“You are NOT my mother” is a perfect quote that explains this epic stop motion picture, Coraline directed by Henry Selick. This movie stars Coraline voice of Dakota Fanning and also some other peoples voices used in making this brilliant film are Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawa French, John Hodgman, and Ian McShane. In the movie Coraline, her mother, and father move from Michigan to ashland oregon to live in the Pink Palace, a three bedroom apartment where Coraline finds a mysterious passageway to an alternate world.

 

     The movie starts off with her and her parents moving into a big, old apartment building in Ashland, Oregon because something happened in Michigan with her mother and a truck. After a little of finally settling down after the big move Coraline was getting ignored from her parents because they were exhausted and busy so she decides to wander around her apartment. While wandering around the creepy bare rooms she discovers a hidden locked door that was just big enough for her to fit through. After bugging her mom to try and open it, they finally get it opened and what they found was just a closed off brick wall. Later that night Coraline was wakened by a sound of a mouse running through the house, filled with exhaustion and tiredness she gets up to catch the mouse to try and stop it, but it led her to the mysterious little door. After seeing the little mouse crawl under the little door she opens it an finds a path leading to a familiar place. It was her apartment with people that look exactly like her real parents in it as she thought, but as soon as she started to talk to the women she noticed she had buttons for eyes and called herself the “other” mother. The “other” mother and “other” father were more friendly and giving Coraline whatever she want. Coraline was in a alternate world where anything was possible, but when she woke up in the morning she went back to the old, dull boring life she lived before. After being warned countless times by her neighbor and friend, the “other”  Whybie,  about going into that world she still kept on going every night and one time the “other” mother tired to force her to sew buttons on over her eyes and to stay for good. As Coraline freaked out the “other” mother decided to put her on time out and threw her into a magical room where she meets three ghostly white kids. After hearing what had happened to them she Coraline the “other” mother is going to trap her in that world just like the other kids. Finally she gets out of the magical room and escapes back to the real world by running through the dark passageway with the “other” mother on her tail. Looking for her mom and dad she realizes they have been captured and are stuck in the “other” mothers realm. Being heroic and brave she decided to head back in with her new friend, a talking, stray cat, to find and save her parents by challenging the evil mother. The battle between them is a must see and it leads to a shocking ending you must watch.

 

     Coraline is a stop motion picture, and a stop motion film is all hand made scenes, characters, character movement, etc. Its one of the hardest ways to film because everything must be perfect so it wont look choppy and fake. Each movie time of 10 seconds was about 30 slides long making the film taking a lot of time moving each piece to create movement. Everyone's job was important to the making of the movie from the costume designers all the way to the directors and producers. Selick, the director, had to look all over to find the right people to hand stitch outfits, to paint, to make scenes, to make music, etc. In my opinion he did a amazing job in creating this movie by picking the right people.

 

 

     In stop motion films sound effects and music play big roles in making the movie a success. The weird, creepy sounds and music help made the film have a dark but yet also kid friendly feeling to it. If they had different sounds to it, it would have made the movie seem unreal and disturbing. So all in all the music pretty much made the movie feel complete.

 Coraline and Henry Selick get an A in my book for creating a creepy, but childish movie that anyone could enjoy. It had a strong story line that people wouldn't fall asleep to, and that's hard to do with making a kids Halloween type of movie. It also had good ending that was crowd pleasing. All in all i thought it was a great movie and it was worth watching it.