I really enjoyed watching. Also what I can’t miss talking about was the sound track. I would say it’s on par if not better than the sounds and songs I heard from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. The background music was so effective in bringing out the darkness and desolation in the dark world, but also was playful and musical in the other parts of the story where the “perfect world” was. There were a couple really amusing little musical shows, like the “Mice Dance” and the show done by the two elder women. I would say this story is very similar to “Alice In The Wonderland”, where there’s a “regular” world, and a “dark” world where everything seems to be magical in the beginning but eventually turns out to be evil. Another thing in the story of Coraline that resembles AITW is the cat. There’s a cat in both stories, the cat that “knows” about both “worlds”, and is able to traverse between the two. The cat also acts as the one and only ally that the girl has, which helps the girl throughout the story in order for her to escape from the darkness. This movie is a thumbs up, highly recommended. It brings you to a journey where everything is fun, creative, beautiful, magical, and musical.
Oh just for fun, I sewed buttons onto my own eyes, lol. You can do it at here
It caught my attention when I saw “Directed by Henry Selick”, who had directed “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, one of my favorite stop-motion movie and sound track. Read a couple reviews at IMdb and Rotten Tomatos I decided to give it a go - somehow I know it’s going to be on par or better than my expectations. Went for the 3:35pm show at the Silvercity Riverport Theater in Richmond with Wendy. There were a couple annoying senior people sitting behind us, constantly chatting about boring stuff, and making really stupid grinning noise throughout the show at scenes that weren’t even funny. Well but other than that, it was an amazing experience.
The story talks about Coraline, an ordinary 11-year old girl that was in an ordinary family with mom and dad both working as a gardener (I think they are, not 100% sure as the story didn’t talk too much about what they do.) The entire family just moved to this pretty giant 150 year-old mansion located in the middle or nowhere, but it’s huge, old, dusty, just as what you would expect an old mansion be like. Coraline’s parents were always busy preparing their garden catalog so that they could start getting some income flow, so she was told by them to leave them alone so they could focus on their work. There Coraline started wandering around the enormous house, counting “the number of leaky windows”, “number of boring paintings” as she was told to do so by her dad. She found this tiny little “door” that that was covered up with bricks during the day, but at night it was connected to “another world”, a world that was parallel to her “regular” world, just that everything seemed to be “better”. In this other world, Coraline has her “other mother” and “other father”, treating her like a princess. She was given the best food, the best decorated room of her own, surprises in the beautifully lit-up garden, and all kinds of “good” things that she’s never imagined that she would have been able to perceive. In this other world, her mom was very nice, and her dad knew how to play a piano and sung her songs. The only thing that was different was that, everyone in this “other” world has buttoned eyes - eyes that had buttons sewed on.
When everything seemed to be better, Coraline’s “other” parents requested Coraline to get buttons sewed onto her eyes, in order to become “part of them”. She was freaked out and was unwilling to have buttons sewed on her eyes, but her other mother insisted her to do so. She tried to run away, and the all of a sudden, her other mother turned into a tall, skeletonal witch-liked monster. Coraline was then put into a dark room where she met the souls of three kids. The kids told her about how they were just like Coraline, were lured to this other world and had been wanting more and more of the nice things, and ended up having their lives sucked up by the witch. That was when Coraline realized that this was a trap. The witch also caught Coraline’s parents up in the other world, and Coraline had to try her best to fight the witch in order to save her parents and return to her own world.
It was a very creative, imaginative, and beautiful journey in a perfect world. I completely forgot it was a dark tale, when everything seemed to be so magical and enchanting, until the scares filled the air. The story was also filled with highly fun and amusing characters, which I really enjoyed watching. Also what I can’t miss talking about was the sound track. I would say it’s on par if not better than the sounds and songs I heard from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. The background music was so effective in bringing out the darkness and desolation in the dark world, but also was playful and musical in the other parts of the story where the “perfect world” was. There were a couple really amusing little musical shows, like the “Mice Dance” and the show done by the two elder women. I would say this story is very similar to “Alice In The Wonderland”, where there’s a “regular” world, and a “dark” world where everything seems to be magical in the beginning but eventually turns out to be evil. Another thing in the story of Coraline that resembles AITW is the cat. There’s a cat in both stories, the cat that “knows” about both “worlds”, and is able to traverse between the two. The cat also acts as the one and only ally that the girl has, which helps the girl throughout the story in order for her to escape from the darkness. This movie is a thumbs up, highly recommended. It brings you to a journey where everything is fun, creative, beautiful, magical, and musical.
Oh just for fun, I sewed buttons onto my own eyes, lol. You can do it at here
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