Apologies from a Coraline fanatic.
Don't ignore the title. I do have an apology to make and I am a Coraline fanatic.


First off, I am REALLY REALLY SORRY that I ignore you for nearly two years. I just got a little uninterested after the Charlie and Lola post and called it quits. I said that I would come back, but then two years passed and I had a dream about me writing this apology letter(and when I woke up I said to my mom, "I wonder if I should start blogging again???").
Well, now I will be blogging again, I promise. I swear, I am telling the truth. Are you listening... whoever you are?


A lot has changed since two years ago. I stopped knitting(I told everyone that it was a two year break but my conscience keeps telling me that it isn't true), my yarn store was "bombed"(there's too much stuff in there now), and my beloved cat, Whyndam, was put to sleep. :-(


Now, if you have payed attention and are reading this paragraph that I am typing right now, it's time to go on to the second part in the first paragraph:
CORALINE.
So, on July 25, 2009, I was immediately turned into a Coraline fanatic after my first viewing of the movie. I read the book first in February, and I have to admit, it was a little bit dark and creepy. But in the movie, the director, the wonderful Henry Selick(director of James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas), stuck some to the book and wrote some more to make the movie suitable for kids.


The book was written by Neil Gaiman, the author who's last book, The Graveyard Book, I absolutely loved.


So, if you haven't seen the movie yet, here's what it's about:

Coraline Jones(voiced by Dakota Fanning) and her parents, Mel(voiced by Teri Hatcher) and Charlie(voiced by John Hodgeman), move from their comfortable lives in Pontiac, Michigan to the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon. Her parents are busy with a gardening catalog, which leaves them less time for their daughter. At the apartment, she is bored and tries to make friends with her new neighbors, Miss Spink(voiced by Dawn French), Miss Forcible(voiced by Jennifer Saunders), who are two washed up actresses living in the down stairs apartment with their three Scottie dogs; Mr. Bobinsky(voiced by Ian McShane), who is a retired and eccentric circus mice tamer; and the landlord's grandson, Wybourne "Wybie" Lovat(voiced by Robert Baily Jr.), who is a little "psycho" for Coraline, even after he gives her a doll that looks just like her.


After the second day at the house, Coraline finds a little door that leads to a whole other world at night, but in the day, it disappears. In this other world, she meets her "other" Mother and Father(also voiced by Hatcher and Hodgeman), and other versions of the neighbors including Wybie. They all have buttons for eyes, which is the creepy thing about them.


Then, on the third visit to the otherworld, Coraline is given a "surprise" by the other parents: A box that has two large black buttons inside and a needle and thread(Other Mother: "Black is tradition. But if you prefer pink,
or, Vermilion, or, Chartreuse - no, no, you'd make me jealous."). Coraline rejects, and runs back upstairs to go to sleep(every time she falls asleep, she is transported to the real world). But when she wakes up, she finds that she's still in her other room.


The other Mother tries to get her to stay, and turns into a hideous witch. She traps Coraline in a mirror prison, until she learns "to become a loving daughter". There, she meets three ghost children who explain that the other Mother sewed buttons into their eyes and ate up their souls. Coraline promises that she'll find their eyes, and then the other Wybie(the other mother removed his ability to speak due to Coraline's frustration of the real Wybie's habit of talking too much) frees her from the prison and takes her back to the real world.


Coraline soon discovers that her real parents had been kidnapped by the other Mother, and so she goes back to the otherworld, finds the ghost eyes and her parents, and the other Mother fails to keep her forever. After the rescue, her parents have no recollection of the kidnapping but only remember about their gardening catalog being published.


That night, Coraline has a dream that the ghost children tell her that the other Mother will find the key to the door and take Coraline's soul. She decides to drop the key down the well, but the other Mother's hand fights with her, and then Wybie arrives just in time and together they destroy the hand.


The last scene in the movie is when Coraline throws a garden party for all her friends.