Secondly, I wasn't complaining about them. I love kids, but they have a habit of talking through movies. I was just stating the fact, but it's not going to deter me from watching a movie that I think looks interesting. Sorry if it sounded like a complaint.

And regarding the DNC convention, the answer is that the Republicans are all around you. They're just wearing the Democrats' skin.

However, I gotta say…if you're going into a film which you KNOW is supposed to be a “kids' movie”, you can't complain about the theater filling up with kids! That's like going to the DNC and complaining “Where the f**k are all the Republicans?!”

I was sitting towards the middle of the theater. Next time I take in a 3D movie I'll try sitting closer to the back. Maybe that will help, fellow giant.

The best effect in Coraline, as I mentioned in my review, is at the very end of the end credits. Otherwise, as you noted, its use is to enhance an already immersive environment. Some of the 50s features, like Dial M for Murder and Kiss Me Kate, pointed the way, but by that time the effects-oriented craze had run its course.

I love 3D, and basically lived at Film Forum here in NY when they had a festival of 50s features a few years back–they proved to be better than their reputation. But I'm not really seeing it as “saving” an industry that at least now, after a torrid, recession-proof winter at the boxoffice, doesn't need it.

Meanwhile, Dreamworks has wrung out the Shrek towel once too often, is probably working on Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu Panda right now and have concluded their menagerie of Madagascar animal aren't funny and are all deserving of being stuffed with straw. Every one of them. Especially the Schwimmer. Monsters Vs. Aliens is all about grabbing kids by the decals and shaking the Garanimals to pieces. Expect very little subtlety, and a whole lot of detritus, whizzing by.

The same principle was in operation when The Wizard of Oz shifted from B&W to full-color as we went from Kansas to Oz – which, let's face it, is a pretty heavy-handed effect. In practice, though, the 3D in Coraline was more akin to the digital palette-tweaking used i many of today's films; if you're looking for the perspective shift (and I was), you'll see it; otherwise, you'll just absorb it subliminally.

That's the real future of 3D, I think – rather than as an end in itself, it has the potential to become just another tool at a filmmaker's disposal.

Secondly, I wasn't complaining about them. I love kids, but they have a habit of talking through movies. I was just stating the fact, but it's not going to deter me from watching a movie that I think looks interesting. Sorry if it sounded like a complaint.

And regarding the DNC convention, the answer is that the Republicans are all around you. They're just wearing the Democrats' skin.

However, I gotta say…if you're going into a film which you KNOW is supposed to be a “kids' movie”, you can't complain about the theater filling up with kids! That's like going to the DNC and complaining “Where the f**k are all the Republicans?!”