Synopsis

In this animated film, Coraline Jones (Fanning) lives at the Pink Palace Apartments with her mother and father, both of whom don't seem to have enough time to spend with her.

In her dreams, she explores the world behind a door in the apartment building, and finds that it is the same as the real one, with her mother and father there.

But, in this case, mom and dad really focus their attention on Coraline.

At first, she likes it, but soon, the alter-parents try to force her to stay, with the requirement that she sew buttons onto her face instead of her own real eyes.

So, Coraline must now try to escape back to the real world, where she can accept her real parents for who they are.

Commentary

The movie was not only shot with stop-motion figures (real objects that are moved by hand in between each frame), but shot in 3-D. Some scenes have true depth to them, while others don't have any at all, I suppose, to emphasize certain actions.

Technical

The last stop-motion film I remember was the old Gumby series of cartoons. Stop-motion photography is a lot of work. I would imagine they could have obtained the same optical results from CG. Maybe they had too much time on their hands.

Extras

These include The Making Of, Deleted Scenes, Voicing the Characters, and a digital copy for your iPod.