Coraline

Husband had to work obscenely early this morning so I decided we might as well catch the early matinee of Coraline when he got home. We’d heard that the local theater was fairly dead on weekend mornings, so we decided to test the story out. I suspected choosing a so-called kids movie to see at 10:45 a.m. was probably going to push the boundaries of the experiment, but we did it anyway.

We got there around 10:30 and there were two other people in the theater with us. At 10:40 there were still only about a dozen adults and three or four kids. Just as the last previews ended, the place suddenly became infested with parents and their tiny spawn. Tiny, tiny spawn. Tiny, wiggly spawn.

If you plotted the ages of the people in that auditorium this morning I think there’d only be two spikes on the graph: one around 3 years and the other around 35.

yet it was the quietest audience we’ve ever been in, I think. Go figure.

Maybe they’d all taken narcotics right before the movie. I know I had.

Close to the end one little boy got scared and pleaded with his dad to take him home. Dad scooped him up and left without a fuss.

I liked the movie a lot – it looked stunning and sounded great. I thought the story was a little bit flat and the end seemed rushed. I can’t remember the book all that well, it’s been years since I read it so I can’t say if it’s the same way. Doesn’t matter, because you can forgive a lot when a movie has bat dogs.

There’s a fascinating and lengthy post at W+K’s website detailing the publicity and marketing campaign they created and managed for the film.

They’ve posted trailers, pictures of the boxes and keys they sent to bloggers, images of those creepy interactive billboards that made you look like you had button eyes, and lots more information you probably don’t want or need but will read anyway because it’s really clever and cool.

2 thoughts on “Coraline

  1. Michele

    We saw it yesterday it wasn’t what I expected but it was very cool. I loved the effect where the world starts to disappear at an accelerating pace. The dogs, circus mice and cat were all outstanding, but i think it was a little too easy for Coraline to triumph at the end. I agree that it seemed they were trying to get it over with.

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