(Don’t worry, reader, no spoilers in this one.)

Coraline is a great picture that hits all the right chords with this viewer. It’s tender, funny, and even a little creepy at times. Everything about it is quality entertainment: good story, good characters, great performances, a fantastic soundtrack (None of that radio Disney crap), and really, really exquisite character designs. Everybody looks totally unique. And hilarious, too.

My favorite looking character, personally, is Mr. Bobinsky.

And when you’re watching this film, you have to sit in awe of the quality stop motion and the work that must of went into it. Stop motion has a unique and beautiful aesthetic of its own that you don’t see too much anymore in our modern 3D animation saturated films. We’re lucky to have directors like Henry Selick who are still driven to pursue this obscure kind of filmmaking. Keep up the good work, Henry!

Bottom line: I really liked this movie, and suspect it will be mentioned later this year as one of my favorite films of 2009. It’s certainly one of the more novel, entertaining, and surprisingly mature children’s films, outside of the Pixar ones, I’ve seen in recent years. No fart jokes whatsoever. If you haven’t watched it yet, do yourself a favor a check it out right after you’re done reading my review. Seriously. Do it.

Now I bought the blu-ray version of Coraline, and it looks exquisite! The 2D version I mean. The overall subdued color palette is accurate to what I remember seeing in the theater, and the same goes for the picture’s sharpness, as well. You’ll marvel at all the little details you can make out in their clothes and in the background sets. WOWZA! It looks as good, if not better than the other fairly recent HD release stop motion picture, Corpse Bride, and totally annihilates the picture quality of Nightmare Before Christmas (directed by Mr. Selick, too). I thought the picture on the Nightmare blu-ray was a little underwhelming, myself. Granted, though, that is a much older film.

Buying this blu-ray also gave me the opportunity, for the first time, to experience a 3D picture at home. This is the version I watched first, and I have some mixed feelings about this “3D presentation”: on the plus side, the picture was much more 3Dimensional than I had anticipated. I was genuinely surprised at how well the illusionary effect was rendered on this disc, almost as good as the 3D picture I experienced at the moviehouse in February of this year. However, I was a little disappointed that throughout the entire movie it looked like a semi-transparent sheet of pink and green was covering the picture. This multicolor sheen is due to the fact that the 3D glasses that come with it, 4 pairs to be specific, have a red violet lens on the right side and a green one on the left side. Unavoidable, I guess, but still a little distracting. At least the 3D didn’t cost extra, but, if pressed, I definitely prefer the 2D version.

As far as special features go, this disc delivers again. There’s a very nice 35-minute “making of” feature, a short look into the casting and the recording of the vocal performances, and extended and deleted scenes. That’s about it. Adequate.