Coraline

As soon as I saw previews for Coraline, I wanted to see it. I read the book when it came out, my best friend is a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and I've enjoyed a couple of his books. I thought it was a great story, and I hadn't heard that there was a movie in production before I saw the previews in the theater a couple of months ago.

I'm a fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and this movie was in a somewhat similar style, so I knew I'd like the visual aspect of it. My best friend and I went and saw it because we wanted to, but also so she could pre-screen it - she has a 5 year old son and a 7 year old daughter and they had expressed interested, but she wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for them.

This movie was almost worth the price of admission just to stare at Coraline beautiful, beautiful animated blue hair. I don't know what it was about it - the color, the texture, the shape - but I just couldn't stop staring at it and wishing that somehow my hair would look like that.

Beyond that, I really enjoyed it. I thought the style was great. It was a very creepy movie. I was a little creeped out by the music and some of the imagery, but in a fun, giggly, oh my gosh kind of way. However, if I had been a child I would definitely have been scared. We decided that it would definitely not be an 'in the theater' movie for my friend's kids - maybe when it comes out on DVD they can watch it on the small screen. I think it's probably more generally appropriate for kids who are 8 or 9 and older. There are exceptions to every rule of course, I'm just generalizing.

If you're a fan of different animation styles, or if you were a fan of Nightmare Before Christmas and/or Corpse Bride, I think you'd definitely enjoy this movie!