The last bit of this response to a reader wondering whether it would be better to see the 2D or 3D version of Coraline posted on Neil Gaiman's blog makes me sad, in so many different ways:
Easy. See it in 3D.
You can always go back and watch it in 2D. The DVD will come out later this year and be around for ever. You'll get to appreciate the US cast's voice acting then. This may be your only chance to see CORALINE in 3D.
(Same goes for the US. If you're putting off seeing it in 3D, don't: we lose the screens to the Jonas Bros 3D movie in a week or so.)
A sampling of some of the things that make me sad about this:
1. Coraline is being pushed out of theaters by a Jonas Bros movie
2. There's a Jonas Bros movie
3. The fact that I have even the vaguest notion of who/what the Jonas Bros are
Still, Neil's point is well-taken; go see Coraline in 3D while you still can.
Showing posts with label coraline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coraline. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Taken To See Coraline
If you had come up to me before I saw the movie Taken and said, “Jon, you thoroughly enjoy watching Liam Neeson beat the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency,” I would have had two reactions.
The first reaction would have been something like, “Who are you? What are you talking about? And why aren’t you wearing any pants?”
My second reaction would have been, “Yeah, that sounds like me. You’re probably right.”
However, I wouldn’t have known it to be true in the way that I do now that I’ve seen the movie. Liam Neeson beating the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency is completely awesome.
If Taken had nothing else going for it – and it had plenty – that fact alone would have made the movie amazing for me.
I’m not going to write up a full review, but I will say that if you even suspect that you would thoroughly enjoy watching Liam Neeson beat the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency, Taken is the movie for you.
I’m also not going to write up a review of Coraline, but I will say that, while it did not feature Liam Neeson beating the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency, I thoroughly enjoyed it as well.
I pretty much have no complaints about it. The stop motion animation was amazing, as were the set and character designs. All of the voice actors did great jobs – even Teri Hatcher, who seems to be easier to take when you don’t actually see her and her goofiness. There’s just no way around it; back in the 90s she was incredibly hot, but she was also incredibly goofy. Now the hotness has faded – time is seldom kind to anyone – but the goofiness has remained.
I do have a couple of minor quibbles, though. For one thing, one of my favorite bits from the book was left out.
The other thing is the attempt that Dakota Fanning, as the voice of Coraline, made at having a “Michigan” accent. Even if they’d been aiming for a Yooper accent – which wouldn’t have made sense, as she was supposed to be from Pontiac – they would have missed the mark. It seems like someone told her to watch Fargo and talk like that, operating on the assumption that everyone in the Midwest talks like that.
Honestly, if I didn’t know that production was pretty much complete long before she came to national prominence, I would think that her accent was modeled after Sarah Palin.
Still, it’s a minor quibble.
After our double feature Scott and I had a late dinner at a nearby Chipotle. I haven’t eaten at/from Chipotle since I worked at AOL, so I was very eager to take advantage of the opportunity.
The one problem with that, though, is that it’s been so long that I’d forgotten what I like. It wasn’t until after I’d already had it made and paid for that I remembered that I did, in fact, like sour cream on my burrito – it merges with the rice to give it a really satisfying texture – and that while I do like the corn salsa, what I really like is the green tomatillo salsa.
Oh well, it was still good.
Anyway, I’ve already written more than I would have thought my laziness would allow, so I guess that’ll do it for this entry.
The first reaction would have been something like, “Who are you? What are you talking about? And why aren’t you wearing any pants?”
My second reaction would have been, “Yeah, that sounds like me. You’re probably right.”
However, I wouldn’t have known it to be true in the way that I do now that I’ve seen the movie. Liam Neeson beating the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency is completely awesome.
If Taken had nothing else going for it – and it had plenty – that fact alone would have made the movie amazing for me.
I’m not going to write up a full review, but I will say that if you even suspect that you would thoroughly enjoy watching Liam Neeson beat the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency, Taken is the movie for you.
I’m also not going to write up a review of Coraline, but I will say that, while it did not feature Liam Neeson beating the living snot out of people with ruthless efficiency, I thoroughly enjoyed it as well.
I pretty much have no complaints about it. The stop motion animation was amazing, as were the set and character designs. All of the voice actors did great jobs – even Teri Hatcher, who seems to be easier to take when you don’t actually see her and her goofiness. There’s just no way around it; back in the 90s she was incredibly hot, but she was also incredibly goofy. Now the hotness has faded – time is seldom kind to anyone – but the goofiness has remained.
I do have a couple of minor quibbles, though. For one thing, one of my favorite bits from the book was left out.
The other thing is the attempt that Dakota Fanning, as the voice of Coraline, made at having a “Michigan” accent. Even if they’d been aiming for a Yooper accent – which wouldn’t have made sense, as she was supposed to be from Pontiac – they would have missed the mark. It seems like someone told her to watch Fargo and talk like that, operating on the assumption that everyone in the Midwest talks like that.
Honestly, if I didn’t know that production was pretty much complete long before she came to national prominence, I would think that her accent was modeled after Sarah Palin.
Still, it’s a minor quibble.
After our double feature Scott and I had a late dinner at a nearby Chipotle. I haven’t eaten at/from Chipotle since I worked at AOL, so I was very eager to take advantage of the opportunity.
The one problem with that, though, is that it’s been so long that I’d forgotten what I like. It wasn’t until after I’d already had it made and paid for that I remembered that I did, in fact, like sour cream on my burrito – it merges with the rice to give it a really satisfying texture – and that while I do like the corn salsa, what I really like is the green tomatillo salsa.
Oh well, it was still good.
Anyway, I’ve already written more than I would have thought my laziness would allow, so I guess that’ll do it for this entry.
Monday, February 09, 2009
The Reviews Are In: I Don't Suck!
Well, one review anyway, and the not sucking part only applies to my job.
Still, it’s nice to be told – officially – that you’re doing a great job.
It’s even nicer to be told that you’re getting a big raise and a big bonus.
Too bad that part didn’t happen; the details of the merit increase and annual bonus are still up in the air at this point, and the odds don’t favor them being too big.
Still a. I still have a job and b. I’m going to get some amount of additional compensation.
So I can’t complain too much, I guess.
Scott’s back to work from his paternity leave. Before he left I told him that I should knock some chick up just so that I could get some extra time off. When he sarcastically responded that this was a good idea I said, “Meh, people have had kids for dumber reasons.”
Fortunately – in this instance, at least – I don’t have a chick that I could knock up anyway.
Stacy informed me via IM that Scott is very happy with the new addition and is, in fact, “adorable.” I’ll take her word for it.
Now that the baby is settled in, it looks as though Scott and I will be resuming our Wednesday night movie sessions.
This week we’ll be going to the actual movies, as there are two movies out that we want to see: Coraline, based on the book by Neil Gaiman, and Taken, which is, essentially, the movie Commando, but with Liam Neeson. And who doesn’t love Liam Neeson? Nobody who has any kind of sense, that’s who.
I sent Scott a link to a video sometime this afternoon and he informed me that he would wait to watch it, as there were a lot of people hanging around.
I said, “Let one rip; that’ll clear them out in a hurry.”
I went on to add that, now that he’s over 30, he can most likely produce those long, loud old man farts.
It got me to thinking.
My dad wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a good guy. He was a talented carpenter and woodworker, funny, charming, gregarious, and just generally likeable. If you ever met my dad and didn’t like him then the odds are that you’re incapable of liking people.
Everybody liked my dad.
Thinking about that fact, I couldn’t help but wonder why it is that of all of those positive and remarkable traits, the only thing I really inherited from him was a propensity for long, loud old man farts.
As a kid, I prayed that the day would never come when I would let them rip, and rip, and rip, and rip the way my dad did.
And yet...
Thanks a lot, dad.
Seriously, they’re kind of distressing. It’s like when you see some old episode of That’s Incredible or Real People and there would be a story about some poor bastard who’s had the hiccups non-stop for like 30 years or something. Whenever I get hiccups, I worry that something like that will happen to me.
It’s the same thing with some of the old man farts. What if the fart never stops?
Seriously, sometimes they last long enough that it starts to become a legitimate concern. Especially when one excepitonally long tooting session is immediately followed by another that’s just as long.
And where the hell does all that gas come from anyway? I refuse to believe that water and a Snickers bar are a sufficient source. It’s like my ass is a portal to another dimension. A fart dimension.
All right, all right, enough with the flatulence talk and complaints about my ever-increasing gassiness.
I’ll close with a lesson that I learned this evening.
If you’re going to bake cookies, bake them after you’ve made dinner, otherwise there’s a very good chance that the cookies will end up being dinner.
Still, it’s nice to be told – officially – that you’re doing a great job.
It’s even nicer to be told that you’re getting a big raise and a big bonus.
Too bad that part didn’t happen; the details of the merit increase and annual bonus are still up in the air at this point, and the odds don’t favor them being too big.
Still a. I still have a job and b. I’m going to get some amount of additional compensation.
So I can’t complain too much, I guess.
Scott’s back to work from his paternity leave. Before he left I told him that I should knock some chick up just so that I could get some extra time off. When he sarcastically responded that this was a good idea I said, “Meh, people have had kids for dumber reasons.”
Fortunately – in this instance, at least – I don’t have a chick that I could knock up anyway.
Stacy informed me via IM that Scott is very happy with the new addition and is, in fact, “adorable.” I’ll take her word for it.
Now that the baby is settled in, it looks as though Scott and I will be resuming our Wednesday night movie sessions.
This week we’ll be going to the actual movies, as there are two movies out that we want to see: Coraline, based on the book by Neil Gaiman, and Taken, which is, essentially, the movie Commando, but with Liam Neeson. And who doesn’t love Liam Neeson? Nobody who has any kind of sense, that’s who.
I sent Scott a link to a video sometime this afternoon and he informed me that he would wait to watch it, as there were a lot of people hanging around.
I said, “Let one rip; that’ll clear them out in a hurry.”
I went on to add that, now that he’s over 30, he can most likely produce those long, loud old man farts.
It got me to thinking.
My dad wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a good guy. He was a talented carpenter and woodworker, funny, charming, gregarious, and just generally likeable. If you ever met my dad and didn’t like him then the odds are that you’re incapable of liking people.
Everybody liked my dad.
Thinking about that fact, I couldn’t help but wonder why it is that of all of those positive and remarkable traits, the only thing I really inherited from him was a propensity for long, loud old man farts.
As a kid, I prayed that the day would never come when I would let them rip, and rip, and rip, and rip the way my dad did.
And yet...
Thanks a lot, dad.
Seriously, they’re kind of distressing. It’s like when you see some old episode of That’s Incredible or Real People and there would be a story about some poor bastard who’s had the hiccups non-stop for like 30 years or something. Whenever I get hiccups, I worry that something like that will happen to me.
It’s the same thing with some of the old man farts. What if the fart never stops?
Seriously, sometimes they last long enough that it starts to become a legitimate concern. Especially when one excepitonally long tooting session is immediately followed by another that’s just as long.
And where the hell does all that gas come from anyway? I refuse to believe that water and a Snickers bar are a sufficient source. It’s like my ass is a portal to another dimension. A fart dimension.
All right, all right, enough with the flatulence talk and complaints about my ever-increasing gassiness.
I’ll close with a lesson that I learned this evening.
If you’re going to bake cookies, bake them after you’ve made dinner, otherwise there’s a very good chance that the cookies will end up being dinner.
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