Page 8 February 2009 BY ADAM EISENTROUT Staff Writer Coraline 3-D Coraline is the story of a young girl who has just moved into an apartment flat with her par- ents. Her parents are garden novel- ists busy at work on a new garden catalog who give more attention to their computers then their own daughter. Coraline is restlessly bored with her new home and soon discovers a small door that leads her to a paradox universe where everything is wonderful and perfect. Of course, all is not wonderful and perfect in a world where every oppositional doppelganger has buttons sewed into their eyes. It is not too long before Coraline is asked to have her own eyes re- placed with buttons and the para- dox world drastically changes from fantastic to grotesque in a matter of seconds. Coraline is the new stop- motion animated film from Henry Selick, the director of such other clay mated classics as James and the Giant Peach and The Night- mare Before Christmas. Yes, that Nightmare Before Christmas that has gained a cult status and has been recognized by many as just a Tim Burton film. Selick seems to have managed to break away from having his name minimized by the likes of more popular related art- ists but it shows as Coraline is nothing less than magnificent. It is almost indescribable to how well made the film is; one can tell that the thought and time of four years of production meant some- thing for the films creators. Everything the film offers ter- rific voice acting by the whole cast to the film’s soundtrack that is de- lightfully sinister. The art design is absolutely astounding as each and every scene is visually stirring from the subtle; Coraline’s facial expressions, to the unsettling; room’s sudden transformation into a spider web. The 3-D aesthetic is also a welcome surprise as it works delicately to engage the au- dience rather than distract like in Coraline is essentially a chil- dren’s version of Pans Labyrinth but better. The film is a living typepad.com work of art that works as a time- less, dark, fairy tale that most movie goers have nightmares about but for the rest of us, it is a film we dream of and when we see it we are utterly mesmerized. In Theaters: Wide Releasing My Bloody Valentine 3-D With the popular rise of horror remakes rampant throughout Hol- lywood of the few past years we’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Mas- sacre, the Amityville Horror, Dawn of the Dead, and now My Bloody Valentine...3-D. The original My Bloody Valentine be- ing a mean spirited, often silly, but indescribably lovable slasher flick. The original and the re- makes plots almost similar starts simply, a massacre occurred ten years ago, in a small Pennsylva- nian mining town, after a mining accident left one of its few survi- vors, Harry Warden in a coma. When he woke up, hilarity en- sued. Just kidding, he murdered and killed over 22 men, women, and children. Shortly after, Harry was supposedly killed but re- appear without hearts and it seems Harry just might not be dead after all or of course it could be someone else! With the film eagerly using Harry as its stan- dard slasher villain, we get a fairly standard slasher movie fair. condoning it would be criminal as it is popcorn film of mindless slasher. Take the 3-D away though and you have a film dead on arrival (pun intended). At Home: DVD Eden Lake Dimension Extreme has been re- leasing some of the rawest, un- nerving, brutal, and grittiest hor- ror films to date that did not get a release state side. They not only released Broken a film that makes course is when Harry kills a vic- tim ala ripping there jaw off with his pick axe, the jaw wonderfully gets thrown at the audience. Fun? Of Course! Gimmicky? course... The film does not hold a pick axe to the original film but Street and the terrifically intense French horror film Inside. Now they bring us Eden Lake a UK horror film that easily could have movie experience because of its subject matter and it delivers ex- actly that. Not to call Eden Lake a bad film, its not, it’s far from it and is actually one of the best horror films of the recent. Its just the film is a heavy, disturbing, brutal, unnerving, tense, shock- ing, thought provoking, real, and grim experience. The film bril- liantly keeps itself from becom- ing an exploitative show of shocks and gore. In fact the film has barely to any gore and does not glorify itself for that. It deliv- ers a tight thriller that is pulse pounding and difficult to sit through until its very end that is more then just depressing but fail- ingly its biggest flaw. The ending plays it unfair unlike the rest of the film but other then that the film is a must see for horror fans.
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