Monkeybone (2001)

An adult comedy about a soon to be super-successful cartoonist (Brendan Fraser) who has to contend with his animated creation for control of his own future. By 'adult' I mean that it's generally inappropriate for kids, not that it's mature or hard to follow. The titular Monkeybone is the 'zany' type of character that makes me twitch violently.
There's a lot of creativity on display in the designs and in how they're brought to life, including many different animation techniques that someone clearly put a lot of work into, but the actual film was probably more fun to make for all involved than it is for any discerning person to watch.

1½ nightmare tailwinds out of 5

CORALINE [2009]

Acclaimed stop-motion director Henry Selick brings Neil Gaiman's dark fantasy children's novel Coraline to the big screen with flourishing passion.
Beautifully designed sets & characters and wonderfully set up shots keep the eyes in complete awe as we're whisked away into a twisted Narnia In Wonderland sort of world.  Unfortunately the dull voice acting, flat dialogue and boring characters make for a rather long journey at times.  The character of Coraline is a bratty little bint, so it makes it hard to care what happens to her or anything that surrounds her life.  It pains me to say this as I am a huge fan of both Gaiman and Selick's work and was eagerly anticipating this film but in the end it feels like a bit of a misfire that needed a bit more work on the script to truly give it the heart the story deserves.

3 boring Mark Ryden paintings out of 5

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There's something out there far from my home
A longing that I've never known~

I remember excitedly watching this movie on opening day, and being thrown into a stopmotion world of wonder and delight. It's not so much a Christmas or a Halloween movie, so much as a lonely skeleton trying to find his place in the world. Oh, how I identify with the plight of Jack Skellington, the poor pumpkin king who longs for something more in his life, something new and exciting. The forest of holidays is the stuff dreams are made of. The union of Tim Burton and stopmotion was a spectacle simply "meant to be." (Ugh, that was bad.)

5 clowns with the tearaway face out of 5