C-OR-aline. Coraline Jones.

Hello,
The other day someone said I only blog once a month. Actually, that's not true at all - but I suppose I could post more regularly, however due to the sad lack of feedback I receive it is actually kind of hard to motivate myself into blibbering about nothingness. Yup.

Anyway, I decided to do some REVIEWS. Just because I feel like it. OK, so this post basically goes out to Coraline, my friends. A fantastic story about a girl who feels neglected that journeys through a door in her house to another world - exactly like her own, only better in every way imaginable. Coraline is wowed by this other world, and her "other mother" and "other father," both whom shower her with love and attention! It's a marvellous adventure; until she discovers that all is not as it appears to be.

By the way, Coraline is not scary. Well, no, it might be. I suppose if you are afraid of dolls, and jumping mice, and dopplegangers and 'menacing themes'......... It's a story where the more grown up you are, the scarier it seems, I think. So child yourselves and watch/read it! It gives you the chills, a bit, I reckon. IT'S AWESOME!  It's definitely worth your time, I promise :)

(Following contains quotes and hints, but no actual spoilers)
CORALINE: the book
Just this week I read Neil Gaiman's Coraline. It was a pretty lucky that I saw it in the library, because I had no idea that Coraline was originally a novel. And wow, it's unlike anything I've ever read before. Completely unique - it seems to have been written for kids...but is it really? The language is so simple, so immensly easy to read. It doesn't waste time on long, flowery descriptions, leaving a lot to your imagination - yet it's been so expertly written to really produce a thrilling, disturbing effect. My favourite thing, was that in the book, you can find so many creepy and cool excerpts that really just stick with you:

'Why does she want me?' Coraline asked the cat. 'Why does she want me to stay here with her?'

'She wants something to love, I think,' said the cat. 'Something that isn't her. She might want something to eat as well. It's hard to tell with creatures like that.'

'Darling,' said the woman. 'Why did you ever run away from me?'

'But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?'
'Easy,' said the cat. 'Think of somebody walking around the world. You start out walking away from something and end up coming back to it.'
'Small world,' said Coraline.

'I swear it,' said the other mother. 'I swear it on my own mother's grave.'
'Does she have a grave?' asked Coraline.
'Oh yes,' said the other mother. 'I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.'

Part of the odd thing, is that Coraline is mostly written from a third person dramatic/objective point of view (thank you, it appears I might have learned something in English class after all). So a lot of the time, we aren't given Coraline's thoughts and feelings - only her actions and words. Kind of weird when you hear another character make a creepy statement, and you can only imagine how you would feel in Coraline's position. That is the beauty of this book, I think. TES described the novel as 'Alice with attitude in a dark, creepy, graphically described Wonderland.' I have to agree with this completely, and say that Coraline is an incredible work of literature. I would absolutely recommend! 4/5 stars

CORALINE: the movie

I first watched Coraline online (yes, yes, I am an evil child. But now I have it on DVD!) and I really wasn't sure what to think of it. It reminded me a lot of nightmares I used to have about being in an alternate universe where things and people were like normal, only srangely twisted, warped and menacing. They scared me. But after the second or third time watching the movie, you know, I just appreciated how great it was! One of those rare times I enjoy the movie more than the book; Coraline is a masterpiece. Using stop motion animation and creating a whole world in miniature (I think), it must have taken years to make. The visual effects, music, screenplay and voices are superb. It stays pretty faithful to the book - although it does add and take (added the character Wybie, which I'm glad they did) and it is an amazing interpretation. I love it, I love it, I love it! 4.5/5 stars

CORALINE: the ds game

Unfortunately, this game does little justice to the movie. The graphics are ok, but then I guess Nintendo DS games aren't famed for their amazing graphics. Anyway, that aside, I enjoyed being able to explore the Pink Palace - you can really look at the rooms and see a more detailed layout of the house that you weren't offered in the film - but the actual gameplay is rather lousy. The game gets off to a boring start, where your purpose is unclear and eventually you get bored of running up and down exploring the same rooms over and over again without really knowing what to do. After completing the beginning though, the game does get better, however only slightly. You can unlock different outfits for Coraline - which is pretty cool. The best part of the game is when you transide from her normal world to the other world. That was some pretty good work there. I just went 'WOW.' The music changed, the entire screen transformed into something more colourful, bright and appealing. All the boring rooms were beautifully decorated, and the whole world looked beautiful. The other world was great - forget Coraline being drawn to it - I was totally wanting to play my DS in the other world forever and ever! So that was a good aspect of the game - however the rest of the game is filled with boring, pointless mini games and activites that seem placed there just for the sake of having a 'game' in the game. These include 'squash the bugs in the bathroom' where you tap the screen to squash bugs, 'run away from the nightmare' where you have to tap her "nightmares" away and 'can you turn the key?!' where you merely touch the keyhole. So all in all, the game is pretty average, and that's stretching toward the lousy average. It's quite short - I was able to complete the game in under four hours. Good for a bit of addictive, lazy gameplay but if you're someone who goes and buys Nintendo DS games - I wouldn't recommend this game, it looks like a game just made to make money off the movie, and it's not worth the amount you'll be asked to pay for it. 2/5 stars.