Coraline [2009]

This is the second feat I explore in the recently acclaimed Cool New Way of selecting films, as I first got fascinated with Coraline's soundtrack and then decided to watch it. And sorry I feel not, as this is exactly the sort of tale that I am currently open to ingesting:

The mescaline-trip-tinged Coraline is like Pan’s Labyrinth without the self-serious pretense to prestige. Director Henry Selick’s first return to stop motion animation in 13 years (and his first full non-Monkeybone movie without Tim Burton’s guiding hand) centers on the title character, a little girl bored both by her relocation to a baroque, off-the-map manor and her inattentive parents, who won’t indulge her adventurous spirit. Serendipitously, she discovers a small, wallpapered-over door in her gray, unfurnished living room; though bricked-up by day, by night it leads to an other-dimensional Wonderland, opening onto a rabbit-hole-ish portal, a fleshy touch-tunnel reminiscent of the birth canal. It’s as though she’s crawling back into the womb...

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