Coraline, a Modern Day Fairytale

I stumbled upon the Hugo Award-winning Coraline at the Strand Book Store a year ago, shortly after reading Stardust, a charming introduction into the magical worlds of author Neil Gaiman.

It's easy to forget in the current Disney-fied, PC-obsessed 21st century that a modern day fairytale can be as dark as it is enchanting, and that moral lessons come in all shapes and sizes, from easily-resolved G-rated conflicts, to frightening, "be careful what you wish for" adventure stories. Coraline, in both book- and film-form, is the latter.

Coraline is a quick, but thoroughly enjoyable read, in the fantastic and darkly comedic tradition of Roald Dahl meets Lewis Carrol. The creepy, black and white illustrations by Dave McKean are reminiscent of Stephen Gammell's illustrations in the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series by Alvin Schwartz ... only slightly less horrific.

There is a generation of kids (now in their 20s and 30s) who grew up reading the Scary Stories series and were traumatized for years to come. I believe most middle school libraries have since banned the books, so it's nice to know that Coraline's generation has its own thrillers to retell over summer camp fires, with Neil Gaimon's being significantly more palpable than Schwartz's "The Red Spot", in which a sore on a girl's face bursts open into a swarm of newly hatched baby spiders.

Yeah, I'm still trying to get over that one.

Back to ...

In Coraline, the title character and her parents have just moved into a creepy old house, complete with eccentric neighbors, an abandoned well behind the garden, and a door in the wall of the drawing room that leads to another house that is exactly the same, only better.

When Coraline journeys through the mysterious drawing room door, she meets her Other Mother, the ruler of an alternate world that is both more exciting and more magical than anything Coraline has ever encountered before. Coraline eagerly visits this Other World again and again, until faced with the Other Mother's ultimatum. Coraline can stay in the Other World forever, but she must first sew shiny, black buttons over her eyes. It is with this revelation and Coraline's subsequent refusal that the Other Mother's world begins to unravel, revealing the ugly truth beneath its gleaming surface. And things take a turn for the creepy, creepy worst.

Fans of the book will be delighted by the stop-motion animated film directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas). The sets and characters are meticulously crafted and expertly filmed, with a charming visionary style guaranteed to appeal to kids and adults alike. While CGI animation can be beautifully executed (e.g. any Pixar film), it's a rare visual treat seeing Coraline's mastery of stop-motion filmmaking combined with the 3-D medium. The film is visually stunning and was a pleasure to watch, even with the minor headache that I invariably suffer when squinting through any pair of 3-D glasses.

The film is faithful to the tone and overall narrative of the original story, with the addition of a young neighbor named Wybie, whose presence gives the solitary Caroline someone to interact with, while also illustrating just how dementedly wicked the Other Mother turns out to be.

As I wrap up this review, I suddenly have the overwhelming desire to see Coraline again and to reread the cautionary tale that inspired this sumptuous masterpiece. I've already added the film to my mental list of must-own DVDs, but I wonder if I can talk another friend into accompanying me next week on theatrical screening #2 into the Other Worlds of Gaiman and Selick, 3-D headaches and all.

*9/10*

Twilight: Fanatics and Fangs. Minus the Fangs.

On Monday, I received an email from a desperate friend who, after seeing Twilight opening weekend, was already suffering serious Robert Pattinson-related withdrawal symptoms and the desperate need to see the film again ... 24 hours later.

I wasn't actually planning on seeing the movie. Well, that's not true. I had decided if the Rottentomatoes critics rated the film very highly (> 70%), I would dish out the $12 to see it. And if the RT critics rated it very poorly, then I would see it - drunk. But with Twilight's middling 43% rating, solidly rotten, but not quite in the "so bad it's good" territory, I wasn't going to waste my time.

And yet, I empathized with my friend's inner 12 year-old, and I was willing to suffer the film for her sake. I too had once obsessed over a tween-heartthrob (Leo DiCaprio, anyone?), fanatically seeing Titanic in theaters 4 times before I was satiated. Of course, I was actually 12 at the time.

Once again, low expectations paid off. Not only was I not disappointed, I was pleasantly surprised.

I haven't read any of Stephenie Meyer's bestselling novels. As a young adult/fantasy series aficionado, I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't even heard of Twilight until Entertainment Weekly began writing a series of articles on the series and author this summer, around the time Breaking Dawn was published. I am not particularly fond of melodramatic romances, vampire stories, or bad writing, so I don't expect to enjoy the series, but I did buy a used paperback edition of Twilight at Strand last month. If I'm ever going to write for young adults, the least I can do is read what's already out there.

Back to the film.

"Better than it had to be" would be the six-word review. With a modest $37 million budget, a cast light on the A-listers, and with a target audience in the 12-17 year old range, it could have been a lot worse. Despite an uneven plot (jumpy in the climatic chase/final battle, while plodding in other parts), some of the scenes were downright stylish, including the vampires-playing-baseball bit, which, despite the inherent silliness, was actually a lot of fun to watch.

I found Meyer's twists on the vampire archetype interesting. Along with their love of America's favorite past time and their clear lack of fangs, vampires also come in pairs (they're like together together), and they're super sparkly in the daylight.

For me, the most unlikeable scenes were the same ones that had my friend's inner 12 year old swooning in her seat.

As deliciously swoon-worthy 12 year old girls may find Bella + Edward, their "forbidden romance" is simply in no way up to par with Buffy and Angel's from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

While I thought Kristen Stewart did a fine job as Bella, Robert Pattinson, as Edward, was a disappointment. Pattinson's performance was very one-note; he could make broody faces, but he did little else. I wasn't convinced of his affection for Bella. Obsession, sure, but there was no real romance in his performance or his character's actions.

Thanks in large part to Stewart's appropriately understated performance (up until the end when she really started to get whiny), the romance scenes were tolerable. Edward stared, Bella sighed wistfully, and that was that. I didn't buy that the two were destined for each other and I didn't buy that their "love" was anything more than a trumped-up, melodramatic high school infatuation, just one fantastical step away from disturbing, abusive, and controlling.

When Buffy and Angel learn the hard way that their relationship is toxic (and doomed), as much as it breaks their hearts, they stay away from each other. Bella and Edward, self-absorbed and living-in-the-now, just don't have the maturity and self-respect to make that choice. And thus, their love story will always fall short.

Edit: I just found this great article by Sarah Selltzer at the Huffington Post that sums up concerns about the undercurrents of the Bella + Edward relationship.

*6/10*

Nick and Norah's Infinite Night Out

My trip last weekend to see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was my first movie theater outing since catching Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight back in July (there just hasn't been much of interest this movie season). I didn't feel a need to write a review on The Dark Knight as it has been done to death, and I hardly have anything new to offer.

My review in two sentences? The Dark Knight is a heavy-hitting epic that tries to fit too many subplots into one overarching story while misusing the talented Maggie Gyllenhaal and overusing Christian Bale's "Batman voice". But Heath Ledger's brilliant performance as the uber-villainous Joker more than makes up for the film's over-abundance of story and 150+ min running time.


Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is, of course, a film of an entirely different color ...

In this indie flick, Michael Cera and Kat Dennings play two awkward teens looking for love as they hook up on a whirlwind night out in New York City in search of their favorite band's unannounced concert. Michael Cera, best known for his role in Arrested Development and the recent hits Juno and Superbad, plays the usual - an awkward, but ultimately lovable geek named Nick whose sarcastic, straight-man nature is at odds with the craziness around him. Nick may be the one driving Dennings's character Norah around the city, but it's ultimately Norah who is giving Nick the ride of his life.

Nick and Norah are likable enough as far as indie outcasts go, but just as Dennings is no Ellen Page, Nick and Norah is no Juno. The film is uneven at best - inspired comedic bits and romantic yearnings are tousled up with complete randomness (Nick's ex does a sexy dance??!!), and the general yawner premise - there's a concert, and it's going to be awesome, but, like no one knows where it is!!

With the words "Infinite Playlist" making up 2/5ths of the title, I really expected more of a focus on the music, or at the very least, a memorable soundtrack. Zach Braff's Garden State not only had THE soundtrack of the year, but also the defining song of the film, "New Slang" by The Shins, highlighted when Natalie Portman's character, Sam, insists, "You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear."

There's no transcendent music moment in Infinite Playlist and not even an explanation as to why the film's fictional band Where's Fluffy is even worth tracking down across a city of 10 million people for an eventual "secret" 4am concert. The importance of the music and the concert in Nick and Norah's budding romance falls flat without a real band, or at the very least, real songs to tie it all together.

The highlight of the film is definitely the exploits of Norah's wasted friend Caroline, played with great comic zeal by Ari Graynor who stumbles (with her gum) from scene to scene in a daze. Nick and Norah spend half their night trying to track Caroline down, and Graynor's performance is so spot-on, that you understand why Norah bothers to be her designated safe commute home. She's a drunk mess, but at least she's fun.

*6/10*

If You Can't Write 'Em ... Adapt 'Em

After seeing and really enjoying the charming fairy tale Stardust at the theater last year, I was inspired to read Neil Gaiman's original illustrated novel that inspired the film's story and visual design. A few months ago while browsing the shelves at Strand, I stumbled upon another Gaiman original - the slim children's novel Coraline. Coraline (NOT CAroline, as the youthful protagonist insists, even when trapped in a terrifying alternate reality) is pleasantly creepy and surreal, bringing to mind classic Roald Dahl fantasies with a bit of R.L. Stine thrown in for good measure.

I was surprised - and very excited - to discover today that Coraline is being adapted as a stop motion (!!!) animated film, due in theaters in February of 2009.


Having made this (belated?) discovery, I'm curious as to what other children's fantasy novels are in development as films in this post-Harry Potter, post-attempted The Golden Compass, mid-overblown Chronicles of Narnia film world ... Here's what I'm looking out for/what IMDB won't tell me unless I get IMDB Pro:

Inkheart - A ten year old girl discovers that her father can bring fictional characters to life - and must deal with the consequences. I read the book a couple of years ago but found it too dull/anti-climatic to bother with the sequel. With Paul Bettany and Helen Mirren in the cast, surely the adaptation won't be that bad?




I haven't read The City of Ember, but I've heard that the book is much better than the plot summary would suggest. It's about a city of lights with a failing generator - is lack of energy conservation to blame? The film is due out in October and stars Saoirse Ronan of Atonement fame. Saoirse will also star as the murdered Susie Salmon in the long awaited adaptation of The Lovely Bones - the novel is not for children, but highly recommended!



The much-hyped adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is scheduled for 2009. I can't remember much about the book other than the fact that it was significantly shorter than 120 pages (standard screenplay length). Methinks that Van Allsberg adaptation techniques will be called in to round out the other 90 minutes, and with Spike Jonze at the helm, the filler will probably involve a wild thing crawling into the mind of another wild thing. It may not make any sense but it will probably be a lot of fun.

The Book Thief has been on my 2008 booklist all year (I'll read it after savoring the rest of my Anne Bishop fantasies), and the film appears to be in development, but at this early stage, IMDB won't reveal any details unless you pay. :(

Also in suspended development are adaptations to two more young adult novels I've read - and loved - A Great and Terrible Beauty from author Libba Bray and Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card's brilliant science fiction novel.

I still have hopes that author Peter S Beale will stop being screwed over for the money owed to him from the success of the 1982 animated film The Last Unicorn and finally permit the rights for a new live-action adaptation. In the meantime I will just keep busy planning my own adaptation of The Princess Academy. Oh yes, that one is begging to become a film.

As If Filmmaking Wasn't Already Frenzied Enough ...

Inspired by the success of NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month competition held every November since 1999, the Office of Letters and Light began a new writing challenge in June of 2007: Script Frenzy.

And what is Script Frenzy exactly? Well, if NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge to burgeoning writers and old pros alike to write a 50,000-word novel, then Script Frenzy is - you guessed it - a month long challenge to write a script. Instead of 50,000 words, the goal is to write 100 pages of a script in one month (average of 3 1/2 pages per day). Since the debut year, Script Frenzy has undergone a few changes, including moving to the month of April (instead of June), and opening up the challenge to include the acceptance of the following:

• original feature-length screenplays
• stage plays
• adaptations of novels
• short film scripts
• graphic novel and comic book scripts
• radio dramas

I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time in November 2007 (my first blog post was to commemorate the event), and it was an exhilarating, demanding, and ultimately rewarding experience. With an intense last day of writing 14,000 words, I "won" the challenge with 50,074 words. Crappy words, but words.

Immediately after NaNoWriMo, I had big plans to continue working on my novel (which I still believe has real potential), but my month-long break from redrafting has officially extended to a three month-long break ... and counting. Entering another writing challenge could be just the thing to rejuvenate the Writera-lobe of my brain, tucked away somewhere on the right site, possibly between the Temporal lobe and the Cerebellum. But do I, a recently graduated film student, have ANY ideas for a feature-length script - of ANY kind?

Absolutely not-a-one.

Alas. Perhaps I will look into this "adaptations of novels" scripting option. Or write a one-woman show. Or just make it up as I go along. As long as I win!

If the writer's strike had lasted a bit longer, all those out-of-work creative types would have had plenty of time to indulge in a bit of expeditious writing practices. Do they mourn the missed opportunity or will they be frenzying in their off-hours anyway?

Reading vs. Listening, The Debate Begins

I've often engaged in the age-old debate over the merits of literary adaptation. Which is better, the book or the movie? (akin to the equally inconclusive, which came first: the chicken or the egg?).

I most often side with the book as it is the book that inspires the movie to both recreate and reimagine a story that is (hopefully) worthy of being retold. An excellent book may become an excellent movie, but ultimately it is the film that must be selective when condensing the material, sacrificing character development and plot lines to trim the source material to a more manageable form. It is perhaps the television medium that is most suited for long form adaptation, although this medium has its own limitations, mainly in episodic structure and budget and time constraints.

Regardless of your opinion on the book vs. movie debate, here's a debate that you might not have heard before: reading vs. listening.

Shortly after seeing the adaptation of the first book in Philip Pullman's controversial His Dark Materials series, The Golden Compass (2007), I was chatting with a friend who was halfway through listening to the second book, The Subtle Knife, on his media player. He was expressing an interest in seeing the film but was concerned at the possibility of being disappointed with an adaptation that wasn't up to par with the books he was reading. It was here that another rather irate friend joined in on the conversation. She hadn't read the books or seen the movie, but she was very angry with our friend's use of the word reading when referring to a book on tape.

"You didn't read the book," she insisted, "you listened to it. It's not the same thing."

Although I hadn't thought about distinguishing reading a book from listening to that same book on tape, the differences in the experience of the text are indisputable. Even when the book on tape is unabridged and read word for word by a single narrator, the way you engage the material is fundamentally altered.

While reading, you are absorbed in the words and multitasking becomes virtually impossible. You see the words with your eyes, you engage with the layout of the text, consciously or subconsciously acknowledging the paragraph breaks, the emphasis on certain words. You can pace yourself, reading quickly or slowly, skimming ahead or back-tracking to re-read particularly eloquent or difficult passages.

Not only do you not have the freedom to determine the pacing while listening to a book, back-tracking or skimming ahead is more difficult to time accurately. You can't just flip back a page, you have to rewind to the precise moment or you're forced to re-listen to passages you didn't want to hear again. The choices made by narrators or voice actors cast in the roles of the characters limits the reader who may have heard them speak differently in her head. Most significantly, many people who choose to listen to books do so because they don't have the time to read. They listen as they drive, they listen as they do laundry or cook dinner, they listen as they are distracted from engaging exclusively in the text.

I've never listened to a book before, I enjoy the act of reading too much to find any reason to listen instead. Although I will acknowledge one benefit of listening. While reading has made me an excellent speller, I often find myself committing a faux pas when I mispronounce a name or a word newly added to my ever-expanding vocabulary. If only I had listened to the words instead.

The Golden Compass (Well, I Still Liked It)

*I won't be going into the controversy surrounding this film and the very excellent trilogy that inspired it, as that would make this a very, very long post, and I am just too tired to write that much now. Maybe later.*

** Side note: I read the His Dark Materials trilogy for the first time in 2001. I loved the first two books so much that I rushed to buy the third book shortly after publication, although I was unable to find the series cover that matched the first two books. A year later, I found the cover I was looking for and bought The Amber Spyglass - for the second time - so it would match my first two books. Yes, I do that sometimes. **

Ever since moving to New York, and ever since a single ticket to the movies soared past the $11.50 mark, I have become more discerning when it comes to the movies I see in the theater. $24 for two people? *dies* If it's not a must-see, I might as well just wait till it comes out on DVD and buy it for the same price.

Rottentomatoes.com has become my go-to site for determining whether or not a movie is worth my time. If the "freshness" rating is high enough, I'll browse around the critic quotes and then decide if I want to spend the money, or if I want to wait a few months and Netflix it. I had been looking forward to The Golden Compass all year, and I was disappointed to see that the film was only averaging a 44% approval rating, although that was not enough to sway me from seeing it opening night - just enough to keep me from re-reading the books before hand. I wanted to approach the film as a stand-alone story, without comparing every frame and every line of dialogue to a superior book that is still fresh in my mind.


The Golden Compass is not, by any means, a cinematic masterpiece, but it is a VERY beautiful film to watch, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, I went in with fairly low expectations, which was great, because I wasn't disappointed. Nothing is more upsetting than being super excited about a film, and then being let down by what you ultimately end up watching, especially if there's a lot of hype about it being the best movie of the year (or the best movie ever made ever, depending on how outrageous the marketing scheme). This post is already getting too long, so I'll sum up my opinion with some handy bullet points (and pictures!)

• The film is not flawless by any means, but it could be worse. As far as epic fantasy films go, His Dark Materials is a tough series to tackle, especially when compared to the fairly straight-forward Lord of the Rings - sure there's a race of little people, Elves, and Dwarfs, and then there's the whole super-powerful ring, but all of this can be summed up very easily in the opening prologue. His Dark Materials, on the other hand, has people with souls in the forms of animal companions, a race of armored polar bears, sentient particles of Dust, and parallel universes on top of parallel universes. Try summing that up in a paragraph! Never mind that I just did.

• The heaviness of the material (hello, religious controversy) was toned down to court the masses, as a $180 million Hollywood blockbuster always will, but the central message was retained, if in a somewhat diluted form. There is still hope if the film is successful enough to warrant the production of the sequels as the director, Chris Weitz, has every intention of getting as much out of the next two books as he can. If The Golden Compass is enough of a success, he may be given free reign to explore the ultimately much darker and much more controversial sequels. And then there's always the director's cut, extended DVD to look forward to.

• Which brings me to my next point: The theatrical release of the film is too short. It could have done well with a full three-hours (or at least two and a half), so that there would have been time for actual character development. Instead, all we get is a name and a vague reference to race and/or place in society being thrown around whenever someone new pops up on screen. It doesn't help that most of the names are complex and foreign (and technically two names per character, if you count their daemons). I'll give the film a break here for a couple of reasons. 1. Nothing really happened in the first movie that was hinging on emotional attachment to the characters, unless you count the much-hyped polar bear wrestling match. 2. The (theoretical) sequels offer much, much more room for character development. Don't let Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Sam Elliot, and even Kathy Bates (yeah, she was in the movie too) go to waste!

• Although most of the film is well-paced, there are several bits thrown in at random and scenes that were so rushed they required lots and lots of exposition to explain what was going on, as there was (apparently) no time to actually ACT IT OUT. The filmmakers, fortunately, discovered the perfect way of doing this. In the film's world, daemons exist so that they can be confused and question the characters, who then have the opportunity to explain what is going on, for the audience's benefit. This makes the daemons seem redundant. Apparently souls are not terribly bright independent thinkers, and the filmmakers don't think we are either.
  

• This film is not a stand-alone story and most likely couldn't have been, regardless of how it was adapted. A twist-ending (and a major cliff hanger) were pushed to the (theoretical) second film, and to compensate for this, a lengthy monologue by the heroine was added to the end of the film, for the sole purpose of getting us excited about the next chapter of this epic fantasy saga. Lyra literally announces everything that she plans on doing in the next movie - from seeking out her uncle (ah, so Bond will be back) to discovering what Dust is (yes, what IS Dust?), to her desire to explore the parallel universes she now knows exist.

Wow, that sounds like lots of fun! Wouldn't it be great if we could all go along for the ride? Of course, all of this speculation is dependent on there actually BEING a second movie. The intent of the "let's sum up what happens next" final monologue was so transparent it was an unintentionally funny and annoying way to wrap it all up. In case it wasn't clear that there needs to be a sequel ... now the audience knows for sure.

But you know, I still liked it.

And I'll be re-reading the series now.

*6/10*