movie review de coraline

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The director of "Coraline" has suggested it is for brave children of any age. That's putting it mildly. This is nightmare fodder for children, however brave, under a certain age. I know kids are exposed to all sorts of horror films via video, but "Coraline" is disturbing not for gory images but for the story it tells. That's rare in itself: Lots of movies are good at severing limbs, but few at telling tales that can grab us down inside where it's dark and scary.

Even more rare is that Coraline Jones ( Dakota Fanning ) is not a nice little girl. She's unpleasant, complains, has an attitude and makes friends reluctantly. Nor does she meet sweet and colorful new pals in her adventure, which involves the substitution of her parents by ominous doubles with buttons sewn over their eyes. She is threatened with being trapped in their alternate world, which is reached by an alarming tunnel behind a painted-over doorway in her own.

Not that Coraline's own parents are all that great. They're busy, distracted, bickering and always hunched over their computers. They hardly hear her when she talks. That's why she recklessly enters the tunnel and finds her Other Mother and Other Father waiting with roast chicken and a forced cheerfulness. All she needs to stay there is to have buttons sewn into her own eye sockets.

"Coraline" is the new film by Henry Selick , who made "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and again combines his mastery of stop-motion and other animation with 3-D. The 3-D creates a gloomier image (take off the glasses and the screen is bright), but then this is a gloomy film with weird characters doing nasty things. I've heard of eating chocolate-covered insects, but not when they're alive.

The ideal audience for this film would be admirers of film art itself, assuming such people exist. Selick creates an entirely original look and feel, uses the freedom of animation to elongate his characters into skeletal spectres looming over poor Coraline. Her new friend, Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), is a young hunchback whose full name is Wyborn, and it doesn't take Coraline long to wonder why his parents named him that.

The Other Mother and Father (voices of Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman , who are also Father and Mother) essentially want to steal Coraline from her real but distracted parents and turn her into some kind of a Stepford daughter. Their house, which looks like Coraline's own, has two old ladies ( Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French ) in the basement, boarders who seem in retirement from subtly hinted careers in the adult-entertainment industry. The upstairs boarder is Mr. Bobinsky ( Ian McShane ), a sometime vaudevillian who has a troupe of trained mice. One of the rooms of the house has insects bigger than Coraline who act as living furniture.

It's more or less impossible for me, anyway, to be scared by 3-D animation. The process always seems to be signaling, "I'm a process!" I think it's harder to get involved in a story when the process doesn't become invisible. I hear from parents who say, "My kids didn't even notice the 3-D!" In that case, why have it in the first place?

Kids who will be scared by the story may not all be happy to attend, 3-D or not. I suspect a lot of lovers of the film will include admirers of Neil Gaiman , whose Hugo Award-winning novel inspired Selick's screenplay. Gaiman is a titan of graphic novels, and there's a nice irony that one of his written books has been adapted as animation.

I admire the film mostly because it is good to look at. Selick is as unconventional in his imagery as Gaiman is in his writing, and this is a movie for people who know and care about drawing, caricature, grotesquerie and the far shores of storytelling. In short, you might care little about a fantasy, little indeed about this story, and still admire the artistry of it all, including an insidious score by Bruno Coulais, which doesn't pound at us like many horror scores, but gets under our psychic fingernails.

Credit is due to those who backed this film. I'm tired of wall-to-wall cuteness like " Kung Fu Panda ," and wonder if Selick's approach would be suited to films for grown-ups adapted from material like stories by August Derleth or Stephen King .

And perhaps I didn't make it clear that it's fine with me that Coraline is an unpleasant little girl. It would be cruelty to send Pippi Longstocking down that tunnel, but Coraline deserves it. Maybe she'll learn a lesson.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Coraline (2009)

100 minutes

Dakota Fanning as Coraline

Teri Hatcher as Mother/Other Mother

John Hodgman as Father/Other Father

Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky

Robert Bailey Jr. as Wybie

Jennifer Saunders as Miss Spink

Dawn French as Miss Forcible

Keith David as Cat

Written and directed by

Henry Selick

Based on the graphic novel

Neil Gaiman

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Coraline Reviews

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 15, 2023

Think Dr. Seuss by way of Edward Gorey, all executed with the creative flair and painstaking detail that Henry Selick brought to 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.'

Full Review | Apr 8, 2023

Coraline is a stop-motion masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 13, 2022

'Coraline' is a weird and wonderful story, with stunning stop-motion visuals, and haunting music that really heightens the already eerie atmosphere.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 20, 2022

The bone chilling image of buttons-for-eyes will get trapped in your head. But the twists and turns of this phenomenal kid's horror romp will make it all worth it.

Full Review | Oct 27, 2021

An eye-popping animated extravaganza.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 3, 2021

There's a lightness to every scene of their films, even the emotionally-scarring moments, which pulls you in deeper to the story.

Full Review | Aug 29, 2021

Insanely inventive characters and a generous helping of darkly macabre visuals permeate every facet.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Coraline is imaginative, daring and intelligent filmmaking devoid of Hollywood manipulations and greeting card sentiments.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 5, 2020

A cinematic fable that strikes a nice balance between schlock and the over-serious...

Full Review | Mar 4, 2020

[Coraline] is THE Best Picture of the Year.

Full Review | Nov 7, 2019

[A] sumptuous, stunning film that will charm audiences young and old.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 31, 2019

The real star here is the 3D and Selick makes full advantage of advances in the technology.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 3, 2019

It's just really surprising and different and unique.

Full Review | Jul 2, 2019

It pitches the increasingly creepy dynamic that defines its fantasy world at a level that does not condescend to its children audience, nor seem too diluted for its adult audience.

Full Review | May 21, 2019

Entertaining, funny and surprisingly suspenseful a times, Coraline is the perfect movie for your little one...and for the child in all of us.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Sep 12, 2017

Having read Neil Gaiman's novella a number of times, I had my own idea of what the little girl who discovers an alternative and terrifying other world in her own home should be like but director Henry Selick's vision knocks spots off my own.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2017

Coraline is an interesting film that leaves its audience with two thoughts. Normal life is perfect, even when it isn't, and beware of dreams with fangs.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Aug 17, 2017

Coraline never stops taking artistic risks. I hope there's a brave enough audience out there willing to take the plunge.

Full Review | Nov 17, 2014

All involved in this production deserve praise for turning Coraline into a triumph of storytelling and cinematic technology. Whether you're young, middle-age or older, you'll adore it.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Nov 17, 2014

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Common sense media reviewers.

Cool but creepy animated fantasy too scary for young kids.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Lives aren't supposed to be perfect -- imperfectio

Coraline's parents show humility and learn importa

The two main characters, Coraline and her mother,

The movie has a very dark, creepy tone overall, an

Two characters with large breasts wear tiny costum

Infrequent use of words like "crap" and "oh my God

Coraline's mother thinks Mr. Bobinksy drinks too m

Positive Messages

Lives aren't supposed to be perfect -- imperfection can be wonderful. It's important to spend quality time with loved ones. Themes include self-control, gratitude, and compassion.

Positive Role Models

Coraline's parents show humility and learn important lessons from their daughter. Coraline herself is brave and resourceful, despite being impatient at times. The Other Mother wants Coraline to behave a certain way and pursues her goals at any cost. Intergenerational friendships are formed.

Diverse Representations

The two main characters, Coraline and her mother, are complex women who are neither completely good nor bad. The animated characters are mostly White, as are the characters' voice actors including Dakota Fanning (Coraline), Teri Hatcher (Mother/Other Mother), and Ian McShane (Bobinsky). Keith David, who's Black, voices the Cat. Coraline's neighbors include two aging actresses who are told they're past their prime but refuse to stop believing in their talent.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

The movie has a very dark, creepy tone overall, and the Other Mother sometimes takes on a frightening appearance. It's implied that she has killed at least three children. Her minions try to catch Coraline and the Cat, but they don't succeed. Brief strangling. A character loses a hand, which then attacks Coraline.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters with large breasts wear tiny costumes for a performance (one in a reference to Botticelli's famous Birth of Venus painting).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent use of words like "crap" and "oh my God." Insults include "jerkwad," "idiot," "evil witch," and "stupid."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Coraline's mother thinks Mr. Bobinksy drinks too much.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Coraline is a stop-motion animated film based on a book by Neil Gaiman . The movie is quite dark, and the "other" world that Coraline ( Dakota Fanning ) discovers turns into a frightening, dangerous place where she could very well die (and other ghost children already have). Scary situations include extremely creepy characters and acts that seem very violent but don't have graphic consequences, like when Coraline throws a cat at someone. Language is mostly insults (like "jerkwad" and "idiot"), and sexuality is limited to two scantily dressed actresses in one scene. It's suggested that one of the characters drinks too much, but nothing is shown. Characters demonstrate self-control, compassion, and gratitude. The movie deals with mature themes -- being careful what you wish for, thinking the grass is always greener, seeking a perfect life, and being disappointed in your parents -- that are best suited for tweens and up. The cast lacks racial diversity, with animated characters and voice actors mostly White, but main characters Coraline and her mother ( Teri Hatcher ) are complex women who are neither completely good nor bad. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (327)
Kids say (803)

Based on 327 parent reviews

Consider your kid's personality

Weird world, what's the story.

CORALINE Jones (voiced by Dakota Fanning ) is an only child who's unhappy about moving to a new house with her seemingly self-absorbed parents ( Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman ), who are too busy working to spend any time with her. The other inhabitants of their building are an eccentric crew: Russian mouse-circus ringmaster Mr. Bobinksy ( Ian McShane ) and bickering actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible ( Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French ). When Coraline opens a small hidden door in her apartment, she discovers a secret passageway to a parallel other world where everything -- her parents, her house, her neighbors, her magical garden -- seems much better ... or is it?

Is It Any Good?

Director Henry Selick, a stop-motion master best known for The Nightmare Before Christmas , creates a magical, colorful nether-world that's also dark and disturbing. At first, in addition to offering Coraline attentive "Other" parents, the alternate universe boasts a dazzling garden and a fantastic circus and theater acts, courtesy of the Other neighbors. Coraline, along with the audience, gets swept into the magic -- but there's an unnerving edge to all of the perfection. Everyone has buttons for eyes, except for Coraline and a mysterious talking cat ( Keith David ) that warns Coraline that her Other Mother isn't as warm and loving as she seems.

The 3-D effects ( Coraline is Hollywood's first 3-D stop-motion film) are cool without being overwhelming, and the story is a two-pronged cautionary tale -- for parents and kids not to take each other for granted, and for people not to dwell on whether the grass is greener, because it could all be a huge, horrifying charade. Coraline ultimately learns that sometimes imperfect, messy lives aren't always as bad as they seem. Considering how formulaic so many family movies are, Coraline is a refreshing and inventive film. While too intense for some kids, it's a memorable treat for families with thrill-seeking tweens and up.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Coraline 's theme of wishing for a different, "perfect" life. Do you ever feel like Coraline? What about her parents made her initially prefer the Other Mother and Father?

How do Coraline and her parents change over the course of the movie?

Do you think this movie is meant for little kids, or is it too scary ?

How do the characters in Coraline demonstrate self-control , gratitude , and compassion ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Movie Details

In theaters : February 6, 2009
On DVD or streaming : July 21, 2009
Cast : Dakota Fanning , John Hodgman , Teri Hatcher
Director : Henry Selick
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Focus Features
Genre : Fantasy
Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Book Characters , Great Girl Role Models
Character Strengths : Compassion , Gratitude , Self-control
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor
Last updated : April 23, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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A Better Home And Garden, But For Those Buttons

David Edelstein

In The Mist Of It: Coraline and her exasperating new friend Wybie navigate her gloom-shrouded new neighborhood. LAIKA Inc./Focus Features hide caption

In The Mist Of It: Coraline and her exasperating new friend Wybie navigate her gloom-shrouded new neighborhood.

Director: Henry Selick
Genre: Animated Fantasy
Running Time: 101 minutes

Rated PG for scary situations and suggestive language.

Watch Clips

'I'm Way Too Old For Dolls'

Media no longer available

Source: LAIKA Inc.

'I'm Your Other Mother'

'I'm Wybie'

'Welcome Home'

What's Wrong With This Picture? Coraline's Other Mother smiles prettily, but there's something off-putting about those eyes. LAIKA Inc./Focus Features hide caption

What's Wrong With This Picture? Coraline's Other Mother smiles prettily, but there's something off-putting about those eyes.

Psst! Coraline and Mr. Bobinsky — her blue, 8-foot-tall circus-performer neighbor — share a secret. LAIKA Inc./Focus Features hide caption

Psst! Coraline and Mr. Bobinsky — her blue, 8-foot-tall circus-performer neighbor — share a secret.

Frame by frame, Henry Selick's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline is entrancing; it's among the most exquisite animated feature films ever made in this country.

The book is a nightmare variation on the old somewhere-over-the-rainbow fantasy: A little girl named Coraline moves to a rambling country house, where she has no friends and her busy parents brush her off. She longs for someplace better.

Then she finds a tunnel in a wall that leads to a parallel universe, where she has a nearly identical mother and father, except they dote on her. Goodies appear at her command, mice serenade her, flower gardens rearrange themselves in the shape of her face.

But there are hints of darker forces. Her Other Parents have black buttons in place of eyes, and when Coraline begins to chafe under their attention, her Other Mother's so-called love becomes possessive — even demonic. Gradually, we discern the warning at the heart of this great fairy tale: Sometimes, the people who love us with the most intensity do so for reasons that have nothing to do with us, but out of their own twisted needs. Coraline is a be-careful-what-you-wish-for story, and a testimonial to self-reliance.

To tell this tale on film, Selick employs old-fashioned stop-motion animation — that's where you put puppets on miniature sets and move them a teeny bit, shoot a few frames, and move them again. The puppets have wide, smooth faces on stick legs and necks; their jerkiness is barely perceptible, but enough to make the movie feel lovingly handmade.

Selick worked with the Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi, and they've come up with a look that's part Tim Burton, part Pinocchio, part Japanese wood block. But that doesn't do the film justice; it has a palette all its own.

The movie is in 3-D at about half of its theaters, and you should see it at one of those: You'll feel as if you're floating through this dollhouse world along with the wide-eyed heroine. The ravishing score, by Bruno Coulais, moves almost imperceptibly from childlike enchantment to thunderstormy, Night on Bald Mountain dread.

I wish I could leave it at that, but unlike Gaiman, Selick isn't a brilliant storyteller. For reasons I can't figure out, he gums up a lot of what the book got right — among them the laws of the universe. Coraline can now go to sleep in one world and wake up in another, which makes the tunnel seem less vital. He creates a male peer for Coraline, a nerd called Wybie who undercuts the bell-jar isolation she suffers in the book, and who plays way too big a role in the climax — which ought to be Coraline's triumph. (Did the studio want a boy character for commercial reasons?)

The real mom and dad, voiced by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman, aren't just quietly neglectful here; they're appallingly mean and insensitive. In one scene, as Coraline pleads for attention, her mom snaps that she's too busy, tossing her a package that contains a doll Wybie left for her. It looks like Coraline, only with black-button eyes.

The problem with a real mom who's that unpleasant is that Coraline's goal — to get back to her real home after she's trapped in the other world — doesn't have the emotional oomph it does in Gaiman's book.

But the movie's visuals are so rich that in the end, the flaws don't matter: The images have the emotional oomph.

In the alternate world, nothing is what it appears to be. Facades pixelate and dissolve; figures don't move of their own accord — they're animated and controlled by the monstrous Other Mother.

Director Selick might be more invested in creating phantasmagorical set pieces than in spinning a coherent yarn, but in a strange way that works for the movie. Coraline, after all, is fighting within the film to hold her own against an animator; that she holds her own against her virtuoso director is icing on the cake.

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Home » Movie Reviews » Coraline Movie Review: Henry Selick Crafts One of Cinema’s Best Animated Films

Coraline Movie Review: Henry Selick Crafts One of Cinema’s Best Animated Films

Coraline is directed by henry selick and stars dakota fanning and teri hatcher.

An absolutely beautiful stop-motion movie, Coraline supplies enough whimsical joy for kids, while still being thoughtful and profound. Henry Selick’s best film is also Laika Entertainment’s best film.

Coraline is the fourth movie directed by Henry Selick and was released in 2009. It’s also the second film to be released under the Laika Entertainment banner, which has become the most prestigious stop-motion animation studio of the last twenty years.

Coraline serves as a landmark animated film for several reasons. The stop-motion animation is frankly astounding, feeling like the perfect hybrid of gothic imagery and childlike wonder. Director Henry Selick lives in this space, but Coraline is the most expansive iteration of his agenda – managing to spook children’s imaginations while still pulling them in with fantastic imagery.

And I know this because I was the perfect age to see Coraline when it was released in 2009. I was nine years old, just beginning to understand the oddities and perplexities that came with watching movies just outside my comfort zone. This was around the same time that Fantastic Mr. Fox came out, which essentially had the same profound effect on me, although that film offered a significantly less amount of nightmare fuel (unless you consider how the foxes eat pancakes, which is certifiably deranged).

They were auteur projects in a genre meant for children – you could feel the artist’s thumbprints on every frame of the image, either physically or emotionally. Coraline was the spiritual successor to The Nightmare Before Christmas the same way Fantastic Mr. Fox was the spiritual successor to Wes Anderson’s signature aesthetic of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums .

And the best part of experiencing these movies as a kid is you can feel the intentionality with every fleeting scene, from Coraline strolling through her family’s dying guardian to crawling through the luminating portal for the first time. There’s an aspect of Coraline that you can comment on at all times, a fascination that stops me from accepting typical animated films as being “just for children.” These movies can be more ambitious, as long as they put in the same effort as Coraline does.

Reviews for Movies like Coraline (2009)

Wendell and Wild Movie Review and summary Henry Selick Key and Peele Netflix

Or maybe I just fancy stop-motion over the cutesy style that largely looms over animated movies today. It’s been a recent revelation of mine, that many of my favorite films in this genre take on the form of stop-motion. From Coraline to the aforementioned Fantastic Mr. Fox to Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa to even other Laika releases like Kubo and the Two Strings . This seems to be where the zeitgeist is right now for the genre, and I couldn’t be any happier if that’s the case.

But there’s much more to Coraline beyond spooky shots and incredible craft. The voice acting is pretty fantastic across the board, from Dakota Fanning’s tomcat-ish turn as the titular character, to her parents’ dual personas being effortlessly assembled by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman. I can’t conjure one instance where the movie faulters because of the talented work accomplished by the voice casting.

There’s also a remarkably dense narrative to Coraline, with thematic weight being held by the title character’s choice between returning to her less-than-attentive parents or staying in façade that is button-land. Upon rewatch, the movie is surprisingly successful at conveying the notion that children should be happy with what they’re given, and they should remember what’s truly important growing up.

It’s odd how effective that message is, given that it coincides with a villain that threatens to replace Coraline’s eyes with buttons. Henry Selick pairs tone and theme very effectively in Coraline, managing to make a film that is as rewarding for its purpose as it is its visual feast.

To this day, I still think Coraline is a nearly perfect movie by Henry Selick. It’s ghoulish and daring, while also feeling monumental as an achievement in craft. Movies like this feel unique because they reach an intended audience that just maybe shouldn’t be seeing them yet. There’s an edge to Coraline, one that doesn’t wear off over a decade later.

Genre: Animation , Family

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Coraline Movie Cast and Credits

Dakota Fanning as Coraline Jones

Teri Hatcher as Mel Jones/Other Mother

John Hodgman as Charlie Jones/Other Father

Robert Bailey Jr. as Wybie

Jennifer Saunders as April Spink

Dawn French as Miriam Forcible

Keith David as Cat

Ian McShane as Sergei Alexander

Director: Henry Selick

Writer: Henry Selick

Cinematography: Pete Kozachik

Editors: Ronald Sanders , Christopher Murrie

Composer: Bruno Coulais

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Scott Thill

Review: <cite>Coraline</cite>'s Stop-Motion Surrealism Dazzles, Terrifies

digg_url ="http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2009/02/coraline-review.html";

Neil Gaiman's novella Coraline made quite an impact when it appeared in 2002, sweeping up Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards in its surrealist arms. Now stop-motion virtuoso Henry Selick's cinematic adaptation has exploded the children's book into an entirely different orbit, one populated by eye-popping visuals rendered in revolutionary stereoscopic digital 3-D.

While the movie's protagonist is a brave but bored 11-year-old girl, Selick's Coraline may send children and adults alike home with dreams and nightmares they may not be able to shake. You have been warned.

Like Alice in Wonderland , The Wizard of Oz and even Beetlejuice before it, Coraline is an allegorical film exploring the value of mundane domestic life by injecting into it equal parts terror and whimsy.

When young Coraline Jones moves with her parents, Charlie and Mel, to the forbidding, wet environs of Ashland, Oregon, she enters, literally and metaphorically, a life painted in drab grays and browns. And while the rain, mud and fog of her new surroundings eventually bring life to everything they touch in the film's multicolored conclusion, at the outset they are merely the bars of Coraline's prison, made worse by her always-distracted parents, who have no time to interpolate their daughter's new experiences.

The isolation leaves Coraline, brilliantly voiced by Dakota Fanning , wide open for more nefarious possibilities. Much to Selick and Gaiman's credit, it isn't long before they begin to unspool. Soon a twitchy kid named Wybie Lovat, a character created specifically for the film, and his ominous black cat are stalking Coraline. Wybie then gives Coraline a doll that looks just like her, save for two black buttons where its eyes should be.

Always a red flag for horror and fantasy addicts, dolls are usually empty vessels for identity construction and narrative tension. So are holes and tunnels, both of which make important appearances in the form of a deep well near Coraline's house, a triplex sarcastically named the Pink Palace, and a tunnel within the Palace itself, which leads to an alternate family, where more exciting and attentive doppelgangers of her parents reside.

Unlike her busy, real parents, Coraline's Other Mother and Other Father -- brought surprisingly to life by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman -- are not domestic nightmares but dreams come true. They shower her with attention, gifts and vivid color, which Selick splashes across the screen without pause to bring Coraline's seductive imaginary to life. Where her real parents study mud and chain themselves to their computers, Coraline's surrogate parents can't function without making her the center of their universe.

But like the doll given to her by Wybie, Coraline's Others have no eyes, just black, inexpressive buttons -- a visual marker hinting at their more dangerous nature. Before long, her surrogate parents state the price for their affections: Coraline's own eyes, and her soul, locked forever in their world.

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That central, existential terror of bereavement and maturity is further accentuated by a phantasmagoric roll call of bizarre characters, from hilarious circus acrobat Mr. Bobinsky ( Ian McShane ) and his performing mice to Miss Forcible and Miss Spink, riotously voiced by Absolutely Fabulous creator Jennifer Saunders and her comedic partner Dawn French.

French and Saunders play two past-it theater queens whose taxidermy of their dead (and nearly dead) Scottish terriers provide Coraline with some of its most hilarious moments. Also on board is Keith David ( Spawn , Princess Mononoke , Justice League , Halo 3 ), who not only gives the black cat its voice in Coraline's alternate world, but also saves her bacon more than once. It's a dizzying supporting cast.

But the true star of Coraline is Selick's vertiginous animation, which was ingeniously, painstakingly created through a combination of sheer wit and imagination using a dual digital camera rig that nearly beats CGI at its own game. In the hands and imagination of Selick, who directed 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, art like Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night and poetry like William Shakespeare's Hamlet soliloquy " What a piece of work is man " unfurl into vibrating life in Coraline , passing with such splendor and velocity that you don't even realize they've been sourced until you're on to the next thrilling ride.

When the time comes for Coraline's horrific showdown with her Other Mother, who metamorphoses into a frightening amalgam of Cruella de Vil and a mechanical Shelob , you're about ready to crap your pants, no matter your age. Which is yet another testament to the creativity of Selick and Gaiman, who reportedly wrote Coraline about his own daughter's boredom at her father's lack of attention while writing ... Coraline . (Ahoy, metafiction !)

It takes nerve to craft a horror story about children in this day and age, where glossy wastes like Kung Fu Panda and Hannah Montana have usurped our children's intelligence and healthy sense of fear. We have come a long way from the uncensored violence of Carlo Collodi's original 1883 Adventures of Pinocchio and perhaps even Jeunet and Caro's surrealist 1995 classic, The City of Lost Children . Which is to say, we have lost our way.

But this latest installment of the little-girl-lost narrative may restore the public's faith in fairy tales that don't have rousing musical numbers (although They Might Be Giants makes a boisterous appearance in the "Other Father Song") or plots stripped of danger but brimming with production value. Selick and Gaiman's cinematic adaptation is a mind-blowing good time masquerading as a coming-of-age tale wrapped in a warning. Don't miss it.

Wired: Dazzling animation, surrealist tableau, subversive humor, excellent voice talent

__Tired: __3-D glasses -- we're ready for implants

Photos courtesy Focus Features

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T his enjoyable creepy animation fantasy in 3D is from Henry Selick, who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, and does a similar job on this movie, adapted from a book by Neil Gaiman. Coraline, voiced by Dakota Fanning, is a bored 13-year-old who discovers a secret door in the house that her parents have rented. It takes her to a weirdo alternative-universe that at first seems much nicer - before its full horror is revealed. Some scary fun.

Animation in film
Family films

Adding Dimension to the Storytelling

By John Clark

Jan. 30, 2009

DURING the title sequence of “Coraline,” Henry Selick’s latest stop-action animated movie, two hands disembowel a doll and then reassemble it with needle and thread. While not the most warm and fuzzy scene in any cinematic form, what makes it particularly ghoulish is the feeling that you could run your fingers through the doll’s sawdust innards and touch its button eyes.

As the 3-D experience becomes an increasingly regular part of moviegoing, scenes like this one will be impossible to resist for directors eager to play with the technology. But Mr. Selick doesn’t want audiences to focus on it. To him 3-D is just a means to end, to showcase the medium he loves to work in: stop-motion animation, in which the hands and every other part of the characters in the movie (actually they’re puppets) are manipulated frame by frame to achieve movement and expression and to tell a story.

“The technology is almost like window dressing,” said Mr. Selick, whose previous credits include the stop-motion “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach.” “It helps in enormous ways, but at the center it’s still this incredibly labor-intensive performance through a puppet by an animator.”

“Coraline,” which cost approximately $60 million to make, is the first stop-motion animated feature to be shot entirely in 3-D. And while that effect dates back at least to the early part of the last century, filmmakers are still learning how and how not to implement it.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about it and getting a sense of how to use it,” Mr. Selick said. “I saw that everyone that was doing 3-D was overusing the in-your-face things. They were playing very fast and loose with the technique, mainly just cranking it up as a gimmick, which is what killed it in the ’50s. So I wanted it to be part of our story, another world that seems richer, where you can breathe.”

The story was adapted by Mr. Selick from Neil Gaiman’s book about an 11-year-old girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning) who moves with her distracted parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) to an apartment building in the middle of nowhere, Oregon. Upstairs is a Russian gymnast (Ian McShane) who is training a troupe of performing mice. Downstairs are a pair of ancient actresses (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French). Outside are an aloof cat (Keith David) and a pesky boy (Robert Bailey Jr.).

In short, Coraline is bored and lonely. And then she finds a secret door that leads to a parallel universe where everything is much better, most especially her Other Mother and Other Father (also voiced by Ms. Hatcher and Mr. Hodgman). Unlike her real parents, who pretty much ignore her, the Others cater to her every need. But as the movie’s tag line says, be careful what you wish for; their slightly sinister button eyes telegraph that this new life may not be so happy.

Mr. Selick describes this scenario as “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Hansel and Gretel.” Moviegoers might recognize more than a little bit of “The Wizard of Oz.”

It took several years for the filmmakers to come up with their own version of sepia-tone Kansas and Technicolor Oz. Mr. Selick took the unpublished manuscript of the book to Bill Mechanic, a producer of the movie, who had worked with him at the Walt Disney Company on “Nightmare” and again on his third feature, the live-action “Monkeybone,” when Mr. Mechanic was chairman of 20th Century Fox.

Initially Mr. Mechanic thought “Coraline” would be live action too, but Mr. Selick’s push for animation prevailed. Still, Mr. Mechanic said he considered stop motion “kind of passé” and cast around for ways to make it “showier.” Since cell animation was moribund and computer-generated imagery was all the rage (everything from the Pixar movies to “Madagascar”), he suggested that half the movie be shot in stop motion and the other half in C.G.I.

But the alternative reality, in Mr. Mechanic’s words, “didn’t really do the wow”; it didn’t look special enough for Coraline to want to stay, or for audiences to be impressed. That’s when 3-D, which had only recently become technically viable thanks to better technology and more comfortable glasses, came into the picture. But with the entire movie now in 3-D, Mr. Selick and his colleagues still needed to find a way to make the alternative world stand out, literally.

Mr. Selick’s solution was to flatten the colors and “crush” the sets in the real world. Coraline’s bedroom, the kitchen, the apartments upstairs and down: all these locations were compressed through the use of forced perspective and sets pitched forward toward the camera. For the alternative reality, the colors were deepened, the sets built out and the 3-D cranked up.

The stereoscopic 3-D the filmmakers were using was created by taking a picture for the left eye, moving the camera a preset distance and taking another one for the right eye. While grappling with 3-D might seem like a full-time job, the real creative work and passion went into the puppetry. In a good week during the 20-month shoot an animator might create five seconds of footage; the whole crew, two minutes.

“You’re moving grass frame by frame,” Travis Knight, one of the movie’s lead animators, said of the amount of detail they were working with. “You’re having dirt and mud displaced. You’re having trees blowing in the wind. You’re having hair and cloth and all different parts of the body, eyes, facial animation. If you have multiple puppets in the same scene, it just amplifies it.”

Unfortunately for the filmmakers not everyone will get to see “Coraline” in its 3-D glory. Of the 2,000 theaters booked to show it, only 900 are equipped for 3-D; the rest will project it in 2-D. This has been a constant problem for 3-D films, because they cannot command higher ticket prices if they look like everything else, even as they are more expensive to make. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, has said that 3-D added $15 million to the budget of his studio’s coming animated feature “Monsters vs. Aliens.”

Mr. Mechanic said the process did not cost nearly that much on “Coraline.” And while he admits that the number of available 3-D theaters is less than anticipated, he said he is satisfied that they made the right decision, because the material and the medium demanded it. After all, unlike such animated 3-D offerings as “Bolt” and “Monsters,” “Coraline” is actually three-dimensional, with real sets and characters.

“This is the most distinctive-looking movie out there,” Mr. Mechanic said. “C.G.I. is starting to look all alike.”

Den of Geek

Coraline review

We review Coraline and discover Henry Selick's new animated fantasy is Grimm enough to entrance children and their jaded parents

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The grotesque is something you really don’t see in many children’s films. Today’s big successes – the Pixars, the Harry Potter s – deliver broad chuckles, wide-canvas thrills and eye-popping visuals, yet in terms of depth, subtlety and pure imagination come up a little short.

Not to tie oddity with inspiration, but for all their well-crafted charm and brilliance, modern family classics such as Toy Story , or even Wall-E peddle a mundane sort of fantasy, lacking the expressive weirdness found in some of the best children’s literature from the 19th and 20th centuries. Coraline , the new stop-motion 3D film from director-artisan Henry Selick, bucks this trend with admirable, awesome skill.

Adapted from the original novel by author and geek icon Neil Gaiman, Coraline starts slowly and gracefully, impressively shying away from relying on early peaks and other attention-grabbing stunts. Instead, the audience is introduced to the title character as she adjusts to life in a new house with her writer parents. Coraline (Dakota Fanning) must make her own entertainment, as her mother and father (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) are both distracted, typing away on their computers at work on a gardening catalogue.

Luckily for her, they live in a large, Addams Family -style mansion called the Pink Palace, which is also home to a barrel-chested Russian gymnast Mr. Bobinsky (a hilarious, Russian-dropping Ian McShane) and two retired actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French). The old mansion houses many secrets, including a hidden doorway which appears to be bricked over,; but, at night, Coraline is transported to an eerily alluring Other House. This world is populated by alternate, fantastic versions of her nearest and dearest, with one common difference – their eyes have been replaced with big, black buttons. Presiding over this realm is the Other Mother, whose initially ideal demeanour (and constant attention and affection) gradually erodes away into something a lot more sinister.

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Selick’s Coraline is shot through with a healthy dose of the macabre; indeed, Gaiman’s source novel reaches back stylistically towards Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll and The Brothers Grimm, creating a wildly imaginative tale with creepy, chilling undertones.

The book and the film manage to cook up an intelligence when dealing with its central character and her story. Coraline is a clever, strong-willed adventurer – not a daddy’s girl or a damsel in distress – who looks on adult life with an equal amount of perplexity and weary boredom.

The Other house, meanwhile, manages to symbolise the allure of the unknown, the joy of constant play and the ideal of domestic bliss while still creating a tangible sense of off-kilter tension. This atmosphere avoids simple binaries and extremes, communicating that something is a little wrong even before Coraline is given a present by her Other Mother – a box containing a needle, some thread, and two shiny buttons.

Crucially, the film looks both beautiful and surreal. In adapting the work for the screen, Selick has expanded and warped Gaiman’s story, which very much divided the fantastical and the mundane sides of Coraline’s journey. In the cinema, each scene bursts with creative energy, as Selick balances his multiple design influences and flights of kooky fancy.

This results in some wonderful moments of expressionism and characterisation, such as Coraline’s bleary-eyed, crane-necked real father, looking like a Ronald Searle or Gerald Scarfe satirical figure come to life. His counterpoint is the Other Father – a smoke jacket wearing, piano playing hipster, who bashes out They Might Be Giants micro-pop, and rides around his psychedelic garden on a mechanical insect-wagon.

The film itself is a triumph of craft, from the hand-made miniatures and settings, to the artfully-framed direction and Bruno Coulais’ eclectic, nuanced score. The 3D treatment, one of many films pioneering this new cinema spectacle format, is used with surprising subtlety, providing an early shock as a needle pokes through a length of fabric towards the viewer in the opening credit sequence, before settling in to creating an illusion of depth and space in the screen.

One quality that stop-motion films have over CGI is a sense of real texture, and this is heightened by the 3D format. However, this technical charm would be nothing without the simple, stylistic economy of its story; it is refreshing to be told a tale that does not over complicate matters with ambitions of great deeds or epic encounters, or over-crowd the stage with a bulked-up cast. Furthermore, it is lovely to see a film that excites as much as it challenges. For sure, Coraline is a spooky treat.

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Coraline opens in the UK on 8th of May

Michael Leader

Coraline Review

08 May 2009

100 minutes

Adults leaving screenings of Coraline have been overheard fretting about how scary it is — and they’re right: it’s terrifying. Children leaving the cinemas, though, have just been bouncing and laughing. Strange, perhaps, but then, this is a strange film. As creepy as it is charming, as bizarre as it is beautiful, this is a true horror movie, but also a warm, brightly coloured children’s fairy tale about the magic behind the everyday.

And don’t forget, children are more resilient than we think. The Wizard Of Oz’s flying monkeys, the set-up of A Little Princess or the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are all terrifying at the right age, but it’s rare we remain traumatised by the encounter. Instead, the sight of a young protagonist defeating the forces ranged against him/her by an adult world is one that empowers, leaving kids not cowed but exhilarated.

Our heroine is certainly the sort of role model that any kid could wish for: Coraline — voiced with a Midwestern twang and a whole lot of attitude by Dakota Fanning — is smart, funny and ultimately very courageous. She’s also self-centred, sometimes grumpy and frequently awkward, but this is a well-developed character rather than a Disney princess. She gets irritated when her name is mispronounced, misses the friends she left when she moved home, and has a habit of swinging on a door and making conversation when her parents have no time to listen.

In her defence, her neighbours — Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane), the Russian eccentric upstairs and Misses Spink and Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, respectively), two dotty English retired actresses downstairs — do all get her name wrong, while baffling her with their eccentricities. And her parents, voiced by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman, do leave her to her own devices as they try to rebuild their business in a new town. So who could blame her when she follows a jumping mouse through a hole in the wall, into another world with an ‘Other Mother’ (Hatcher) who is devoted to satisfying her every whim, an ‘Other Father’ who spends all his days dreaming up tunes to sing her praises, and neighbours who put on shows for her amusement?

There’s just one catch: they want to steal her eyes and replace them with buttons. It’s at this point that most of the adults in the cinema start wincing. Coraline, understandably hesitant to agree to such terms, balks, and another side to her Other Mother emerges.

It’s in the Other world that Henry Selick’s gorgeous stop-motion imagination is given full reign. The real world is as bleached of colour as possible, but the Other world is (initially at least) bathed in vibrancy, and there are scenes in the delicately realised gardens that will take your breath away. Hummingbirds call Coraline’s name and glowing snapdragons form a portrait of her that’s only visible from far above — say, aboard the Praying Mantis tractor that her father rides. Touches of CG have been used here and there for full ‘how did they do that ?’ effect, but most of the real magic is in the stop-motion detail: the arch of an eyebrow perfectly expressing a character’s attitude, the shine on the icing of a cake making it look edible; the glint on a silver claw adding to its menace.

An extra breath of wonder is added if you manage to see this in 3-D: insects fly around your head and flowers bulge from the screen. While there’s relatively little 3-D-sploitation, in general the technique is used strictly to augment the story, and suffers few of the focus or blurring problems that have lessened the technique’s impact in other films.

And then there’s horror in the last act as the Other Mother’s disguise falls away and her true intentions are made clear. There are chase scenes, hiding scenes and puzzles to be solved as Coraline, never one to shirk a challenge, tries to save herself, her parents and the Other Mother’s previous victims. Swinging her blue bob, and with a determined glare in her expressive eyes, you’d be a fool to doubt that she’s up to it.

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Review: ‘Coraline’ is Delightfully Dark, Creative and Fun

You have to love the craft of filmmaking. There are some films that are so creative and so beautifully executed that it reminds you that Hollywood isn’t just filled with remake happy executives and money grubbing former music video auteurs. There are, oddly enough, some really creative people out there doing really creative things. And one such person is Henry Selick. You may know him as that director who is so often confused with Tim Burton, even though he looks nothing like him. Selick was the man who in 1993, long before the great wave of CG animation, delivered a spectacular landscape and equally brilliant story in a stop-motion world with The Nightmare Before Christmas . At the time, Selick may have been ahead of himself in the creation of a movie so wildly imaginative and so full of life even though it was also very dark. And now, some 15 years later, Selick has delivered a similar kind of experience with Coraline — a film so delightfully creative, vibrant and yes, a little dark that it once again proves that Mr. Selick is a rare creature in the world of filmmaking, that rare kind of filmmaker whose creativity and vision knows no bounds.

From the twisted, brilliant mind of Neil Gaiman comes the story of Coraline Jones, voiced by Dakota Fanning, a young girl whose gardening catalog writing parents have just moved her from Michigan to Oregon, away from her friends and a life she enjoyed. Now she is stuck living in a big, creepy pink house with a diverse assortment of odd neighbors, including a Russian acrobat/mice trainer voice by Ian McShane, and two absent minded old stage actresses voiced by Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French. And inside the house — where her parents continue to ignore her due to their high volumes of work — Coraline finds a mysterious door. Behind the door she finds an alternate version of her life in which her parents are warm and cater to her every need, a world where everything is perfect. But Coraline quickly realizes that there is something a little off about this alternate world — and it is more than just the fact that everyone has buttons for eyes.

It is a story light and whimsical enough to keep the kids entertained and stay out of their dreams, but also as ambitiously dark as anything we might expect from Mr. Gaiman. Luckily as we continue to watch Coraline go deeper into this mysterious bizzaro life, we are so caught up in the beautiful visuals and fun characters that we totally miss the dark themes — all of the stuff that would otherwise be very edgy if it weren’t masked so brilliantly. It is a talent that Henry Selick has always had as a storyteller, the ability to tell us a story with a great deal of layers, and plenty of darkness, without it being too scary for the little ones. The only problem that I found with it is that it hiccups a few times toward the end, lingering a bit as it closes up its neat little dark fairy tale. But that’s nothing to worry about, as the film never once feels as if it is dragging.

Another talent that I’ve already mentioned is Mr. Selick’s immensely creative work in stop-motion. The attention to detail literally jumps off of the screen, especially in 3D. Selick and team have created some of the most beautiful landscapes, some of the most unique characters and some of the most seamless stop-motion animation since, well, they did it the first time with Nightmare . In addition to some of the stunning visuals, the voice cast for the film is expertly chosen. You may not know this, but there is such a thing as a ‘Michigan accent,’ and Dakota Fanning nails it as she breathes life into Coraline. As well, Teri Hatcher’s voice is perfect for both sides of Coraline’s mom — she easily goes back and forth between the kindhearted, yet often annoyed real mom and the sweet, yet ultimately diabolical “other” mother.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, this is a film that you should see no matter how old you are. Furthermore, this is a movie that you should see in 3D, as it is one of the first films that I’ve seen that uses the RealD digital format (or any form of 3D for that matter) to give the film depth above all other things, avoiding anything that feels to gimmicky. It is a beautiful film either way, but seeing it in 3D adds that little extra something special that takes Coraline from being a clever, creative film to a truly special moviegoing experience. Though to be fair, I have a feeling that it would still be a great film even in 2D. As I mentioned, it is one of those films that just warms your heart as a movie fan, as it proves that creativity and innovation aren’t dead in Hollywood — they are very much alive and well, especially in the world of Henry Selick.

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Coraline (2009). A Motif Analysis by Tia M. Adkins

Director, Henry Selick, routinely utilizes stop motion to seamlessly relay critical themes and motifs while supporting his cinematic content. Selick demonstrates his influence and artistic control via stark color contrasts, similar themes, and dark cinematic concepts across each of his films, including James and the Giant Peach (1996) and The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), among others. The director adopts a similar strategy in his 2009 film Coraline , based on Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name. Through an array of visual motifs, director of Coraline , Selick, delivers a cautionary tale encouraging viewers to relinquish envy and find contentment in their lives.

Early on in the film, Selick presents viewers with props that evolve into visual motifs throughout the movie. The first notable motif the director introduces is the Coraline doll. Wybie, the only other child that resides in the neighborhood, gives it to Coraline, claiming that he merely found it. Selick makes evident the peculiar nature of the claim and the doll itself by making the doll identical to Coraline – except for the buttons where its eyes should be. The motif is representative of what the Other Mother intends Coraline to become – silent and conforming. Many scenes feature shots of the doll in various locations spying on Coraline as she explores in the foreground. Between the irrefutable resemblance it has to Coraline and how it practically lurks in the background, the doll maintains something of an eerie presence. Though the doll may initially present itself as unremarkable, in reality, it serves as yet another tool of the Other Mother’s making, one used to manipulate Coraline.

Another visual motif prevalent in the film is the key. Selick introduces the key into the story world’s framework and ensures that it circulates throughout the film to draw attention to its importance. The key serves as a gateway to the other world and escapism for Coraline, just as it was for the Other Mother’s previous victims. Though Selick meets success by deviating from the tropes and conventions often found in horror films, he also adheres to some of them. Polanski, for instance, explores similar contexts in his films. “Filmmaker, Roman Polanski, has established himself as a master of horror film through his highly influential and highly controversial ‘Apartment Trilogy'” (Davies 18). In Polanski’s films, the protagonists’ horrors occur within their home.

Similarly, the nightmarish incidences that Coraline experiences occur almost entirely in her home, whether it be the home located in her world or the other world. Although there is only one key, the Other Mother ensures it is always within Coraline’s grasp so that Coraline may easily enter the world, thus making her vulnerable. Coraline’s vulnerability routinely leaves her susceptible to death at the hands of the Other Mother. At the film’s conclusion, amidst Coraline’s desperate attempt to reclaim and dispose of the key, Selick indicates that the key’s destruction is the only way to defeat the Other Mother and prevent her from escaping her world or claiming more victims.

Arguably, one of the most pertinent visual motifs evident in Coraline are the buttons. Coraline does not get the opportunity to frequent the other world for long before the Other Mother attempts to strike a deal. Coraline must get the buttons sewn in her eyes in exchange for the treats and attention the Other Mother offers her – a proposal Coraline quickly turns down. Via the button motif, the director indicates that what one wants often comes at a price. The main characters that have a notable influence in Coraline’s life each have a doppelgänger – all of which have buttons for eyes, much like the Coraline doll. The buttons are the first significant indication of deception that Selick introduces in the film. Often, eyes are deemed the windows, so to speak, to the soul, as they reveal one’s emotional state, despite their adopted façade. Given that the Other Mother, like her minions, has buttons instead of eyes, Coraline and viewers are left susceptible to deception throughout the film’s duration.

Director of Coraline , Henry Selick, strategically introduces a series of motifs throughout the film. Although the motifs serve various purposes, the director predominately depicts them to inform the cinematic content. Selick’s visual motifs reflect the danger that accompanies envy. In doing so, Coraline serves as a cautionary tale that encourages its intended audience, children, to beware of strangers, forfeit their envy, and extend gratitude to the positive relationships and luxuries in their lives.

Author Biography

Tia M. Adkins is an aspiring screenwriter actively pursuing her undergraduate degree in film studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She’s an impassioned storyteller, fitness fanatic, and corny jokes enthusiast. When she’s not reading, writing, or watching her favorite movies and TV shows, she’s expanding her ever-growing Funko POP! Figure collection.

Davies, Rob. “Female Paranoia: The Psychological Horror of Roman Polanski.” Film Matters , vol. 5, no. 2, 2014, pp. 18–23.

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DVD & Streaming
Animation , Drama , Horror , Kids , Mystery/Suspense , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

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In Theaters

Voices of Dakota Fanning as Coraline; Teri Hatcher as Coraline's Mother/Other Mother; John Hodgman as Coraline's Father/Other Father; Keith David as Cat; Dawn French as Miss Forcible; Jennifer Saunders as Miss Spink; Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky; Robert Bailey Jr. as Wybie

Home Release Date

Henry Selick

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Focus Features

Movie Review

Most 11-year-olds want new parents at some point. And Coraline is no different. Especially since Mom and Dad have moved the family from Michigan to Oregon —where it rains most of the year. (Ugh!) Mom says it’s too muddy to play outside. The house is boring. And the only kid she’s met is really weird.

Oh, and the food’s lousy, too. Mom doesn’t like to cook.

So nothing in Coraline’s little world feels right. Until the day she sets out to do some exploring—and finds a door to an alternate reality. Yep, right there in her new room, covered over with wallpaper, is a little door that leads to a world in which she gets just the right everything . Where her “other parents” love her perfectly and are actually fun! Where a magical garden paints her portrait with flowers. Where cute performing mice spell out her name. And where Other Mom cooks up all the scrumptious treats she could ever want.

This place is great !

You know what’s coming next, right? Perfection is just an illusion behind which a ghoulish nightmare lurks. But by the time Coraline figures that out, she’s in too deep. It’ll take every ounce of courage and every morsel of wit she can muster to keep the fake world from swallowing up her real one.

Positive Elements

In somewhat circuitous style, Coraline highlights the value of parents—even the ones who seem boring in a less-than-perfect-but-very-real home. It also illustrates, somewhat, the illusion of perfection vs. the value of appreciating what you have. (The grass truly isn’t greener on the other side of reality.)

The movie, in an equally indirect way, addresses the dangers of self-absorption. Coraline is often brushed aside as her busy parents finish demanding projects. (They both work from home.) So she’s instantly enthralled with her other parents who dote on her. Everything her other parents do is focused on meeting her every want—but this dream world is shown to be empty in the end. And Coarline eventually learns to appreciate even the banalities of reality.

Coraline risks her life to save her parents and several others who need her help. Wybie, the neighbor boy, also ventures out on a limb to save her.

Spiritual Elements

The fake world Coraline discovers has been created and is ruled by an evil witch, the likes of which have never been seen in Oz. Coraline has been called a children’s horror story, and it has the gothic chops to more than justify the accusation: visions, monsters, gloom and terror. Not to mention the ghosts of murdered children who are stuck between worlds until Coraline “saves” them and (somehow) releases them into an unspecified eternity.

Eccentric neighbors Miss Spink and Miss Forcible read Coraline’s tea leaves to tell her future. (She’s in grave danger.) Later they give her a triangular stone with a round eyehole that allows her to see—and ultimately save—lost souls. The film begins with Coraline looking for an old water well by employing a “magic dowser.” Seeing her, Wybie calls her a “water witch.” She’s also called a “twitchy witchy girl.”

Other Father says a blessing before a meal, but he ends up turning it into a lame rhyme and doesn’t address God.

Sexual Content

This is a movie targeting children, so I should be able to write none . Alas, Coraline demands three paragraphs devoted to sexual material and near-nudity. I’ll start at the top, as it were: In a theatrical, acrobatic performance, Miss Spink’s obese torso is shown in a midriff- and cleavage-revealing mermaid costume. Miss Forcible goes even further, appearing in nothing more than a bikini bottom and sequin pasties. Coraline shouts in a sort of astonished delight, “She’s practically naked!” (That was my thought as well, but delete the glee and insert disbelief and cringing.)

Ultimately, Spink and Forcible are shown to be wearing “fat suit” costumes that zipper off revealing slender, much younger and slightly more clothed women. But just as the fact that this is an animated film doesn’t wholly mitigate this offense, so the idea that—surprise!—it’s a fat suit doesn’t really negate the problem of entertaining kids with nearly nude women doing trapeze acts.

Mr. Bobinsky, another oddball neighbor, is shown in tiny shorts and a shirt that reveals his large, hairy belly. He vaults from a balcony and lands nearly on top of Coraline, with his, uh, personal region mere millimeters from her pointing gardening shears.

Violent Content

In the opening scene, skeleton-like metal hands slice open a rag doll’s mouth, pull off its button eyes and take out its stuffing. Simply reading this description may not seem upsetting, but the shot can be difficult to watch. Also disturbing is Coraline burning a doll that represents her father. We understand why she does it—to try to defeat the witch, but the sight is still unpleasant in its connotation. In the other world, Wybie’s mouth gets stitched into a smile because he dared to frown.

Coraline inadvertently hits a cat with a rock, making it yowl. This cat later bites down on a mouse’s neck—crunch included. (The result is that the mouse grossly expands into an ugly rat as it dies.) Said feline is also thrown onto the witch’s face, where it scratches off her button eyes. Coraline kicks someone in the head as she scrambles away from danger. Bat-like dogs bite at two women’s faces as they grab for Coraline.

The witch, who in her “true” form is a spider-like hag with a skull for a head, chases Coraline with a good deal of menace—and for quite some time. She is said to have eaten up children’s eyes and lives. Her severed mechanical hand stalks Coraline before it is finally crushed by a rock. Enchanted flowers and other usually nonviolent things in the garden attack Coraline. She fights back with shears.

When a second-story balcony collapses, Coraline falls with it and hits her head. She is thrown behind a huge mirror, which she eventually shatters—improbably with bare hands and no blood—to reach another realm. Coraline slugs Wybie several times. The other world disintegrates rapidly, leaving a white void from which Coraline has to run and scramble to escape.

Trauma seems to be what director Henry Selick was going for in Coraline . Before approaching the MPAA for a rating, Selick said, “We’re hoping for an edgy PG. … We’re trying to send a signal with the trailer that it’s scary and only for brave children of any age. It’s not for little kids under 8.”

Apparently, then, it’s perfectly fine and fun to terrify children who are 8 or 9.

Crude or Profane Language

Coraline misuses God’s name at least twice. “Jeez,” “gosh,” “Lord” “cripes almighty” and “rat crap” are used as exclamations. Name-calling includes “jerkwad,” “psycho nerd,” “dingbats,” “wusspuss” and “creep.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Coraline’s mom jokes about her husband being drunk. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible mistake pink lemonade for an alcoholic drink.

Other Negative Elements

Coraline’s attitude is sometimes less than … agreeable. She whines about dinner, mocks her mother, is sarcastic with both her parents and taunts the neighbor boy. She continues to pester Mom and Dad (the real versions) though they’re busy and have asked for some peace and quiet. They share a bit of the blame for the family discord, too, though. Exasperation seems to be their standard MO.

Coraline steals a key from her mother. Wybie steals a doll from his grandmother.

Dad jokes about having a rash on his bottom. Wybie goes banana slug hunting, taking a slimy trophy and pretending to eat it and pull it out of his nose. Mr. Bobinsky does his exercises while balancing precariously on a steep roof’s ridge cap.

Coraline was first a horror novella by English author Neil Gaiman. I haven’t read it, but it’s said to be severely disturbing. Writing for The New York Times , Charles Taylor called it “one of the most truly frightening books ever written.”

This onscreen tale dutifully follows the breadcrumbs thrown down by that book. After helming The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone, Henry Selick told Ain’t It Cool News, “[ Coraline ‘s] got sweetness and some dark, scary s—. But Coraline beats it. She wins. That, to me, is what allows us to go there. We wanted to bring that world that Neil Gaiman wrote to life. It’s a great book. Why would I throw out what’s great about it, which includes darkness, creepiness, spookiness, inventiveness?”

Correction: Coraline doesn’t truly win. She might escape in the end. And she might exhibit courage under fire. But she doesn’t win. Why? Because she’s never given a valid choice between good and evil. Instead, she’s slowly shown that her other parents in that other world are seriously messed up. So when Other Mother and Other Father ask to gouge her eyes out with a needle and replace them with buttons (the only way she can stay in their world), Coraline’s decision isn’t between reality and fantasy or even between selfishness and selflessness. It’s between run and run!

We’re left to think that had she been given a less painful, less creepy option—say, of cutting her hair or trimming her toenails as payment for the privilege of trading in her unexciting life and boring parents for “ideal” ones—she would have probably done it. The fee is stupendously steep, however, so to Coraline—and everybody watching—it’s a no-brainer.

Really, the choice she makes to go home is based on self-preservation, not a triumph over darkness. She beats the witch by throwing the cat at her, but even that action is a “let the other guy suffer, not me” reaction to fear.

Then there’s the issue of Selick’s desire to, as he says, “go there” with this film. It’s difficult for me to combine the words children’s horror , but that’s what Coraline callously does. I don’t think going there —whether it’s the macabre melodrama, casual acceptance of witchcraft, haunted-house violence or fat suit nudity—is ever a great idea. Let alone when there are 8-year-olds around.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

It’s not just the 3-D glasses that add an extra dimension to the horror and hilarity of Coraline . For those who can’t see themselves forking over hard cash to stare at a cartoon about an 11-year-old brat (Dakota Fanning voices Coraline) whose neglectful parents (Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman) move her to a remote part of Oregon, let me say this: Director Henry Selick, the magic man behind The Nightmare Before Christmas , did the dazzling stop-motion animation. Neil Gaiman (Sandman), a rock star among graphic novelists, wrote the story. And if that doesn’t grab you, think of what Japanese anime genius Hayao Miyazaki did with another little-girl story in the Oscar-winning Spirited Away . Coraline isn’t in that class, but Selick and Gaiman will take you — and Coraline — for a certified wild ride. Secret doors lead to an alternative universe where parents and toys only seem to be better versions. Like Alice, Coraline discovers a Wonderland filled with surreal characters and dark implications that make a kid grow up quick. OK, sensitive tykes may be scared shitless. But those who tough it out with this twisted, trippy adventure in impure imagination will only be the better for it.

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Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American west. Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American west. Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American west.

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What's The Deal With That Animated Netflix Movie by 'Napoleon Dynamite's Director & Brittany Howard?

The animated film stars Brittany Howard in her first-ever voice-over role.

Netflix 's empire of animated films is expanding with Thelma the Unicorn - a new family film all about accepting yourself and believing in who you are. Based on the beloved children's books of the same name, the film stars a young pony named Thelma ( Brittany Howard ), who has big dreams and aspirations of becoming a music star. However, her self-consciousness about her personal appearance prevents her from having the confidence to follow her dreams.

Thelma finally gets her chance when a truck accident covers her in pink paint and glitter, making her appear as if she's a unicorn. Her magical makeover generates a lot of attention and Thelma finally finds the confidence to pursue her music career, but is it worth tricking everyone into thinking she's a real unicorn? To find out more about Netflix's latest animated film, as well as its cast, trailer, release date, and more, here is everything we know so far about Thelma the Unicorn .

Thelma the Unicorn (2024)

In a heartwarming animated adventure, Thelma the pony, who dreams of being a unicorn, finds herself swept into a whirlwind of fame after a fortunate accident makes her appear as one. As she navigates the complexities of her new celebrity life, Thelma learns important lessons about the value of self-acceptance and the true meaning of happiness beyond the glitter and spotlight.

When Is 'Thelma the Unicorn' Coming Out?

Thelma's quest through the music world and journey of self-discovery begins when Thelma the Unicorn premieres worldwide on Friday, May 17, 2024 .

Where Can You Watch 'Thelma the Unicorn'?

Thelma the Unicorn will be premiering exclusively on Netflix once it arrives later this May. Already Netflix has had a fairly big month for May, with the release of Jerry Seinfeld 's exaggerated story about the Pop-Tart's creation, Unfrosted , releasing earlier this month. Also on the calendar for later this May are the anticipated third season of Bridgerton and the Jennifer Lopez -led sci-fi action film Atlas . No plans for a physical release via DVD or Blu-ray have been announced by Netflix at this time.

Watch on Netflix

Does 'Thelma the Unicorn' Have a Trailer?

Netflix released the first trailer for Thelma the Unicorn on April 15, 2024, introducing audiences around the globe to the anticipated adaptation of a beloved book series. The trailer begins with Thelma and her band, the Rusty Buckets, doing some rehearsals. Unbeknownst to Thelma, she already has the talent to become a music star, but she's still constantly shamed for her looks by some local bullies. As soon as Thelma accidentally gets her unicorn makeover, everything changes, and her newfound popularity is motivated almost exclusively by her fake identity as a unicorn. Thelma's best friend Otis ( Will Forte ) tries to get Thelma to see that she's perfect just the way she is, all while a rival music star, Nikki Narwhal ( Ally Dixon ), seeks to ruin Thelma's blossoming career.

Who Stars in 'Thelma the Unicorn'?

The cast of Thelma the Unicorn is led by five-time Grammy-winner Brittany Howard in the lead role. A titan in the rock and R&B world , with sixteen Grammy nominations under her belt in addition to her five wins. Thelma the Unicorn will not only mark Brittany Howard's first voice-over role, but it will also be her official feature acting debut.

Joining Howard in Thelma in the Unicorn is actor and comedian Will Forte, who also just recently appeared in another Netflix IP with the true-crime dramedy Bodkin , which has become the subject of rave reviews ahead of its official premiere. Forte will be playing Thelma's close friend Otis, who is trying to convince Thelma of the error of her ways. The cast also includes

Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder as Reggie
The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis as Crusty Trucker
Knuckles star Edi Patterson as Megan
The Croods: Family Tree star Ally Dixon as Nikki Narwhal
Moana star Jemaine Clement as Vic Diamond
Portlandia star Fred Armisen as Danny Stallion

What is 'Thelma the Unicorn' About?

The official plot synopsis of Thelma the Unicorn reads as follows:

Thelma is a small-time pony who dreams of becoming a glamorous music star. In a moment of fate, Thelma is transformed into a unicorn and instantly rises to global stardom, but this new life of fame comes at a cost.

Who Is Making 'Thelma the Unicorn'?

Co-directing and co-writing Thelma the Unicorn is the cult-classic-generating machine that is Jared Hess . Hess has had a hand in several beloved films from the 2000s era, including the surreal high school comedy Napoleon Dynamite , the absurd luchador film Nacho Libre , and the coming-of-age story Gentlemen Broncos . It makes perfect sense that Jon Heder is in the film, given that the actor extensively worked with Hess on the surprisingly popular Napoleon Dynamite . Jared Hess is also attached to direct the upcoming and long-gestating video game adaptation, Minecraft .

This marks Hess' first-ever animated feature film, which is likely why Teen Titans Go! and Unikitty! director Lynn Wang will be co-directing. Jared Hess co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Jerusha Hess , with their screenplay adapting the original works of author Aaron Blabey . Thelma the Unicorn will also be produced by Dana Lynn Bennett Cooney ( Rocco ), Aaron Blabey ( The Bad Guys ), Pam Coats ( Mulan ), and Patrick Hughes ( Unstuffed ).

Thelma and the Unicorn will also feature:

Music by John Powell ( How to Train Your Dragon )
Editing by Edie Ichioka ( The Boxtrolls )
Production design by Trevor Dalmer ( Missing Link )
Art direction by Paul Sullivan ( The Book of Life )

What Are the 'Thelma the Unicorn' Books?

The original Thelma the Unicorn book was published in 2017 and was written by Aaron Blabey. Much like the upcoming feature film, the book follows a young pony who just wants to be famous, only for her to eventually realize that she already had everything she could possibly need in the life she already had. The book received a sequel in 2019 with The Return of Thelma the Unicorn , where Thelma decides to relive her faux life as a unicorn but for a far more noble purpose.

The Thelma the Unicorn books are just two of many hit children's books from Aaron Blabey. One prime example is the original novel The Bad Guys , which follows a group of experienced criminals who decide to turn a new leaf. The book was, of course, turned into a hit DreamWorks feature film in 2022, with a sequel now reportedly on the way .

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‘la belle de gaza’ review: documentary about palestinian trans women in israel falls short.

In her latest work, French filmmaker Yolande Zauberman tries to track down a mysterious trans woman who allegedly walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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Somewhere in Yolande Zauberman’s overly diffuse documentary La Belle de Gaza is a sturdier and more clarifying film. But as it stands, the project, which premiered at Cannes , is a sprawling mass of missed opportunities.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Everything Puppies’ on Hallmark, A Romance That Combines Love, Puppies, And Corporate Villainy Into One Weirdly Pleasing Movie

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Family Practice Mysteries: Coming Home’ on Hallmark Mystery, A Solid Murder Procedural That’s Darker Than Most Hallmark Fare

Stream it or skip it: ‘a whitewater romance’ on the hallmark channel, a fish-out-of-rapids romance about colleagues who fall in love on a rafting trip, stream it or skip it: ‘a lifelong love’ on hallmark, starring andrea brooks as a poet forced to write an overly complicated book about love.

From the title alone, Everything Puppies on the Hallmark Channel is intriguing enough. Like, as if Hallmark Movies couldn’t be anymore comforting and soothing, we get to throw a dozen puppies in to boot? It’s not a terrible formula. And while there are lots of cute pups to go around, the real story of the film is one woman’s desire to sell her dog treats. Along the way, there’s romance, jealousy, and corporate sabotage, but in the end, goodness and puppies win the day.

EVERYTHING PUPPIES : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Puppies! All the cute puppies, so many of them, just frolicking around a field being adorable.

The Gist: Scarlett Townsend (Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes) is a pet Renaissance woman. I mean, she’s literally referred to in the film as the Leonardo Da Vinci of the pet world, because she designs dog parks, invents pet toys, helps her dad run a dog breeding business – which, I mean, yeah, it’s essentially a puppy mill but we need to look past that for the sake of the movie – and she has developed the recipe for a dog treat that she is desperate to sell in pet stores.

Scarlett’s best friend and partner Gina (Kathryn Davis) is helping her market her dog treats, called Pup’s Palate, to pet stores, and after being routinely rejected by almost all of them, one pet store called Paws & Wellness decides to take a chance on the new brand. To be more specific, the manager of Paws & Wellness, Alex (Stephen Huszar) takes a chance on the brand after he gives a sample of the treats to his own dog, who gobbles it up.

Alex and Scarlett hit it off immediately, thanks to their love of pets and a mutual passion for weird, exciting hobbies. (He rock climbs, which is not so weird. She once rode a unicycle across Illinois, which is more weird.) Alex is really dedicated to that elusive concept known as the work-life balance, while Scarlett loves working and rarely stops, even when she’s out with him. That’s the first obstacle to their relationship.

The second obstacle is Michelle (Victoria Maria), Alex’s ex who also happens to be the regional manager of Paws & Wellness’s corporate office. (She also really doesn’t want to be his ex, insisting on dates against Alex’s will.) At first, it seems like Michelle might be a romantic competitor for Alex’s affection, but she’s actually just a corporate yes-woman, and when Pups Palate’s biggest competitor, Pup Chuck (rhymes with upchuck) threatens legal action if Paws & Wellness stocks Pups Palate on the shelves, she blocks Scarlett’s product from being sold at her store.

Scarlett’s ethos of success at all costs kicks in and she does whatever she can to get Pups Palate noticed, going up against Michelle and the comically villainous head of sales at Pup Chuck, Paul Frasca (Darrin Baker), a man whose middle name is BOTTOM LINE and who will sabotage and skip on quality if it means profits. Ultimately, because she’s a go-getter with a heart of gold, Scarlett succeeds in getting her product in stores, while winning over Alex in the end.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The movie is essentially what happens if the Puppy Bowl combined with a corporate-brand biopic like Air or Flamin’ Hot (where the brand is entirely fictional) by way of Hallmark and it’s feel-good comfort vibes.

Our Take: My kids had a beloved board book when they were toddlers called Little Puppy that’s just a bunch of drawings of very cute puppies scampering around with their mama dog and doing adorable stuff, and it feels like Everything Puppies is what happened if a screenwriter was like, “I know, I’ll write a movie about these dogs’ owners!”

Everything Puppies is a quintessential Hallmark movie in that it packs in all the good-hearted optimism and non-threatening romantic drama we’re used to — but then it throws in an unexpected twist in the form of a cartoonishly mean corporate rival who provides actual laughs thanks to his insatiable greed that threatens to disrupt everyone’s happy ending. While it is by no means a great film, I admit that I was waiting anxiously for the payoff at the end, which included not just Scarlett’s triumphant success, but also the arrival of a new litter of puppies born at Scarlett’s dad’s puppy breeding business. If I had to make one complaint about the film, it’s that we actually don’t see enough puppies.

Parting Shot : Six months later…Scarlett and her fiance Alex pack up his truck to head out on a camping trip. Because, you know, work-life balance. As they sit by the fire, they toast to one another as their dogs, who are perched inside a tent of their own, look on.

Performance Worth Watching: Darrin Baker stars as Paul Frasca, the shrewd, lawsuit-threatening head of sales at Pup Chuck. He has but a few scenes and yet he really makes the most of them.

Memorable Dialogue: “We’ve gotta ask ourselves, what’s more important, a healthy profit line or a healthy puppy?” the CEO of Paws & Wellness says after hearing the competing pitches from Pups Palate and Pup Chuck who both wand shelf space in his store. It is so corny, and I love it.

Our Call: STREAM IT! SO much of this movie is ridiculous, almost a parody of all the genres, from the predictable corporate villain to the predictable romantic obstacles, and yet it’s still pretty charming. That’s mostly due to the fact that this is a story of David triumphing over Goliath more than it’s a romance, and even in a fictional movie, it’s a thrill to see the little guy win. But also… PUPPIES!

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction .

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Roger Corman, Pioneering Independent Producer and King of B Movies, Dies at 98

HOLLYWOOD - NOVEMBER 09: Producer/director Roger Corman of the film 'Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project' poses in the portrait studio during AFI FEST 2007 presented by Audi held at ArcLight Cinemas on November 9, 2007 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images for AFI)

Legendary B-movie king Roger Corman , who directed and produced hundreds of low-budget films and discovered such future industry stars as Jack Nicholson , Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, has died. He was 98.

Corman died May 9 at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., surrounded by family members, the family confirmed to Variety .

“His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that,'” the family said in a statement.

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Corman hailed film as “the only truly modern art form.” But he pointed out that the need of cast and crew payments mean a constant compromise between art and business.

Howard also joked that when he directed his first film, “Eat My Dust,” he complained to Corman about the low budget and the sparse extras for a crowd scene only to be told, “If you do a good job on this film, you won’t ever have to work for me again!”

Quentin Tarantino toasted him with “the movie lovers of planet Earth thank you.” Jonathan Demme praised his acting, saying Corman gave “tremendous value at a really affordable price.” In several movies for Demme, Corman wanted the same fee he gave actors in the 50-plus films he’d directed: scale plus 10%.

After he left off directing in the late ’60s (to return only briefly in the mid-’80s with “Frankenstein Unbound”), he formed New World Pictures, which also imported foreign art films like Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers” and taught the industry how to effectively market and distribute such rarefied films.

Born in Detroit, Corman moved with his family in 1940 to Los Angeles. He attended Beverly Hills High School and then Stanford U., majoring in engineering. He admitted to being infatuated by movies from the time he came to California. “There was no way I couldn’t be interested in movies, growing up where I did,” he once said.

Service in WWII and his education (he also attended Oxford for a term, studying English literature) slowed him down. After Stanford he worked for four days at U.S. Electric Motors and then tried to break into the business by working as a messenger at 20th Century Fox. When he returned from Oxford (and a short stay in Paris) he became, in his own words, “a bum.” From 1951-53 he did odd jobs and collected unemployment. He briefly worked as a script reader; convinced he could do better, he wrote “Highway Dragnet” and sold it to Allied Artists for $4,000.

With the money he made from the 1954 release and contributions from family and friends, he produced “The Monster From the Ocean Floor” and struck a deal with Arkoff’s AIP. In return for cash advances, Corman agreed to make a series of movies.

From 1955-60 Corman produced or directed more than 30 films for AIP, all budgeted at less than $100,000 and produced in two weeks or less. There were Westerns (“Five Guns West,” “The Gunslinger”); horror and science fiction (“The Day the World Ended,” “The Undead” in 1956 and 1957); as well as teen movies like “Carnival Rock” and “Rock All Night.”

Soon he was the hero of the drive-ins.

Critically, it wasn’t until “Machine Gun Kelly” in 1958 that Corman was noticed. That pic was followed by a studio film, “I Mobster,” for Fox. After “Little Shop of Horrors” in 1960, Corman convinced Arkoff to bankroll some more ambitious projects, in particular, a series of films based on the works of one of Corman’s favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. The horror series, which starting with “The Fall of the House of Usher” in 1960, spawned eight low-budget hits including “The Tomb of Ligeia” and “The Masque of Red Death.” They revived the careers of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone and Peter Lorre and became classics of a kind.

During the same period he was giving unknown actors like Ellen Burstyn, Nicholson and De Niro, screenwriters like Robert Towne and directors like Scorsese, Demme, Joe Dante and Peter Bogdanovich their starts.

Nor was he satisfied with his venture into “big” movies for Columbia Pictures when execs there tried to stint on his budgets. Back at AIP, he made “The Wild Angels,” a biker movie with Peter Fonda that cost $360,000 and grossed more than $25 million.

It was followed by “The Trip,” about LSD, and other youth-oriented hits. But he started to run out of steam around the time of “Bloody Mama” in 1970 and withdrew from directing after “Von Richthofen and Brown.” In 1970 he formed New World Pictures to produce and distribute the kinds of films Arkoff had once bankrolled. By the end of his first year, with releases like “Women in Cages” and “Night Call Nurses,” he was in the black. Later he would produce such films as “Piranha,” “Eat My Dust” and “Death Race 2000.”

His hunger for art films began in 1972 with Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers” and continued with “Autumn Sonata,” “The Story of Adele H,” “Amarcord” and “Fitzcarraldo.” He reinvented their marketing and distribution, booking them in a wider variety of venues and giving audiences outsides the major cities a taste of world cinema they had not previously enjoyed.

Foreign films were one fifth of New World’s $55 million annual revenue by 1980. He also added family films like “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich” to his mix and higher-priced (as in $5 million) projects like the sci-fier “Battle Beyond the Stars.” In 1983 he sold New World for $16.5 million and started Concorde/New Horizons. He continued to unearth new talent like director Luis Llosa and by 1989 was boasting in Variety of a string of 40 consecutive profitmakers. But the market had changed, and his profits never reached the heights of the AIP or early New World days. Fortunately for Corman, the ever-burgeoning foreign market took up some of the slack — it came to represent half or more of his business — and CNH came about at the perfect time to capitalize on the new home video market. With his massive back catalog, he was perfectly positioned to bring out his old pics on video while making new ones specifically targeted to that market.

Returning to the director’s chair for the first time in two decades for 1990’s “Frankenstein Unbound,” Corman disappointed genre fans and did not direct again.

There is no question, however, that his high volume for homevideo strategy was financially successful. Corman renamed the business New Concorde in 2000 and reorganized to form New Concorde Home Entertainment.

Corman had produced a movie called “ The Fast and the Furious ” in 1955, and when producer Neal Moritz discovered the film back when he was launching a car-fueled franchise of his own starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, Moritz decided that he had to have that title for the movie. The two men came to an agreement under which Moritz swapped stock footage for name rights to the 2001 film and its successors.

In 2005 Concorde signed a 12-year deal with Buena Vista Home Entertainment giving the latter distribution rights to the more than 400 Corman-produced pics, then in 2010 Corman signed a deal with Shout Factory giving the latter exclusive North American homevid rights to 50 Corman-produced films.

Together they launched a home entertainment series called Roger Corman’s Cult Classics. The first titles made available were “Piranha,” “Humanoids From the Deep,” “Up From the Depths” and “Demon of Paradise.”

In 1990 Corman published his memoirs “Maverick: How I Made 200 Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime.”

He frequently made cameos in the pics of the successful filmmakers who got their start with him, appearing, for example, in Demme’s “Philadelphia,” Howard’s “Apollo 13,” Coppola’s “The Godfather: Part II” and Dante’s “Looney Tunes: Back in Action.”

In 1998 he received the first Producers Award ever presented by the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2006 Corman received the David O. Selznick Award from the Producers Guild of America. The same year, his film “Fall of the House of Usher” was among the 25 pics selected for the National Film Registry, a compilation of significant films to be preserved by the Library of Congress.

Alex Stapleton’s 2011 feature documentary “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel” explored the filmmaker’s activities. Last year, Corman was honored by the Los Angeles Press Club with its Distinguished Storyteller Award recognizing his contributions to the film industry.

Corman is survived by his wife, producer Julie Corman, and daughters, Catherine and Mary.

(Carmel Dagan contributed to this report.)

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Coraline movie review & film summary (2009)
The director of "Coraline" has suggested it is for brave children of any age. That's putting it mildly. This is nightmare fodder for children, however brave, under a certain age. I know kids are exposed to all sorts of horror films via video, but "Coraline" is disturbing not for gory images but for the story it tells. That's rare in itself: Lots of movies are good at severing limbs, but few at ...
Coraline
Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/29/24 Full Review Ethan M I really like the story of this movie, I like the "other" world a lot and is a really great movie. A really good experience ...
Cornered in a Parallel World
Directed by Henry Selick. Animation, Drama, Fantasy, Thriller. PG. 1h 40m. By A.O. Scott. Feb. 5, 2009. There are many scenes and images in "Coraline" that are likely to scare children. This ...
Coraline (2009)
Permalink. 8/10. An Instant Classic. treadwaywrites 5 February 2009. Feisty eleven-year-old Coraline walks through a secret door and discovers a parallel reality. That reality is sort of similar to the life she already knows yet deeply unsettling in a number of ways.
Coraline
Coraline is a stop-motion masterpiece. Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 13, 2022. 'Coraline' is a weird and wonderful story, with stunning stop-motion visuals, and haunting music that ...
Coraline Movie Review
The movie has a very dark, creepy tone overall, an. Sex, Romance & Nudity. Two characters with large breasts wear tiny costum. Language. Infrequent use of words like "crap" and "oh my God. Products & Purchases Not present. Drinking, Drugs & Smoking. Coraline's mother thinks Mr. Bobinksy drinks too m. Parents Need to Know.
Coraline
Coraline — Film Review. Not only is Henry Selick's charming "Coraline" a terrific children's story, adapted from a novel by Neil Gaiman, but this is the first stop-motion feature ever made in 3-D.
A Better Home And Garden, But For Those Buttons
Coraline is a be-careful-what-you-wish-for story, and a testimonial to self-reliance. To tell this tale on film, Selick employs old-fashioned stop-motion animation — that's where you put puppets ...
Coraline (2009)
Coraline: Directed by Henry Selick. With Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French. Wandering her rambling old house in her boring new town, an 11-year-old Coraline discovers a hidden door to a strangely idealized version of her life. In order to stay in the fantasy, she must make a frighteningly real sacrifice.
Coraline
A young girl walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life - only much better. But when this wondrously off-kilter, fantastical adventure turns dangerous, and her counterfeit parents (including Other Mother) try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness ...
Coraline Movie Review and Star Rating
Coraline is Directed by Henry Selick and Stars Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. An absolutely beautiful stop-motion movie, Coraline supplies enough whimsical joy for kids, while still being thoughtful and profound. Henry Selick's best film is also Laika Entertainment's best film. Coraline is the fourth movie directed by Henry Selick and was ...
Review: Coraline's Stop-Motion Surrealism Dazzles, Terrifies
When young Coraline Jones moves with her parents, Charlie and Mel, to the forbidding, wet environs of Ashland, Oregon, she enters, literally and metaphorically, a life painted in drab grays and ...
Coraline
Thu 7 May 2009 19.15 EDT. T his enjoyable creepy animation fantasy in 3D is from Henry Selick, who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, and does a similar job on this movie, adapted from a ...
In 'Coraline,' Henry Selick Adds Dimension to the Storytelling
The story was adapted by Mr. Selick from Neil Gaiman's book about an 11-year-old girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning) who moves with her distracted parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) to an ...
Coraline review
Coraline, the new stop-motion 3D film from director-artisan Henry Selick, bucks this trend with admirable, awesome skill. Adapted from the original novel by author and geek icon Neil Gaiman ...
Coraline (film)
Coraline is a 2009 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy horror film written and directed by Henry Selick, based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name. Produced by LAIKA, as the studio's first feature film, it features the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., and Ian McShane.
Coraline Review
Coraline Review. Coraline (Fanning) moves to a new home, where she feels neglected by her stressed-out parents. When she finds a door leading to a happier mirror on her own world, with a loving ...
Review: 'Coraline' is Delightfully Dark, Creative and Fun
It is a story light and whimsical enough to keep the kids entertained and stay out of their dreams, but also as ambitiously dark as anything we might expect from Mr. Gaiman. Luckily as we continue ...
Coraline Review
Movie and TV Reviews; coraline (2009) About The Author. Julian Roman (2035 Articles Published) Julian Roman has been with Movieweb for twenty years. An avid film buff, he watches nearly 200 films ...
Coraline (2009). A Motif Analysis by Tia M. Adkins
Reviewed By Jonathan Monovich →. Coraline (2009). A Motif Analysis by Tia M. Adkins. Director, Henry Selick, routinely utilizes stop motion to seamlessly relay critical themes and motifs while supporting his cinematic content. Selick demonstrates his influence and artistic control via stark color contrasts, similar themes, and dark cinematic ...
"Coraline" Review
With images and words both sublime and surreal, "Coraline" is easily the highlight of early 2009 and will haunt your memory long after you've left the theatre. The Independent Critic offers movie reviews, interviews, film festival coverage, a short film archive and The Compassion Archive by award-winning activist and writer Richard Propes.
Coraline
Movie Review. Most 11-year-olds want new parents at some point. And Coraline is no different. Especially since Mom and Dad have moved the family from Michigan to Oregon—where it rains most of the year. (Ugh!) Mom says it's too muddy to play outside. The house is boring. And the only kid she's met is really weird. Oh, and the food's ...
Coraline
Neil Gaiman (Sandman), a rock star among graphic novelists, wrote the story. And if that doesn't grab you, think of what Japanese anime genius Hayao Miyazaki did with another little-girl story ...
Horizon: An American Saga
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1: Directed by Kevin Costner. With Kevin Costner, Dale Dickey, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee. Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American west.
'Thelma the Unicorn'
Thelma the Unicorn (2024) In a heartwarming animated adventure, Thelma the pony, who dreams of being a unicorn, finds herself swept into a whirlwind of fame after a fortunate accident makes her ...
'La Belle de Gaza' Review: Doc on Palestinian Trans Women Falls Short
The journey frames La Belle de Gaza, but the question of occupied territory looms large (the doc was shot entirely before October 7, 2023). Gaza represents a kind of unspeakable topic in the ...
'The Belle From Gaza' Review: A Blinkered Search for a Palestinian
Yolande Zauberman's latest documentary about Tel Aviv nightlife, 'The Belle from Gaza,' doesn't probe far enough.
British Film Institute Partners With LAIKA For Film Screening Series
The British Film Institute has partnered with film animation studio Laika to start its event series Stop Motion: Celebrating Hand-Crafted Animation On The Big Screen, which will offer free ...
'Everything Puppies' Hallmark Channel Movie Review: Stream It ...
Everything Puppies is a quintessential Hallmark movie in that it packs in all the good-hearted optimism and non-threatening romantic drama we're used to — but then it throws in an unexpected ...
Roger Corman, Pioneering Independent Producer and King of B Movies
Legendary B-movie king Roger Corman, who directed and produced hundreds of low-budget films and discovered such future industry stars as Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, has ...

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