Coraline
I wanted to see the film after reading an article in Wired that mentioned that the film was shot on physical models that were stop-framed rather than being the computer animation I had assumed.
The story is a children’s tale that is similar in content and theme to Gaiman’s Mirrormask. The film has strong echoes of Science of Sleep in its hand-made puppet aesthetic, Wallace and Grommit in the stop-motion, Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas and Corpse Bride in appearance and Betelgeuse in plot.
It was the first theatre 3D film I’ve seen and while it felt like a gimmick in Coraline (only the opening minutes seemed to use the technique in an interesting way) I was quite impressed by the unobtrusive nature of the technology.
I really enjoyed the film, it made me laugh, looked great and while its structure and story progression is quite fixed the result is an emotionally satisfying narrative.
