Movie Night

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Mrs. TANBI and I went to the movies last night. She sorta wanted to see Slumdog Millionaire and I sorta wanted to see Gran Torino, so we saw Coraline.

I hadn't heard much of anything about the movie except that it was stop motion. When we bought our tickets it was right under a sign alerting us that there was no 3D at this location. I didn't know it had been an option, so we didn't let the admonition stop us.

It's a really good movie, and I think a movie theatre movie - or at least worth seeing in a movie theatre movie. There were moments in the film I was fairly sure were designed for 3D, but not having the effect didn't take anything away that I could tell (although I can't say if having it would add anything). I thought it was a bit hard to watch at first. It took me a little while to stop looking for what was stop motion, what was traditional animation, what were sets and what was rendered - things like that. I'm not sure why, but for some period of time that seemed to matter to me. Also, I kept having the thought that early on in the process I bet this was a live action and animation film, with one technique applied to one world and the other to the other. In hind site I am not sure that would have added anything either.

There were a lot of kids at the movie. We went to a 7:30 show and I had figured that would end later than parents wanted to be out with their kids (this is after all Pittsburgh and not Vegas, where I routinely saw kids in the grocery at 3am), I was wrong. Interestingly, the story is pretty dark for kids. The film style suggests something that a 5 or 6 year old might enjoy, but I think the PG rating is spot on. There was a girl behind us I would be surprised to find was as old as 8 who got 100% out of the movie experience; shouting "No!" and "Don't go!" Toward the end I think she might have quite possibly, actually crapped her pants, I don't blame her, it was a scary moment.

The story is good, the animation is good, the music is good, it's just all really good.

And, I just checked out a lot of behind the scenes stuff on the web site and it would appear that there was very little other than sets and stop motion. Well done.