Enter the enchanting world of "Coraline"

Before seeing Henry Selick's rather amazing "Coraline," I was convinced that 3-D, be it in movies or television, was simply a gimmick to catch our extremely short attention spans for a few seconds. Now, however, at least when it comes to animation, you can count me as a true believer.

Actually, I was caught up in the magic of it even before the movie started, when for the first time I got to see the trailer for Pixar's next flick, "Up," for the first time in 3-D. It looks amazing, and I'm betting it will easily be one of this summer's best movies.

As for "Coraline" itself, this was only the second time I had bothered to don those goofy glasses (the first, oddly enough, being for another flick associated with Selick, the re-release of "The Nightmare Before Christmas"), and this was the first time that the 3-D effect felt perfectly organic to the story and only added to the world it was painstakingly used to create.

But as amazing as the stop motion animation/puppetry was, it all would have felt more than a little empty if it weren't for the strength of the story, adapted by Selick from the children's novella by Neil Gaiman with healthy doses of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Pan's Labyrinth" thrown in as inspiration.

Like Ophelia in Guillermo Del Toro's flick, our heroine Coraline constructs an elaborate fantasy world to escape the reality of her surroundings, here simply an old house in the middle of nowhere rather than the Spanish Civil War. In exploring her new abode, Coraline discovers a small door that's been painted over and, once opened, reveals in reality only another layer of bricks.

It's once she drifts off to sleep, however, that magical mice lead her through the door to an alternate universe in which she encounters an "other mother" and "other father" who, as opposed to her benign but somewhat neglectful real folks, offer her all the thrills that her own mind can conjure, plus some creepy creations that make this about as close as you can come to a horror movie for children (and not-yet-grown-up adults like me.)

I don't want to reveal any more than that about the story, but it's in this alternative universe that Selick's stable of animators/puppeteers get to really shine, most magically in Mr. Bobinsky's (voiced by Ian McShane) circus of bouncing mice (which you have to see to believe), but also in a pack of Scottie dogs who turn into bats at Coraline's command. Perhaps the most inane thing I've read in the past year was a debate at Aint It Cool News over whether these rather amazing mice were a feat of animation or simply CGI gimmickry; if you can't simply sit back and behold the visual feast that unfolds in front of you, I have to wonder why you go to the movies in the first place.

Selick/Gaiman's tale starts to unravel a bit as Coraline's dream world becomes more of a nightmare, but even here it's kept afloat as the vision of our young heroine, voiced with surprising spirit by Dakota Fanning (who, frankly, until she becomes a young adult instead of a kid trying desperately to be one, is better heard but not seen in my book, hence I won't be going to see her play an alcoholic in "Push" this weekend.) I loved watching her use the everyday objects around her to construct her elaborate fantasy world and the fact that as impudent as young Coraline can often be, the single thing that appears to irk her the most is that people in the real world too often address her as "Caroline."

In case you can't tell by now, I rather unconditionally loved this flick, and it was only after taking off those goofy glasses and returning to my own reality that I began to wonder just who this movie was intended for. Enchanting enough for kids but perhaps a tad too scary, it's probably aimed mostly at grown-up geeks like me, and I'm not sure that's enough of an audience to make this anything approaching a box-office winner.

In fact, a quick visit to Box Office Mojo revealed that on Friday it took in a respectable-but-not-great haul of about $4.5 million, far behind the $10.5 million or so of "He's Just Not That Into You" but thankfully a full million ahead of Steve Martin's latest attempt to crap all over the career of Peter Sellers.

My advice is simply that if you like going to the movies to escape for a little while and be thoroughly enchanted by a movie that's as visually stunning as it is simply entertaining, go see "Coraline," and if you can, certainly see it in 3-D. Peace out.

To 3D or not to 3D?

For most of the world, the movie question for this weekend was probably about whether to watch the pretty teens of "High School Musical 3" or the bloodfest of "Saw V" (or perhaps in a truly twisted double feature, both), but for me it was whether or not to finally to take the plunge into 3D for a return to the great "Nightmare Before Christmas."

Since it was being applied to a movie I love, I decided to bite on Hollywood's latest gimmick. The movie itself has stood the test of time very well, with Danny Elfman's songs and Henry Selick's stop-motion animation as magical as ever (though not enough to make me forgive Mr. Elfman for those horrendous Oompa-Loompa songs he crafted for Tim Burton's simply awful "Willy Wonka" remake.) As for the technology, however, I think from now I'm gonna have to just say no.

Did it bring anything positive to the movie-viewing experience? My first impulse was to say no, but in fairness that magical moment when it starts to snow over Halloweentown was indeed fairly cool in 3D, with the snow flakes seeming to fall on top of you. That wasn't nearly enough, however, to make up for what it did to the rest of the movie.

The first problem is that those goofy glasses, which I was happy to find fit comfortably over my actual specs, managed to blur the often stark colors of Selick's dreamscape into a rather unpleasant gray. Not very cool at all.

Secondly, the 3D technology just seemed horribly out of place with the stop-motion style, which is beautiful in its sheer primitiveness. I tend to frown on most ultramodern animation anyway. As much as I loved Gil Kenan's "Monster House," the humans in that one just looked like space aliens (and in none of the best ways), and the effect was even worse with Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie." Call me old-fashioned, but I know what I like.

The trailers offered a peak at what should be my next chance to choose between 3D and traditional animation, and ironically enough it was for another Henry Selick movie (huzzah!). Coming early next year will be "Coraline," directed by Mr. Selick in the stop-motion style from the novella by Neil Gaiman about a young girl who finds all kinds of surprises when she explores the apartment next door.

I kept the funky 3D glasses I paid $2 for, but assuming that "Coraline" will be released in both formats, I'll take the traditional style, as you can with the trailer below. Peace out.