THE CRITIC-AL LIST
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
The Stepfather
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Uninvited
Amusement
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The RIse OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Henry Selick. Starring the voices of: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David. Animation, USA, 101 min. Web Site.

The most outstanding horror fantasy of the year so far is director Henry Selick’s dazzling stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s dark fairytale for kids of all ages.

If you thought Selick’s THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was creepy whimsy at its peak, the freshly minted timelessness of CORALINE will astonish anew. Entrancing from start to finish – the 100 minutes running time vanished in nano seconds – this visionary masterpiece has that amazing quality of making its story feel universally true while still being totally weird. The abstract concepts Selick forms into a spellbindingly cohesive whole spark the imagination and bring Gaiman’s horrific and hilarious brainchild to magical life. After relocating to rural Oregon Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) is ignored by her overworked parents (Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman) and left to explore their spooky new house and meet the eccentric neighbours. Poking into corners better left alone, she finds a wallpapered over small door leading to a seemingly more perfect world. In this alternative universe her parents, friends and toys seem far better versions. And she can stay there forever as long as she replaces her eyes with sewn on buttons… Except once that happens, as she’s warned by the ghosts of children who fell for it before, the Other Mother rapidly loses interest and looks for new prey. Like Alice, and indeed Ofelia in PAN’S LABYRINTH, Coraline discovers a Wonderland filled with surreal characters and dark implications for quick fix lesson learning. Beautifully bizarre (the jumping mice circus, Mrs. Spink and Forcible’s musical showcase) and hauntingly strange (the garden of menacing delights, the vaudeville audience of Scottie dogs who turn vampire bat), Selick’s trippily jagged extravaganza seduces with its deliberately tarnished charms. The Other Mother transforming from Apple Pie dream to a cross between a Black Widow and Cruella de Vil is Selick’s most stunning creation. The spider-like designs and web visages that at one point drain all colour from the screen to become a Saul Bass-style matrix of Black-and-White landscapes is just superb. And made more vibrantly startling than ever in thrilling 3D. The best 3D movies make you forget you’re essentially watching a gimmick and here the depth of Selick’s meticulous rendition of shared childhood memories and nightmares is heightened by the stereoscopic process in the best possible ways.

Do not miss - CORALINE is a first class jaunt to the darkest corners of the light fantastic. 

Alan Jones

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