Anyone else going to see Henry Sellick's latest film Coraline that's based on a really creepy book by Neil Gaiman and was adapted into a graphic novel published by HarperCollins?

I'm really hoping it does well in theaters.  It was directed on a budget of 60mil (which is 20% less than Monkeybone but nearly 2x as much as James and the Giant Peach and almost 3x as much as Nightmare Before Christmas) which not only makes it the most expensive 100% stop motion animated film but it's also the longest at 101 minutes.  I'm pretty sure there's no musical scenes as well and this film is pretty much a horror/drama/dark comedy (at least the book was).

Selick's an animator at heart and I'm glad there's no live action/animation cross in this because the script he had to work with in Monkeybone was terrible and everyone hated the live action scenes in James.  Corpse Bride and Nightmare did phenomenal (but probably because of "hot topic" appeal and Burton's name being pasted everywhere) but Neil Gaiman is a pretty popular writer and I have my finger's crossed!

Maybe... maybe people will take animation more seriously?  

lol

EDIT: Looking over facts and figures... stop-motion is ridiculously cheap.  Corpse Bride cost as much to produce as that piece of crap Delgo and it's only slightly more expensive than Toy Story, the first full CGI film which came out 15 years ago (and if you count inflation, their production costs are about the same).  It's also a relatively unsaturated market.  I don't know why producers aren't jumping all over it.

EDIT 2: whoops, looks like there was a topic from a month back oh well mine's better

I've been seeing the trailers for it on TV and it actually looks pretty cool. But I don't go to movie theatre's so... I didn't know it was based on a book/graphic novel. I'll check those out.

this looks really good and it's one of my old roommate's favorite books so we will probably go see it, all of us together

everyone hated the live action scenes in James.

I didn't, I thought the aunts were great villains (I hated them themselves but they were good villains) and they are only in the live action parts.  I love all of that movie.

This has sort of sprung up from nowhere to me. I heard about it on Slice of Sci-fi but not a whole lot else. I'm hoping it does well too so perhaps it'll get a local release. But I have no doubt such a release would come some time in Fall or something. (and then the DVD is the hottest thing of 2010. I'm still waiting for the DVD release of the Discworld movies mates. I want a local version so my little brother can watch it with subtitles!... uhrm that was unrelated.)

I didn't, I thought the aunts were great villains (I hated them themselves but they were good villains) and they are only in the live action parts.  I love all of that movie.

I thought the first part (where James grows the peach) was good but the New York scene where the bugs come to the real world really dragged on.

But yeah, the aunts were terrific as villains and they also appeared in a disturbing as fuck scene animated in the same paper cutout style from the Monty Python movies.

I thought the first part (where James grows the peach) was good but the New York scene where the bugs come to the real world really dragged on.

But yeah, the aunts were terrific as villains and they also appeared in a disturbing as fuck scene animated in the same paper cutout style from the Monty Python movies.

Yeah, the New York bit is a bit much.  It's impossible to watch that movie and not want peaches though, it pisses me off when that movie comes on TV in the dead of winter when all the peaches you can find are shitty as hell.

yeah when james is in human form and first takes a huge hunk of that peach i had to pause the movie and buy peaches and whipping cream

hey neat, I didn't really know much about this, but the tv trailor really got me hooked. I'll check this out tomorrow maybe.

This was great.  Great directing, great animation, great music, great lighting, this is Selick at his best.  No horrible screenplay (he wrote the film adaption), no live action crap, this is Selick being Selick.  I love all the minor details like how Wybie speaks in a hunched over way never making eye contact fantastic.

I only had 2 concerns.  Ones not a spoiler and the other is spoiler so I'll hide it.

1: Other Father's song wasn't long enough and there's no extended version on the OST.  It's 30 seconds of They Might Be Giants.  Biggest cock tease ever.

2: The pacing towards the end started to take a downward spiral but that wasn't as bad as...The ghost kids voices.  A metallic spider monster eating kids is pretty creepy but whenever they gave Coraline advice through their souls I couldn't help laughing at how cheesy it was.

Definitely A material.  I liked how it didn't TRY to be a kids movie and I didn't feel it was very "family friendly" at all.  I was actually surprised by some of the sexual themes in it (the well endowed singing sister and the creepy pedo-stache wearing Mr. Bobinsky).

Just go see the movie, dammit.  Your hour and forty minutes will be well spent.

EDIT: Did I mention the music?  I still have "Dreamer" playing in my head.

EDIT 2: 87% on rotten tomatoes.  So far, nearly half of the bad reviews complain that it didn't feel like a kids movie while less than a half points out the faults (like how slow the story is towards the end).

ITS ANIMATED WHICH MEANS ITS FOR KIDS BUT ITS TOO SCARY FOR KIDS FUCK THIS SHIT

I'm going to go see this tomorrow I think. I'm pumped!

Sweet. Yeah I'm seeing this on my days off. I'm excited! Stop-motion movies are the best.

Read a few of the more rotten reviews.

So few of the reviewers actually point out the pitfalls and focus so much on the fact that the movie is dark.  Some adjectives
-unsympathetic
-heartless
-emotionless
-dark
-soulless

One thing I have to say that stands out above the rest is how they added emotion to the characters through their body language.  Coraline would constantly fidget, slam stuff, and stomp around depending on her mood because, well, she's a fucking 11 year old kids and kids do these things.  Wybie (an original character created so Coraline wouldn't spend half the movie talking to herself) is this shy, introverted kid who doesn't make eye contact and hunches over.  

A lot of attention to detail went into the film and writing.  The climax sort of feels like a scene from a bad video game (LEVEL 1 FIND THE ARBITRARY OBJECT FOLLOWED BY BOSS FIGHT GO GO) but it pulls itself together in the actual ending.

I was thumbing through the art book at Borders where it says Neil Gaiman was glad Selick scrapped the first 4 rewrites because it was too close to the book.  He said he was glad the movie took a different direction (and he enjoyed the result) and I'm glad too.  I want to see the director's vision of the story; not the original authors.  I'm not going to the movies to see SAME STORY BUT ACTORS.  This is why Sin City felt so contrived.  It was literally the comics but in theaters.  In most cases books adapted to screenplays are terrible because there's so many layers to the book but Coraline was a pretty short story and adapted very well. 

alright enough rambling from me go watch it

Great, I was hoping it'd be good. I saw a clip of this when it was back in production and it was some of the best stop-motion animation I've ever seen.

Great, I was hoping it'd be good. I saw a clip of this when it was back in production and it was some of the best stop-motion animation I've ever seen.

the garden scene will blow your socks off.  heck, other father's song will amaze you because they rotate the camera and use a single shot the entire song that must have been a bitch to animate.

the great thing is that selick tried to limit the computer graphics and resort to camera tricks which gives it this jittery, home movie feel which heightens the creep factor (but it still looks great; it's hard to explain but it looks retro while blowing everything else away).  i dunno, corpse bride had a lot of sfx and it looked like a 3D movie in stop frame style but this looks genuine stop frame.

shit just watch it.  looks better in theater.

I just got back from seeing it and was handed those 3D glasses to watch it. I've never seen a movie in 3D but the effect was really neat. It's cool seeing how old stop-motion style blurred with the 3D effects and the computer enhancements.

The climax sort of feels like a scene from a bad video game (LEVEL 1 FIND THE ARBITRARY OBJECT FOLLOWED BY BOSS FIGHT GO GO)

Yah this definitely. I thought the exact same thing actually and felt like the sophistication kind of broke down at some points during that! But the construction of everything toward the end, every minor detail with Other Mother's needle-hands and the buttons really made up for it. Probably one of the most fantastic scenes was the mouse circus. I laughed like a little kid during it.

Also I thought it was kind of funny how people getting out of the theater kept pronouncing it Caroline.

those ghost kids were really annoying and made me feel like i was watching the coraline wii game (also the parts where the world melted away) but i liked the rest of it. the garden scene and the part in the orchard were both awesome

Maybe... maybe people will take animation more seriously? 

I wish old-school animation still existed in the mainstream, it's all computer shit these days!

The showing of this I went to had no kids anywhere in the theater, but they still aired a bunch of ads and promos for kids' movies. It makes me wonder if anyone involved in publishing or promoting the film has actually seen it.

Extremely great movie, though. The whole theater was cracking up laughing and cheering during it, and at the end a bunch of people started applauding.

those ghost kids were really annoying and made me feel like i was watching the coraline wii game (also the parts where the world melted away) but i liked the rest of it. the garden scene and the part in the orchard were both awesome

After rewatching the movie I'm more inclined to forgive that scene because the other mother never intended on releasing Coraline after she "won" and Coraline did challenge her to a game which I think was nothing more than an attempt to wear her out.  The ghost children were voiced by actual kids (instead of the same three hollywood actors you always hear) but they should have did a few more takes or at least cut out the stupid pep talks they did when she saved them because it sounded so dumb!

EDIT 1: Number 3 in box office for friday alone.