AMERICAN HIGHLIGHTS

Henry Selick’s stop-motion animated Coraline 3D movie with the voice of Dakota Fanning as the title character is in theaters now. See photos and watch the mesmerizing Coraline movie trailer video here of the movie from the director of Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ that is already getting Oscar buzz.


The highly anticipated feature length animation motion picture is based on Neil Gaiman’s New York Times best-selling short children’s novel of the same name (which is sometimes misspelled as ‘Caroline’). The movie was directed by Henry Selick who in addition to being director of Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ also directed ‘James and the Giant Peach.’ The movie from LAIKA Studio is the first stop-motion feature ever to be shot in stereoscopic 3D. It is being show in both conventional and digital 3D theaters.


In the movie, Coraline (Dakota Fanning) is a little girl who finds a secret door in her family’s new house that leads to an alternate reality, Other World, that is very similar to her own. In that other dimension, her parents, Other Mother and Other Father are different; notably they have black buttons for eyes. Although they shower her with gifts and affection, Coraline senses a sinister undercurrent. Other voice actors in the movie include Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ian McShane and Keith David.



The most recent trailer has been highly touted and celebrated for revealing an original and enticing movie. In the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock, author Neil Gaiman appears at the beginning of the trailer to introduce us to the characters and circumstances by discussing the marvelous invention of buttons and koumpounophobia, the fear of buttons. It’s a masterstroke.


Remarkably in an era dominated by CGI animation, Coraline was crafted painstakingly in true stop motion. The director Harry Selick professes a lifelong affinity for stop motion animation films and acknowledges the impact that the movies of Ray Harryhausen and German animator Lotte Reiniger have had upon his work. In a recent interview, he discussed what it was like to create the movie.

Here are several photos and behind the scenes videos on the Coraline movie. More photos and the full-length theatrical Coraline trailer and the special Neil Gaiman trailer video are below.