If there's one thing I hate, it's when movie advertising creates a swarm of misinformation in an audience with all of the name dropping that is done in trailers. Who knows how many people still think Tim Burton directed The Nightmare Before Christmas. While that's not an earth-shattering mix up, when you mention a name like Burton or Steven Spielberg as the producer of a film, the only thing that registers is the name. Obviously that's how to sell a movie, but that's not how you create respect and real recognition for a film or its director.

Having said that, I really hope people learn the name Henry Selick (the guy who actually directed The Nightmare Before Christmas) because he's truly a filmmaker with a unique vision, and has a very secure niche in the increasingly impressive realm of stop-motion animation. It's his creativity and dedication to stop-motion that shines in the mesmerizing adaptation of Neil Gaiman's best selling children's book Coraline.

From the opening credit sequence, the intricacy of the animation and tone of the film is easily seen. This is a twisted world where even the simple stitching of a small doll, and the placement of black button eyes has a creepy and ominous feel to it. Our story follows Coraline, a slightly misunderstood and ignored girl who is just looking for some social interaction. Her parents aren't neglectful, they're just not entirely interested in Coraline's endeavors (for that matter they aren't that interesting themselves). Coraline and her family share a large house (like a tri-plex) with two fat old stage performing women, and a crazy rat circus trainer and live down the road from an adventurous boy named Wybie and his grandmother.

These characters don't exactly entertain or occupy Coraline more than a fleeting instant and she's bored beyond belief until she finds the door; a small door, barely big enough for a person to fit through. The door is bricked shut during the day, but then at night, it leads to a house not entirely different from her own...at least at first. She finds her family in the house but much more loving and caring, (even exciting and at times wacky) almost like a dream. Even the characters who live in the tri-plex are better versions of themselves. Oh, and they all have buttons for eyes. There's good food, gifts, and magical wonder, all for Coraline. But then things get weird when her "other parents" in this world ask her to stay, on the condition that she replace her eyes with buttons.

From then on, the dream isn't what it once was. Coraline quickly begins to learn the lesson of being be careful what you wish for. Her once sweet "other mother" becomes a twisted, sullen version of herself, and is nothing more than a witch-like (or maybe spider-like) woman. Coraline soon finds herself in peril and realizing the horrifying thought that she may not see her real parents again.

Similar in style to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick crafts this amazing world for the story to exist in with gothic imagery and dingy colors contrasted to the saturated and bright "other world". In this world, it's normal for Coraline to have blue hair, and her friend Wybie to drive around with some sort of skull painted camera-helmet. The animation is flawless. I can't even count how many times I was taken aback by the action on screen and just filled with awe and respect for the amount of time that goes into crafting each scene. These animators workdays usually consist of getting about 3 or 4 seconds of the film shot in a day. That's unbelievable. Dakota Fanning provides a perfect mature and wise-for-her-age voice for Coraline, and Teri Hatcher is great transforming from Coraline's bland real mother to the threatening "other mother." Their voices bring these characters to life right along with the smooth stop-motion animation.

And what really immersed me in this film is seeing it in Real D (the new 3-D). It adds so much depth to the picture like you're watching it happen in front of you. 3D has lost it's gimmick of just having things come flying at the screen (though that's all the more cool with the great progress 3D technology has made). But I had the most childlike wonder and feelings when the door to the "other world" opened and the passage literally stretches backwards into the screen. Coraline shines and can blow many computer animated movies out of the water with it's attention to detail and well crafted story. Just like Coraline, you will find yourself enamored by this new world. However, you won't have to take your eyes out and replace them with buttons. But you might want to do that if you see The Pink Panther 2.