Tag Archives: Cats

Coraline

You would think that I’d have already read the long-published book Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. I mean, he’s awesome, right? But by the time I got my hands on a copy, I already knew there’d be a movie coming out, so I’ve put it off. Of course, I kept not seeing the movie, too, which really threw the whole thing out of whack, but Wednesday rendered itself convenient, and now I can at least put the book on my shelf.

Coraline is one of those cautionary fairy tales about the dangers of skipping out on the hard parents who have your best interests, in favor of the easy ones who probably have a catch. Unfortunately, the movie failed this test by making Coraline’s parents all too unlikeable, with only a hint of the tough-but-fair paradigm I think (or at least hope) they were trying to portray. Coraline Jones and those parents have just moved into the ground floor of a rental house out in the country, where they can pursue their dreams of writing gardening books, dreams which are made ridiculously implausible by their shared dislike of dirt. Of course, the larger issue is that they’re stressed out by their lack of success and resultantly treat Coraline more like an unwanted distraction than a beloved daughter. All of which would turn into a distressingly heart-rending After-School Special except that there’s a tiny, walled-over door in the rental house’s parlor which leads to a mirror world, through a glass brightly, if you will, where Coraline’s parents dote on her and are excellent cooks, and every tenant and local are present solely to entertain Coraline in a variety of kid-friendly ways, with just the correct hint of faux-danger. In short, every child’s dream come true, much less any child living under the whiff of neglect, and possibly a bit more than a whiff, that Coraline is.

Here’s the good news. Although the cautionary portion of the tale is undercut by her parents actually being kind of harsh, instead of merely not the picture-perfect givers that self-involved kids inevitably want, the fairy tale sense of mounting dread and rich climactic action are spot on. Plus, y’know, 3D, which never seems to suck. Because, of course Coraline’s button-eyed Other Mother is different from how she initially seems. (I distinctly remember mentioning, y’know, fairy tale.) Additionally, the cat is just delightfully… cattish. I can’t say what comparison there is between book and movie, though I understand from Fresh Air that one character was created entirely for the flick. But that cat has all the right notes that makes me certain Neil wrote him first. He just understands cats like nobody’s business.

The Phantom of the Opera

Musicals: sometimes I like them. It helps if the entire world doesn’t join in randomly and without feeling the slightest bit self-conscious about it (see South Pacific, although there are exceptions that can make this work, such as if it’s happening due to demonic interference). And it probably makes me overly trendy and without taste that I like Andrew Lloyd Webber better than the generic musicalisician, but nevertheless I do, and it’s too late to do anything about it now. Although in my defense, I hate Cats, as is good and proper.

The upshot of all this is that it was inevitable that I’d go see The Phantom of the Opera as a movie, despite the near universal panning it took. And here’s the thing. It didn’t only not suck, but was, with just a few exceptions, really good. In some aspects better than I’ve ever seen it onstage.

Problems: Too melodramatic. This went away after the first few scenes, which is good. Because that kind of thing works on stage, but makes a movie feel goofy. I’m not sure why there should be such a difference here, but there is. Also: too musical. Like I said, the singing randomly thing, it grates in a cinematic experience. I think it bugged me this time because I was prepared for all the singing, but then they did some of the scenes straight, speaking where I was expecting music. Thusly was the illusion broken, so that when they did sing, some of that failed to fit after all. And, too much naked statuary. Yes, it was in the time before Victorian England took over the social mores of the western world. And it’s not like exquisite (and I should think frightfully expensive) gold statues of women quarter-dressed in sheets bothers me, either aesthetically or pruriently, in an opera house. But the equally detailed granite naked statuary in the cemetary seemed, well, out of place. I’m just saying.

Now, the good stuff. I’m not going to worry about spoilers, a) because if you don’t know the basic story by now, it was by choice and so why should you care about being spoiled, and b) because for a movie like this, the comparison with forebears is the only really important thing to review.

In no particular order, things I liked: The gradual reveal of the Phantom’s madness, via the skew between his perceptions of himself and his world, and external perceptions of the way his world really was. Emmy Rossum‘s portrayal of Christine as a sympathetic character, which is the first I’ve ever seen. (I’ll come back to that.) The chandelier scene, which was greatly improved over past productions (and I’m not talking about the limitations of a movie vs. the stage here, so don’t start). Oh, and the opera house itself, although clearly too large to fit in the external structure they showed, was just really cool in every room.

The random over-exposition scenes were a wash, because on the one hand, blatant exposition makes for a bad film, but on the other, it was (mostly, and here I do not include the cringeworthy Little Lotte lines) interesting and depth-adding exposition.

Cutting here, as the rest contains spoilers for the movie only. Still, they’re the reasons to see the movie, so you should click through anyway.
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