Last night, I went out with a small group of friends to celebrate my 26th birthday. For dinner, we went to Hibachi Japan at Donaldson's Crossroads. It was the second time I'd gone there, but everyone else was a first-time guest. I really enjoyed the food, and I think the prices are reasonable for that kind of meal. My only critique of the dinner was the taste of the shrimp dipping sauce. I think I like Benihana's better. But overall, I thought it was nice, and I hope everyone had a good time.
After dinner, Jerod and Laura went to check on Sallace, Jules & Taylor had to go home, and Guy, Emily, and I browsed TJMaxx until movie time. We were going to see a 7:00 showing of Coraline in 3-D at the theater by the mall. Emily bought a giant Rice Krispie for $2 to bring into the movie, Guy got a new pair of jeans, and I stocked up on prizes for Sarah's bridal shower in five months (yeah, I'm overly prepared).
After our brief shopping outing, we met back up with Jerod and Laura at the theater. Tickets were an extra $2.50 because the show was in 3-D, which I think kind of sucks, but oh well. The theater we were in was one of the smaller rooms, and only a handful of people were in it. I was sad to see that a lot of the seats were damaged, and the theater in general was not in good shape. It was like a $12 trip to the maxi-saver. Carmike, where did you go wrong?
Anyway, after 20 minutes of commercials and previews, and a brief glitch where we could only hear previews but not see them, the movie began.
I have not seen any other Tim Burton movies, but I know what they typically look like, and "Coraline" was no exception in the realm of excellent animation. The entire film was a pleasure to the eye -- yes, even the part where she squashed thousand-leggers with her bare hands. Who does that, by the way?
Though "Coraline" was visually pleasing, I felt that the story was a bit lacking in excitement and depth. The movie is based on a novel, so I'd be interested to see what details were left out. The story moved slowly and allowed a number of wordless scenes accompanied by a haunting soundtrack to provide exposition. My mind wandered a lot during these scenes, and though I appreciated the artsiness of the movie's style, I found it a bit boring at times. Then, as the movie progressed towards its ending, I felt like things were wrapping up too quickly, without enough explanation. If you haven't seen it, Coraline ends up finding the souls of other children who her "Other Mother" has tricked into staying in her world. The children tell them she needs to save them by finding their eyes. They call the Other Mother the beldam. There's no explanation as to why they call her this or why their "eyes" end up being bouncy balls and handles on exotic lawn equipment. I'm sure there are more things I can think of where I would have appreciated more information, like why a triangular-shaped rock with a hole in the center allows Coraline to find the ghosts' eyes, but the film relied on its looks more than its substance to impress viewers from the start, so it was no surprised that it followed through with this trend to the finish.
Even though the movie was a bit different than I expected, I did have a grand old time on my birthday eve, and I'm glad my friends were able to join me for it.
And one last side note on "Coraline" -- Why, oh, why, did they have to give almost every woman EXTREMELY large breasts? And what on earth possessed the animators to do the scene with the large-breasted old woman dresssed in only sparkly pasties and a thong? I thought I couldn't see anything more disgusting than Coraline smashing bugs with her bare hands. I thought wrong.
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