And here we have more fun things :D
Feb. 15th, 2009 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
candylandWell, today was full of ups and downs, and even a few sidewayses. Here's part two of all that.
Anyway...more fun things now--girls' night out!
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kaitodoushi and raerae639 and I went out for a bit tonight. Since I picked the movie, Kat picked dinner, and she chose Pizza Ranch. We kinda forgot that it was both a Saturday night AND Valentine's Day, because the place was packed. I think we scored pretty much the last table in the place.
Rach went to get her food first while Kat and I sat with Jackson (who was an entertaining little dear all evening ♥), and then Kat and I went. When we got back, the manager was asking if we would be willing to move to a different table because a party of twelve had just come in, and our table was situated next to another newly-vacant table, and they wanted to move them together. We said sure, no problem, moved our stuff, and offered to help move the table we had been sitting at.
A while later, the manager came over to our table with three slips of paper. She bent over, wrote on them, and gave us each one: a coupon for a free buffet, good through the end of April, as thanks for being so cooperative and understanding. Pizza Ranch officially has my business until the end of time \o/
We ran to GameStop, and then went and picked JL up (and not surprisingly, she talked most of the way to her house--I can never seem to finish a sentence around this woman without her interrupting to try and tell me she agrees with something I haven't even actually said). Then we ran Rach home, and Kat and I went to see Coraline.
My official opinion: decent movie, not the wonderful adaptation it could have truly been, book was better. I think I would have liked it a bit more if I hadn't read the book first, to be honest.
~ They got all the high points from the book in, but at the same time, the movie had a rather incomplete feeling to it. There were a few points where I think Kat was a bit lost, since she hasn't read the book, and I think if I hadn't, I probably would have been a bit confused as well. I understand that a movie has time constraints. It's just sad that it had to be taken out of, say, the development of the secondary characters, who wound up feeling like they'd just been stuck into the beginning so they could be there in the Other World.
~ Scene with the ghost children behind the mirror. She's...not supposed to really see them, if I recall correctly. It's more a suggestion. The one isn't even supposed to remember if he's a boy or a girl. SUBTLETY, WHERE DID YOU GO?
~There were some things in the book that happened in separate places that wound up squished together into a single event--though this I can understand, and while I was sad to not see the Other Father in the cellar, for the most part these worked relatively well.
~ Wybie was a completely unnecessary character addition who primarily served to take up space and time that could have been better used to include more details from the book, which would have given it more a sense of completion. The one excluded detail that bothered me the most was the Other Mother swearing by her right hand when she and Coraline made the agreement over the challenge--by removing that line, it completely axed all of the justice (and all of the irony) of what happens at the climax.
~ Actually, I know why they added Wybie. Because boys can't ever relate to a girl as the main character. And because obviously, girls can't be the hero of their own story (her name's the title, for goodness' sake), and cannot save the day without a boy coming out of the woodwork to help them. Of course.
~ The book ending involved Coraline coming up with a well-thought-out plan, which she then worked carefully to implement and carry out to ensnare the Bad Guy and save the day. The movie ending involved Coraline...getting dragged along the ground, screaming a lot, and getting saved by a character who did not exist in the book. In other words, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOOK'S BRILLIANT ENDING??
Still, it was enjoyable. The cat was as awesome a character as he was in the book (though they really pared down his dialogue), and the character designs of the two actresses...let's just say that I can't unsee it. Ever. The music was interesting, the voice acting was solid, and I actually liked the idea of the dolls. That was something new, and I thought it was a pretty cool way of explaining one of the few things that the book sort of glossed over.
And the visuals were amazing, if I may be totally shallow for a moment. The 3D was cool, though I think it would have floated just as well without it. But the garden blooming was incredibly well done. There's a very whimsical charm to the style of stop-motion animation--it's one of the things I've always liked about The Nightmare Before Christmas. It just looks cool. And in that regard, Coraline delivered big time.
Overall, in spite of my nitpicks...I enjoyed the movie. It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, and the movie does have a lot going for it. It kept many of the main points of the book, and it experimented a little, though not all of those experiments worked. But I can appreciate some of the differences and what they were going for. So I give it a rec, if you're looking for something fun to see.
And I would have enjoyed it even more if the people behind us would have not felt the need to repeat almost every single goddamn line the characters said on-screen. Really, guys. Shut up.
...and now I need to go to bed. Work tomorrow. Ciao! *toodles off*
Anyway...more fun things now--girls' night out!
kaitodoushi and raerae639 and I went out for a bit tonight. Since I picked the movie, Kat picked dinner, and she chose Pizza Ranch. We kinda forgot that it was both a Saturday night AND Valentine's Day, because the place was packed. I think we scored pretty much the last table in the place.Rach went to get her food first while Kat and I sat with Jackson (who was an entertaining little dear all evening ♥), and then Kat and I went. When we got back, the manager was asking if we would be willing to move to a different table because a party of twelve had just come in, and our table was situated next to another newly-vacant table, and they wanted to move them together. We said sure, no problem, moved our stuff, and offered to help move the table we had been sitting at.
A while later, the manager came over to our table with three slips of paper. She bent over, wrote on them, and gave us each one: a coupon for a free buffet, good through the end of April, as thanks for being so cooperative and understanding. Pizza Ranch officially has my business until the end of time \o/
We ran to GameStop, and then went and picked JL up (and not surprisingly, she talked most of the way to her house--I can never seem to finish a sentence around this woman without her interrupting to try and tell me she agrees with something I haven't even actually said). Then we ran Rach home, and Kat and I went to see Coraline.
My official opinion: decent movie, not the wonderful adaptation it could have truly been, book was better. I think I would have liked it a bit more if I hadn't read the book first, to be honest.
~ They got all the high points from the book in, but at the same time, the movie had a rather incomplete feeling to it. There were a few points where I think Kat was a bit lost, since she hasn't read the book, and I think if I hadn't, I probably would have been a bit confused as well. I understand that a movie has time constraints. It's just sad that it had to be taken out of, say, the development of the secondary characters, who wound up feeling like they'd just been stuck into the beginning so they could be there in the Other World.
~ Scene with the ghost children behind the mirror. She's...not supposed to really see them, if I recall correctly. It's more a suggestion. The one isn't even supposed to remember if he's a boy or a girl. SUBTLETY, WHERE DID YOU GO?
~There were some things in the book that happened in separate places that wound up squished together into a single event--though this I can understand, and while I was sad to not see the Other Father in the cellar, for the most part these worked relatively well.
~ Wybie was a completely unnecessary character addition who primarily served to take up space and time that could have been better used to include more details from the book, which would have given it more a sense of completion. The one excluded detail that bothered me the most was the Other Mother swearing by her right hand when she and Coraline made the agreement over the challenge--by removing that line, it completely axed all of the justice (and all of the irony) of what happens at the climax.
~ Actually, I know why they added Wybie. Because boys can't ever relate to a girl as the main character. And because obviously, girls can't be the hero of their own story (her name's the title, for goodness' sake), and cannot save the day without a boy coming out of the woodwork to help them. Of course.
~ The book ending involved Coraline coming up with a well-thought-out plan, which she then worked carefully to implement and carry out to ensnare the Bad Guy and save the day. The movie ending involved Coraline...getting dragged along the ground, screaming a lot, and getting saved by a character who did not exist in the book. In other words, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOOK'S BRILLIANT ENDING??
Still, it was enjoyable. The cat was as awesome a character as he was in the book (though they really pared down his dialogue), and the character designs of the two actresses...let's just say that I can't unsee it. Ever. The music was interesting, the voice acting was solid, and I actually liked the idea of the dolls. That was something new, and I thought it was a pretty cool way of explaining one of the few things that the book sort of glossed over.
And the visuals were amazing, if I may be totally shallow for a moment. The 3D was cool, though I think it would have floated just as well without it. But the garden blooming was incredibly well done. There's a very whimsical charm to the style of stop-motion animation--it's one of the things I've always liked about The Nightmare Before Christmas. It just looks cool. And in that regard, Coraline delivered big time.
Overall, in spite of my nitpicks...I enjoyed the movie. It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, and the movie does have a lot going for it. It kept many of the main points of the book, and it experimented a little, though not all of those experiments worked. But I can appreciate some of the differences and what they were going for. So I give it a rec, if you're looking for something fun to see.
And I would have enjoyed it even more if the people behind us would have not felt the need to repeat almost every single goddamn line the characters said on-screen. Really, guys. Shut up.
...and now I need to go to bed. Work tomorrow. Ciao! *toodles off*
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-15 07:06 am (UTC)Also, I think Coraline herself could have used the same sort of character development she gets in the book, because really she comes off as quite bratty, which isn't the impression I got from the book at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-15 09:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-15 01:02 pm (UTC)But really, other than that, I really liked the movie.
(Oh, and I read that the reason the 'Other Father in the cellar' scene wasn't in the movie was because Harry Selick first read a draft without that scene (Gaiman wasn't going to include it, but his editor insisted), so he came up with his own concept instead.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-16 10:20 pm (UTC)I haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I dunno what to make of it yet.
And...I'm not stalking this journal. Really. >>;
I just...got tired of lurking?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-16 10:49 pm (UTC)It's a relief to know I'm not the only one who feels the way I do! *high-fives*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-16 10:50 pm (UTC)I still need to listen to The Graveyard Book.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-16 10:54 pm (UTC)It was a decent movie. I just hate feeling like it could have been so much better.
(Ah, that makes sense. I'm not against changes being made from books in the transition. It just felt like some of the changes were not necessary.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-16 10:56 pm (UTC)It was a good movie. But having read the book, I just feel like it could have been an incredible movie if they'd held a little closer to the original, ya know?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-17 07:10 am (UTC)