Come Anticipate Spike Jonz' "Where the Wild Things Are" with me

I don't see the potential here for an Opie/Mike Myers "Cat In The Hat" style fiasco, myself.

I can't even imagine how this could go wrong. I'll take mushrooms first to ENSURE it pans out.

As a rule of thumb, if you take a much-loved book with about 15 minutes of plot and try to expand it to a 100 minute film, you're going to struggle to capture the atmosphere of the book. Maybe there's lots of examples of films that have done that successfully. I just can't think of any.

Seriously, 'salright, Benicio would have passed on a bad script.

the day max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind

and another

his mother called him "wild thing" and max said i'll eat you up!"

so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

Just sayin', yo.

would like jonze to be not making with the children's films.

Please surprise me, pleasantly, Spike Jonze et al.

Who is doing the voice of MAX? Any child besides the I See Dead People kid, PLEASE.

Nancy Cartwright should do the kids' voice, why not.

-- Sym Sym (shmuel...) (webmail), Today 12:44 AM. (sym) (later) (link)

lol x1000

"Universal and Sendak did not see eye-to-eye on the concept, but the current vision of the pic has the strong support of Sendak, who told the New York Times in October, "I am in love with it. If Spike and Dave do not do this movie now, I would just as soon not see any version of it ever get made.""

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117935686?categoryid=1236&cs=1&s=h&p=0

there's a DVD, but it's not an entire movie.

I can't wait for the Flaming Lips/Arcade Fire collaboration that'll be the theme song.
close! though i'm not really an arcade fire fan, that trailer was pretty nice. are they even going to market this to kids, or is it aimed at the 20-40 year olds?

Looks pretty cool. It would be nice to have a successful "dark" movie for kids too

i love that trailer! i don't see why it wouldn't appeal to kids, i dont think children are born disgusted by indie 103 and mcsweeney's

aren't they though?
no, i think it'll appeal to kids, it just seems like that trailer is kinda aimed at an older crowd. which i guess makes sense, since it's a trailer on the net.

lack of CGI is promising (yay guys in big suits) but I dunno...

inside every one of us is BILE

inside every one of us is THE ARCADE FIRE

inside everyone one of us is DAVE EGGERS

HD version on Apple.com : http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/

inside every one of us is A CONTINUOUSLY RISING SENSE OF DISGUST

inside everyone of us is A LOBSTER

trailer look great but sounds terrible.

my son loves this book but this will be about 100xxx too scary for him (he's not 3 yet), but maybe I'll subject him too it anyway to scar him for life

Man, I've been (passively) anticipating this for AGES.

Terrific trailer. When it was first announced I had no idea how this could possibly be made to work, but if the script is half way up to the visuals then it could be pretty special. It seems Eggers name is mud round these parts, largely, but he's a great fit for this imo.

The title font looks a lot like "Merriweather Post Pavillion"

And I will see this.

A friend of mine saw a test screening of this about 6 months ago, and was BLOWN AWAY. However, we was very scared by the focus group session afterward, where the parents in the group were telling the producers that it was too dark, not kiddy enough, etc.

yeah i think this looks great. i like the poster too.

http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/wherethewildthingsareposter-440x640.jpg

guys in big suits is very much in the spirit of "where the wild things are"

I hear they're bringing back the banana splits too. This is a big year for guys in big suits.

this is ridiculous and sorry but the trailer seems to add some kind of 'LOST' bullshit, so no thanks

How does the trailer add Lost bullshit?!

Seems to add a lot running around in the jungle, explosions and what not. The way I remember the book is as some kind of David Lynch thingy for kids, with nothing really happening but with such a powerful eerie atmosphere.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand both David Lynch and Where the Wild Things Are.

My son took one look at the trailer and said - "that's too sad looking". It does look a bit melodramatic.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand both David Lynch and Where the Wild Things Are.

Wow - can you really tell? Thanks for the heads up

Weak comeback.

psyched for this - the teaser shots look yummy

ned trifle's son OTM - i would like to anticipate this, as i like spike jonze and i'll even cop to liking eggers, but that trailer is waaaaay too emo. wtf at the wild things like crying and hugging each other?

monsters look AWEsome tho

They should get David Byrne to turn up in a big suit.

http://www.riskybusinessblog.com/2009/03/where-the-wild-things-are-and-spike-jonze.html

There is a market question here -- will this be a movie for children that happens to encompass hipster elements (in which case there are questions over whether kids, or parents, will go for the more provocative-looking monsters, though it's worth remembering that forty-five years ago the book's drawings stirred similar concerns) or a movie for hipsters that just happens to derive from a children's book (in which case the roughly $75 million the project allegedly cost would make it the most expensive hipster movie ever made).

Judging by the trailer -- and the presence of a certain aforementioned Canadian band -- we suspect the market will lie more with the latter. We just hope there are enough ticket-buying hipsters to go around.

p.s. despite what that post says, the monsters are mostly animatronics, right?

Has anyone outside the U.S. heard of the book, by the way?

yes

Yeah, it's a "beloved classic" in the UK too, at least.

I'd never heard of it until yesterday. Hungry Caterpillar was my jam in '85.

now i'm anticipating a hungry caterpillar movie by michel gondry

i've never heard of this book. but yeah, looks super emo and odd

Very popluar in the UK. One of the few books that I read as a child and my childen enjoy. Paddington and Arthur Ransome books being the others.

The monsters are sad when Max leaves but this film seems to up the angst. Did I see some grown-ups hugging and crying?

I imagine they are going to have to add quite a bit of back story, so I'm interested in that. Monsters look very like the opera ones.
http://karenbeardsley.com/db3/00279/karenbeardsley.com/_uimages/WildTHingsFull0016.JPG

Except more hairy.

I can see this as a sort of Hollywood live-action version of Totoro somehow.

the book is SO GOOD--one of my favorite books of all time--and i dont remember any "inside everybody is a HEART" bullshit in it

OTM. I read this over and over when I was 5 and it's by far the most vivid memory I have of early childhood. Just looking at the drawings these days really throws me back to that time.

lol hipsters

http://www.highsnobiety.com/uploads/pics/lakai_wtwta_2.jpg

i'm hoping that if maurice sendak thinks it's awesome, then it will be awesome.

im willing to believe that the movie is pretty good and visually arresting--the trailer just makes it look like that shitty wide-eyed bullshit naivete that i associate with hxc dave eggers/this american life/arcade fire fans--like the 30 yr old version of emo or whatever--btw im not trying to hipster-bait i just think its crappy to insert that kind of "everyone is scared" stuff into a story that was terrific without relying on overdone kids book tropes

Is it me or...?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ITlXLh4s7JA/SXILxuWjRAI/AAAAAAAAACQ/TUYHmWQh7kw/s1600/Wild-01.jpg
http://www.vinylrecords.ch/R/RO/Roxy_Music/Avalon/roxy-music-avalon-01.jpg

what is that gay music

also it looks like a bummer what kid is gonna wanna see this, not even the kooky loser kids will like it

oops

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ITlXLh4s7JA/SXILxuWjRAI/AAAAAAAAACQ/TUYHmWQh7kw/s1600/Wild-01.jpg
http://www.vinylrecords.ch/R/RO/Roxy_Music/Avalon/roxy-music-avalon-01.jpg

Is James Gandolfini one of the 'wild things'?

what is that gay music

x50

goddamn it just looks like some eternal sunshine garden state bjork video ass shit

i mean, still looks good, but also like shit

u kno?

tbh i wd probably not care as much if the main character didnt have the same name as me

It's Spike Jonze, wtf were you expecting?

the book is only like 12 pages long, guys, if it's going to be movie of course it's going to have more elements. it kind of looks, to me, like maybe the forest where they live is being bulldozed, so I wouldn't be shocked if this as an ecological element to it. but I REALLY like the howling at the end, excellent.

nic cage should be playin the kid, for one

i dont care if they add itchy & scratchy in there i just dont want it to look like the 'army of me' video

i kind of do!

Will love this if Benicio uses his voice mannerisms from "The Usual Suspects." Otherwise we'll see.

maybe the monsters and max have a jam session where they all play hunger strike by temple of the dog every night before they go to sleep--that would be awesome

ok ya i'd be on baord w/that5

The monsters look amazing. It does look way emo but I'm still psyched and can't wait to hear them jam out to TotD.

i kind of do!

Me too, I loved that video.

http://rlv.zcache.com/hipster_dad_bag-p149572796317528619truq_210.jpg

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/alternadad.jpg

these dudez shoulda made a nutcracker movie imo

wtf at the wild things like crying and hugging each other?

um this is in the book

jesus you guys were not kidding w/emo

wtf at the wild things like crying and hugging each other?

um this is in the book

― I'm Into that Japanese Pop-Funk (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:36 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

huh i don't remember that, what's the context in the book?

the book is only like 12 pages long, guys, if it's going to be movie of course it's going to have more elements.

This is a reason to pick another book to adapt.

huh i don't remember that, what's the context in the book?

when Max tells them he's going to leave, they all cry, beg him not to, gnash their teeth, etc.

goddamn it just looks like some eternal sunshine garden state bjork video ass shit

OK, Garden State sure, but when did Bjork video = ass shit?

Besides Medulla, I mean.

WE'LL EAT YOU UP, WE LOVE YOU SO

monster in trailer doesn't sound muppety enough.

i have read this book approximately twenty thousand times in the past month, I can assure you the monsters do cry and gnash their teeth

lolz yeah me too hmm who has young children on this thread I wonderzzz

i believe you guys about the crying and gnashing, but i'm imagining the tone in the book is more "aw man bro don't leave" and not like "my feelings ... i need to sit on a cliff overlooking the ocean and think about this" like it appears in the trailer

tone in the book is basically kids and wild things are really emotional

with the exception of the "INSIDE ALL OF US IS ..." bit, i thought the trailer was A++. you guys is cold.

anyone seen this? brief screen test with what appears to be a different kid:

http://gawker.com/5003144/where-the-wild-things-are-looking-as-strong-as-expected

That test footage has got me stoked. This looks like the kind of film I would have had on a VHS tape when I was 6 and watched it over and over like a million billion times and been able to recite every piece of dialogue and know where every sound effect is. Maybe as a jaded 29yr old it's not gonna have quite the same impact on me, but it makes me wish I was a kid.

How is such a short book made into a movie? Sorry if someone said something upthread. I skimmed.

i dont remember the monsters crying either. i know they say 'hey max dont go, we love you, we'll eat you' but i didnt think they actually cried.

INSIDE ALL OF US IS A TEAR

Yeah, it's a "beloved classic" in the UK too, at least.

― Bill A, Thursday, March 26, 2009 1:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'd never heard of it until yesterday. Hungry Caterpillar was my jam in '85.

― caek, Thursday, March 26, 2009 1:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

caek otm. had barely heard of this till i got to COLLEGE.

also wtf it's been seven years jonze, long wait for a fuckin' children's film.

had to wait for the Arcade Fire to re-record that album track.

Dudes, I'm kind of bummed I have no childhood associations with this book. I still haven't ever read it (which I plan to remedy shortly).

If you have any questions about fucking bible stories, though, I'm your man.

Let me know when they make "In the Night Kitchen" into a movie starring Tony Soprano.

^^^would watch

michael mann's cloudy with a chance of meatballs

^^starring Nicolas Cage

How is such a short book made into a movie? Sorry if someone said something upthread. I skimmed.

Depending on the filmmaker, this might actually be an advantage. I mean, this is the same person who did Adaptation.

also starring Nicolas Cage.

This book gave me the concept of rumpus&I'll be disappointed if it isn't wild. The wild things weren't into friendly buddy types who were into hugging but crazy-eyed playmates who swung through the trees and really did feel like they might have eaten Max if he hadn't impressed w/his sharp outfit and frown. I have defended Eggers here ages ago&I think he could do a good job but I worry it'll have lots of totally unnecessary parenting shit in that will dampen the rumpus.

...wild things weren't into friendly...

i would be a million times more stoked about some live action richard scarry shits

busy town directed by robert altman

shit yeah, richard scarry is a children's book i remember. title not so much, but it involved eskimo pie...

And then they can start on Dr Seuss! Oh, wait...

maybe set the Coraline people on adapting "The Thirteen Clocks"?

how abt just leaving books we loved as books

no can do. money to be made. what, you think screenwriters should be coming up with original ideas and shit?!

"max records" is a pretty cool name. for a store, at least.

Trivia

At the age of 8, led a protest for vegetarian options at his school cafeteria. He is a vegetarian by own choice.

yup, seems like he's perfect for this adaptation.

Weirdly enough, this is one of the record labels in my town.

http://www.maxrecordings.com

Still plenty of my band's seven-inch's to choose from.

Seeing as how movies these days are either "mainstream" or "hipster" Id rather see Where the Wild Things Are as directed by Spike Jones than Michael Bay.

Also everybody in the world has read Where the Wild Things Are when they were kids and everybody in the world has seen Jackass so cult movie = no.

I've never read Where The Wild Things Are nor seen Jackass. This looks pretty good -- all that natural light.

what band are you in PP?

Making feature-length adaptations of cherished children's books is pretty lame, mostly b/c (A) doing so will require a whole bunch of extra narrative to muddle up the inherent simplicity of the genre & hollywood screenwriters, your contributions will inevitably suck; & (B) asshat parents will take their kids to see this, either as an alternative to giving the book, or completely fucking up their impressions from the book itself.

That said, as my childhood memories of the book are safe and secure, I'll gladly smoke a bunch of weed and go see this b/c the trailer makes it look ideal for that.

exhibit A: Jumanji

exhibit B: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

exhibit C: The Cat in the Hat

etc

David Snyder's upcoming "Sammy the Seal" should be quality.

christ what a buncha whiners on this thread

you know who's stoked to see this movie? my parents. also: me.

And me!

Maurice Sendak has been consulted and involved throughout the production and he essentially chose Spike Jonze to direct. It's not gonna be a Grinch or Cat and the Hat desecration.

I saw jumanji one afternoon when I was home with the flu and it was pretty cool

David Lynch should do A Wrinkle in Time.

I've thought about this a lot - more than anything else probably since I watched the trailer yesterday - and I'm pretty sure that the only thing I'm worried about is the Wild Things having human voices. Otherwise I can't remember being this psyched for a film trailer.

Except for maybe 9? have you guys heard of 9? It's going to be intersting too.

i've literally watched that trailer at least 15 times since it's been released. "shitty wide-eyed bullshit naivete" (fuck you) or not, this kicks up feelings of running around in the woods with my brothers when i was a kid and for that i love it. already a stan for this shit.

Trailer for this looked much better than I anticipated back in the 06 but I'm not paying to see anything co-written by a dude I'd like to beat to death with a golf club.

David Lynch should do A Wrinkle in Time.

― one art, please (Trayce), Friday, March 27, 2009 8:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Oh shit, I am imagining this and it is amazing.

a dude I'd like to beat to death with a golf club.

i DO NOT understand this attitude. holy crap he's just a writer, he didn't shit on your porch, or advocate torture, or something.

http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/~rouzie/fall151/rhetriang.gif

maurice sendak is a surly, vain old fuck so if he likes it there must be something of his original vision in it

that said, for me the central thing in the book is how the bedroom slowly turns into the forest and the POV and framing remain exactly constant throughout, so you can flip back and forth and compare pages, and stages of his bedroom's foresthood. this kind of interactivity and engagement and formal conceit won't translate; they will need something just as cool

the LOOK is gorgeous

the trailer is pure SHINING!

Never heard of the book until a few weeks ago, was always more of a Moomins kid. Haven't really rated Jonze's non music video work but the blog http://weloveyouso.com/blog/ makes me kind of keen to see this.

another trailer and a featurette: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/

this looks so great.

it looks great but I do not approve of the Arcade Fire usage

^rollin my damn eyes

can't fucking wait for this, i went into the kids section of barnes & noble the other day and read this book again

New trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33z5tb87HeI&hd=1

so rad

it does look like they kept the visual feel of the books without drowning it in CGI, also I like that song

very much looking forward to this.

when I first saw this trailer I was not feeling very upliftable and was very eyeroll about this at the cinema with my friends, regret it now, esp cos I was super mean about their overall pos feelings towards the idea of indie films for kids

also, weirdly this is only spike jonze's third feature film as director

I really hated the trailer.

maybe the monsters and max have a jam session where they all play hunger strike by temple of the dog every night before they go to sleep--that would be awesome

This wld be AWESOME

has there been any talk of the eggers story in the new yorker, which is based ont the screenplay?

It's an extract from a book isn't it?

yea it is, i couldnt even finish reading it, seemed terrible

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06jonze-t.html?_r=1&hp

Most kids’ movies crackle with one-liners; in “Where the Wild Things Are,” the characters talk over one another and spend a lot of time stumbling over their own words as they try to articulate their feelings. Jonze told me that one of his models for the dialogue was the work of John Cassavetes

!!!

I loved this book as a kid and the trailer looks interesting. I hope it doesn't suck, but I'm going to see it anyway.

Yeah, it looks great! Flood of new ads with lots more footing of the Things hanging out and talking and stuff has me super optimistic and excited. Had mixed feelings about the 1st trailer, due to heavy music problems. It's not just that I dislike the song/band (I do, but that's not my beef). I thought the tune created a bad/misleading vibe -- implied that the movie would play to a theatrical sentimentality that I don't dig and that's at odds with the visuals and core story. Anyway, the new ads paint a much more inviting picture. Movie looks funny, scary, clever and very down to earth in its characterizations and fantasticality -- which is exactly what I'd hope for.

that arcade fire song isn't in the film, as far as I can tell. I think it was pretty effective trailer music. the soundtrack appears to be done by karen o and the kids.

I saw the OST LP the other day. Curious as to what it might sound like.

The costumes and montages will be fine - no one accuses Spike Jones of not being slick - but I only worry about all the parts of the film that deal with human relationships and non-fantasy (But, boy, you could say that about countless new movies).

Soundtrack streaming here:
http://stereogum.com/archives/stream-the-where-the-wild-things-are-soundtrack_092471.html

I never read this as a kid, maybe I did, but I can recall it. I do recall Scary Larry the Very Very Hairy Tarantula, and other critter books. I might go see this. What exactly is it about?

uh i thought the grinch was pretty f-in great actually.

I saw the test screening they did in Burbank, like, almost two years ago. It was a sad, scary movie, but in a great way. They've probably changed it around a bit, but everything I've read makes it sound like all the basic stuff from that cut is still in there. Growing up is so much fun! Maybe not the best movie for kids, but what kind of movies are good for kids?

Went to some kind of event at MoMA yesterday, with Spike Jonze and Maurice Sendak. What I mainly learned is that Maurice really, really, really likes Spike. And that Karen O is very tall.

http://gawker.com/5378387/maurice-sendak--

Robert Altman directing "Busytown" still the best thing I've read all week.

the soundtrack is possibly my favorite album of the year

hope i get to see this on friday

Armond White likes it. That he continues to laud praise at Cat in the Hat makes me question his sanity but from the description he gives ("too consciously self-reflexive for critics (and parents) who wanted Dr. Seuss domesticated with unquestioned product-placement") he clearly saw a version from some alternate dimension.

http://www.nypress.com/article-20471-kids-stuff.html

I see Armond's busy making straw men again.

Straw parents still fuming about the lack of "unquestioned" product placement in The Cat In the Hat.

Well aside from the scene where the action freezes and the Cat plus Universal Studios and the other scene where the action freezes Paris Hilton plugs her existence.

I'll plug her existen...

i have very little desire to see this. looks too asutumnal and indiefied to me. should be more summer-y. the book always seemed summer-y to me.

autumnal ffs

god i hate autumn. it's the "i don't watch television" of seasons.

fuck you, SAD. fuck you and kick you in balls.

it's the "i don't watch television" of seasons.

what?

it's always the season assholes like to make clear that they love so much.

i realize i've aligned myself against 80% of the human race.

yeah pretty much

autumn is like the indie spring.

it totally is!

winter at least is up front and honest.

"i'm cold as fuck and you better get used to it bitches"

dude you live in the SOUTH

actually where i live the weather's really weird and inconsistent

i'm just tired of mother nature jerking me around

if autumn is not watching television, then a norhern winter is you should have seen them when they played small venues

(lol REALLY should have done this under a sock)

summer is OMG GUYS GREY'S ANATOMY IS ONNNNN

gross!

xp to latebloomers disgusting admission

all over the screen * hangs head in shame *

btw HUGE rosetta stone for you sockspotters out there

anyway this movie looks like ass

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/Master_Of_Puppets-Frontal.jpg

This movie looks distinctly unlike ass. I was indifferent to its existence for pretty much forever, but the more promotional clips and photos I see, the more excited I get. Yeah, actual excitement here. I mean, c'mon, dudes: Jonze is batting 1000 so far. A little benefit of the doubt would be nice.

x-post

now your life is out of season

fine with me, don't ever remember reading all 338 words of the book

Jonze is batting 1000 so far.

nah. he's directed two films and one of them was awful

When this first was announced I was very much "ugh yuk this is going to be the worst movie ever blah blah" but man, every new thing that comes out has me super super excited. I always thought the book was very very autumnal, but then I'm an autumn lover and maybe thats projection on my part. But yeah, this looks fantastic.

god i hate autumn. it's the "i don't watch television" of seasons.

this is hilarious!

x-post

idk i remember the book being kind of night time-y. trailers make this look like an indie rom-com with muppets instead zooey deschanel.

when they adapt this children's book then I'll be excited:

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/files/Alexander.jpg

still, i'd rather see this than that mr fox movie

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/where-the-wild-things-are400x300.jpg

http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/where-the-wild-things-are.jpg

http://www.halloweentutu.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/where-the-wild-things-are.jpg

vs

http://lindenhurstmemoriallibrary.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/where_the_wild_things_are_poster2.jpg

http://www.thecinemasource.com/moviesdb/images/news/News_Where_the_Wild_Things_Are.jpg

http://moviesmedia.ign.com/movies/image/article/938/938275/where-the-wild-things-are-20081213081203698_640w.jpg

it's always the season assholes like to make clear that they love so much.

― well pull down my pants and call me swamp thing (latebloomer), Wednesday, October 14, 2009 1:35 PM

yeah pretty much

― a perfect urkel (gbx), Wednesday, October 14, 2009 1:36 PM

autumn is like the indie spring.

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, October 14, 2009 1:38 PM

"rolling enlightening weather discussion thread"

Okay, so the trees have leaves in the book. Still felt damn autumnal to me.

trailers make this look like an indie rom-com with muppets instead zooey deschanel.

same thing amirite

i'll probably end up seeing this and loving it tbh

autumn is like the indie spring.

this is funny even tho i'm an autumn-loving asshole.

but i never thought the book was autumnal. feels very summer-nightish to me. anyway i keep going back and forth between being interested in seeing this and not. i love the book and i like spike jonze, but the project feels sort of misbegotten. otoh, sendak likes it. otooh, who knows how much to trust sendak.

basically i don't want the movie to be precious at all, but i don't see how it can avoid it.

i actually just stepped outside a few minutes ago and the drizzly fall air was actually pretty nice.

you know, maybe i should just leave the house more often.

still, damn you fall. damn you to hell! * shakes fists *

i get the feeling that this is a movie that will be pretty great if i catch it on HBO a year from now at midnight on my parents big screen tv pretty stoned while im home from thanksgiving

so thats my plan for seeing it

putting theaters out of business, that model is.

MPAA files lawsuits against turkey industry

autumn is like the indie spring.

this is funny even tho i'm an autumn-loving asshole.

cosign, all around

putting theaters out of business, that model is.

No. But Netflix will put cable TV out of business. And won't that be exciting!

otooh

this is amazing

about this film, i am looking forward to seeing it but think that it having a soundtrack with words and indie songs rather than panflutes and little string band flourishes is ridiculous

Met a friend yesterday who caught a screening w/ Jonze and Sendak in arrendance; he called it Where the Whiny Things Are.

Hoberman's money shot was "group therapy with the Muppets."

HBO a year from now at midnight on my parents big screen tv pretty stoned

^why max likes everything

hell yes

I'm surprised Morbs can even stomach clicking in this thread.

whyzat, as I have no preconceptions re the book, and like Jonze.

Met a friend yesterday who caught a screening w/ Jonze and Sendak in arrendance; he called it Where the Whiny Things Are.

― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:07 AM

rip whiney

Group therapy with the Muppets sounds really good right about now

i bet he ran to get there xp

lots of indie fear itt

For some reason I thought you hated Jonze.

(xxpost)

I don't like the last 20 mins of Adaptation; loved BJM, many of the videos.

Dave Eggers, otoh...

Half of these reviews are saying it's too emo but I'm thinking if I was a kid and an emo adaptation of WTWTA came out I would probably be real excited about it. I think the main thing these reviewers are forgetting is that kids are emo quite alot of the time! Waiting for the first review that suggests the monsters be put on medication just like we do with kids these days.

The book isn't very emo at all except in the most unspoken oblique way

It's pretty "fuck you" a lot of the time IIRC

the essence of emo is fuck you imho

ya I was gonna say!

yeah I see what you mean but the "group therapy" comment and the few stills I've seen give me the impression that it's emo in the mushy, weepy sense.. who knows tho

emo can be mushy and weepy and still have plenty of fuck you though. perhaps you mean sentimental?

just forget i ever said anything.

Tracer, you should see the documentary interview with Sendak they showed at MoMa last week.

saw a preview last week: worst movie ever.

I liked the part in that NYT article where Jonze talked about how the studio was getting all up in his business but then there was a changeover at the top and they basically forgot all about his project. when they finally got around to noticing he was making a movie they were finished with it

makes me think this might be pretty good. trailer looks great imo. all those shots of the sun flaring on the horizon

It looks cool but the tone is crushingly dull and kvetchy and almost seems to actively hate its source material by the end.

the kvetchy/whiny thing that lots of people have mentioned reaffirms that i don't want to see this. the wild things should not be gloomy ffs.

between this and the fantastic mr fox this is one great season for emo kidults everywhere

NYT review got me excited about this today

Where the Indie Boners Are

rmde

Listening to the soundtrack right now. I can't take Karen O seriously every since I first saw her in a No Wave doc. where she uses the word Like 200.000.000 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhAK2flDdXA

I can't even watch it again. How is she so popular? Does she still talk like a sorority girl?

must be hard work being so much better than everyone else, mr. sanders

Did you watch the video? You have to admit it's funny?

I speak with a southern draw btw.

a drawl so thick it's missing the 'l'

if you catch me drunk enough Yes Sr

I don't know how anyone can take Jacob Sanders seriously, ever since that one post where he forgot to add a letter to the end of 'drawl'. I mean, does he still type like an idiot?

Must remember not to drink mimosas before 2 and start posting on ilx

zingy Fridays are almost always awesome ^_^

You got me.

I just don't get the thought process of "boy she does horrible interviews, that must mean she can never make good music ever".

Well I don't like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs music either or this soundtrack. Maybe it does have something to do with living in New York and knowing so many girls who were like her when she stated out. I can't help but hear that in the music.

But that's not what this thread is about, sorry to derail the topic. I just broke my promise of only talking about music I like here, and not talking shit about music I dislike.

I saw this and Paranormal Activity back to back and this was def. more intense.

(It helped that Activity was completely boring, but still.)

this was terrible.

nice images but way too much moping.

I was gonna see another movie with a friend but she had to postpone it to next thursday at the last minute so I saw this instead. BIG MISTAKE.

I was hoping it would maybe win me over.

Simon is correct that it is intense, in the way an unpleasant Thanksgiving with your relatives is.

But sadly, no delicious food.

It looks cool but the tone is crushingly dull and kvetchy and almost seems to actively hate its source material by the end.

― Brio, Friday, October 16, 2009 4:52 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

otm x 1000

I finally read that NYT Mag profile of Jonze, and don't understand how anyone can work for a Hollywood studio. Apparently Malkovich only got made cuz there was too much management turmoil going on to stop it.

Simon is correct that it is intense, in the way an unpleasant Thanksgiving with your relatives is

Given the inspiration for the book this is sort of an impressively meta-faithful achievement.

I finally read that NYT Mag profile of Jonze, and don't understand how anyone can work for a Hollywood studio.

I too often wonder what compels a man to accept piles of cash, cocaine, and young stuff in return for directing a big-budget studio film for which he will be fawned over by middlebrow journalists. It is a mystery.

Given the inspiration for the book this is sort of an impressively meta-faithful achievement.

The problem is that the book is fun (whatever the inspiration for it was) and the movie almost makes a point of not being fun. there's no real exuberance or catharsis. If this had been based on different book that might not be a problem, but this is supposed to Where the Wild Things Are, not fucking Garden State.

oh yeah the soundtrack is total indie schmindie hell as you might expect

well, Sendak told Jonze "make it personal," SJ says. xp

we must have been reading different books, dude

yeah i forgot about the part in the book where the monsters were sitting off in a corner wondering why nobody likes them.

i forgot the part of feature-length movies where they were five minutes long

the problem isn't that they embellished and expanded the book it's that the movie is a fucking drag to sit through

hoberman's pan OTM

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-10-13/film/spike-jonze-can-t-quite-get-spirit-of-wild-things-on-screen/

i don't want to see this at all, btw, but i really want to look at it... so gorgeous

didnt read the link but i'm fine with "it was a drag, this is why"; i just probably don't buy that the interpretation they chose to go with (didn't see the movie yet!) was empirically wrong xp

I saw it tonight with no baggage (never read the book/novella/short story/paragraph/flash fiction/whatever it is, don't really care who is on the soundtrack), loved it. I just read a review on New Republic talking about how Jonze nailed the kid mentality of switching wildly back and forth between joy and anger, fun and total fucking sadness, mood swings, and I pretty much agree.

x-post

fair enough. i'll acknowledge that it's at least a genuine interpretation on the part of the filmmakers, and that they're not obligated to faithfully recapture the book. i just didn't like what they did with it. they emphasized elements that don't hold any aesthetic or thematic appeal for me.

i don't want to see this at all, btw, but i really want to look at it... so gorgeous

it's a good-looking film and there are some inventive visual gags, for sure.

I saw it tonight with no baggage

i envy you!

read the damn book tho imo

lol npr
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/10/where_the_wild_things_are_the.html

it's almost incomprehensible to me that there are people who grew up in america after 1963 and haven't read this book. borders on child abuse imo and i want to know what obama plans to do about it.

haha and i was telling jordan the other day that this kid looks just like panda bear xp

ws, btw

http://www.coolhunting.com/images/wildthings-joy-1.jpg

does this make me a furry?

lol i have images off and the first line of that post troubled me for a minute

i grew up in america after 1963 and didn't know about the book until well into adulthood. some people grow up in households w/o a lot of books : \

i never owned the book but i remember quite fondly reading it in school many times.

the time i would have most likely encountered it was the early 70s, i think it attained its all-time status until a bit later, i dunno

reread the book tonight for the first time since i was like 9 or something and damn, it's one damn beautiful book. bill watterson owes all sorts of debt to sendak: the expression on max's face in that last panel of him sailing the boat back home is very calvinesque.

This was apparently almost entirely filmed in australia, which I only just found out.

Hour or 2 north of me in burnt out bushland, and stuff.

i plan on annoying everyone and taking my 3.5 year old to this tomorrow because he is obsessed with seeing it and has seen the trailer 1000000 times (and he's actually pretty good at movie theaters). it can't be any more damaging than the video of the baby stroller falling in front of the train which I showed him this morning in a moment of not thinking.

it should be fine for most kids. it might bum 'em out, but it probably won't scare 'em.

Where the Wild Things Are went a little nuts this weekend at the box office, raking in $32.5 million, according to studio estimates from Nielsen EDI.

The film, an adaptation of the 1963 picture book by Maurice Sendak, beat analysts' expectations by about $2 million.

The debut marks the biggest for Spike Jonze, a director known for his off-kilter films (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation).

Wild also marked the second successful adaptation of a children's book in recent weeks. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs crossed the $100 million mark this week.

"I can't imagine too many people who could do what Spike did," says Dan Fellman of Warner Bros., which distributed Wild Things. "He had always felt deeply about the book, and he delivered a movie that evokes those same feelings."

Jonze tugged those emotions with his unorthodox filmmaking, a style that had Warner Bros. nervous that the film would flop. Jonze used oversized costumes to create the Wild Things. He picked a child with no acting experience to shoulder the bulk of the $80 million flick. The movie even offered midnight screenings — unheard of for a children's film.

The strategy paid dividends, particularly with young moviegoers and women, who made up 55% of the audience. Audiences 25 and younger gave the film an A-, according to CinemaScore.

"I don't like to over-explain something, especially from your childhood," Jonze said shortly before the film opened. "It just touched me. I read it over and over. All I cared about was getting that same tone."

it's almost incomprehensible to me that there are people who grew up in america after 1963 and haven't read this book. borders on child abuse imo and i want to know what obama plans to do about it.

While you guys were reading Where the Wild Things Are, I was reading

http://i36.tinypic.com/f1a543.jpg
and
http://i33.tinypic.com/2j2yfsw.jpg

seriously.

wow, pleased and surprised at the big sales figures. i saw this in an almost empty theatre yesterday afternoon.

a beautiful movie, with wonderful performances by all the Wild Things (esp Gandolfini and the woman who played Judith), Keener, and the kid. IE, by basically everybody. thought it was startling, incisive, original and gorgeously shot. however however - i wasn't moved. i don't know why. i was watching this film i liked a lot, but my heart didn't stir once.

i think i want to watch it again one morning, a grey 5am, after a long hard night, from under my covers.

of my 5 companions, 3 wept at the movie (and loved it, loved it), and they're not particularly emo.

i thought the soundtrack (yes, indie schmindie) was of a suitable tone for the film but just not that great.

i think that comparisons to the book are mostly irrelevant; like the LOTR films, i try to get over myself and judge this film on its own merits.

finally, this def isn't a kids' movie, even if the filmmakers think so. it seems dreadfully dull for most children, but more importantly, seems less about HEY KIDS THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A KID and more about the way the challenges and unknowables and sorrows of 20- and 30-somethings are not that dissimilar from the hard mysteries of being 9. and that idea, presented this artfully, is actually kinda extraordinary.

"Where the Bipolar Things Are"

nice images but way too much moping.

yeah pretty much

this movie was depressing

more about the way the challenges and unknowables and sorrows of 20- and 30-somethings are not that dissimilar from the hard mysteries of being 9

Not that I want to stir the hornets nest but I cant help thinking that'd be the Eggers influence, considering his unusual teen/early adult years.

(I quite think I want to see this film btw)

the challenges and unknowables and sorrows of 20- and 30-somethings

this sounds like a sequel to the "quiddities and agonies of the ruling class" thread

I really liked this film.

I guess to me the bit that explains why the monsters were so neurotic was the kid's story about the vampire with no teeth -- the filmmakers are saying that when kids make up a story real life will always leak into it

but jeez a "kids' movie" where even in your fantasies everyone is fighting and dealing with abandonment issues

not very pleasant to watch

partly redeemed by that scene of the dog walking along the sand dune :)

Excellent casting.

Excellent costuming/puppetry

Excellent production design

All the acting was extraordinary, not least Max Record's easy, effortlessly plausible performance as a kid.

Avoided too closely modeling the film on the quiet, almost zen beauty of Sendak's sparse prose over evocative imagery and opted not for a silent-movie, visuals over narration or dialogue style, but for a Beckett-y, Pinteresque-y exploration of what is eating at Max, what's eating at us all. That the Wild Things fight and deal with abandonment is natural; they are dealing with the demons in Max's head and the demons aren't terribly coherent or well organized. The almost Jungian aspects of the various characters was well-handled - neither too heavy nor too opaque.

I have no problem with the way Jones and Eggers have updated what is undoubtedly a true classic to reflect the kinds of childhoods that have become more prevalent since the book was published and thought they did an excellent job with what is essentially a riff on the book rather than a real adaptation.

The main thing I have been hoping for from this movie is a scene where Max's room slowly turns into the forest, cos that is the best part of the book by far. Did that make it in?

no!

Absolutely mystified by how anyone could like this movie in the slightest.

lotsa closet furries on ilx.

i didn't go see this when maria and rufus and cyrus went to see it the other day. maria liked it. she said it was "weird" and "depressing". rufus liked it a lot, but he did admit that it was depressing. cyrus loved it and said it was beautiful and that he wanted to see it again. both rufus and cyrus cried during the movie. (rufus is six and cyrus is four.)

i do kinda want to see it now just to see what the deal is for myself.

Avoided too closely modeling the film on the quiet, almost zen beauty of Sendak's sparse prose over evocative imagery and opted not for a silent-movie, visuals over narration or dialogue style, but for a Beckett-y, Pinteresque-y exploration of what is eating at Max, what's eating at us all.

to me that's not a positive choice and I probably would have enjoyed a more silent version a lot more

but yeah that's an accurate assessment of where they went with it

If you cut out all the dialogue, it would be 20 minutes long and really fantastic. Even if you just wore headphones and listened to good music, it might be OK as is. The Beckett/Pinter via Eggers script is just awful. It's also really hard to disconnect Gandolfini's voice from Tony Soprano's in this, since the Wild Thing he plays is a big brawny bipolar thug-muppet.

I had never read the book until about three hours before I went to see the movie.

I'm not going to say that I didn't like the movie, because there was a lot conspiring against a pleasant experience: I was drunk very tired and surrounded by chair-kicking kids with poor movie theater skills and in a weird theater that did not get sufficiently dark and that had uncomfortable seats. I will say that the movie really annoyed me, though. I thought Max the kid was insufferable. I actively disliked the monsters, most of whom were just jerks. I recognized the voices, which I really hate. I wanted to wash that filthy wolf suit. Although I am a disgusting autumn-lover, something about the environment of the movie felt weird and wrong to me.

Despite all of that, I cried at the end, and will probably give it another chance and watch it when I'm sober when it comes out on DVD.

I thought Max the kid was insufferable.

He's a hurt, lonely, imaginative but inexperienced and bewildered boy. Pain-in-the-ass? Sure, but insufferable?

Does Carol not also represent his father in some aspect, here? The scene where Max is in KW's belly and Carol asks if he (Carol) is really as bad as 'she' says he is? I got a definite hint at abuse, either real or levelled by Max's mom against his dad. Plus the whole owner of the whole world thing on the globe and on Carol's shoulders...

Yes, I found it difficult to tolerate Max and struggled to feel particularly empathetic towards him as a main character in a movie.

btw I heard some great secondhand Gandolfini drunk & overeating on the set (in a different movie) stories last week.

Yes, I found it difficult to tolerate Max and struggled to feel particularly empathetic towards him as a main character in a movie.

He's a shit but he kind of reminds me of my younger brother and I have always loved him, so...

most 9-year-old boys are shits (ducks)

otm

yeah that is non controversial IMO

Not exciting enough for 20 month old children.

I think there almost wasn't enough of a fear element -- there was never a moment when my [20-month-old] was crying. He was totally into the scenes when they're throwing stuff at each other, because that's what he's accustomed to from the book."

Because he's a 20 month old child, maybe?

The main thing I have been hoping for from this movie is a scene where Max's room slowly turns into the forest, cos that is the best part of the book by far. Did that make it in?

― Adam Bruneau, Monday, October 19, 2009 6:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no!

― sean gramophone, Monday, October 19, 2009 6:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^

wha seriously?? how is this possible.

cuz the filmmakers are poopyheads

dave eggers should be hung drawn and quartered

that's just bizarre - it's the entire visual framing device of the book, the way the vines and leaves start slowly.. creeping in.. and taking over

jonze said in an interview that the room-turning-into-forest thing is the only thing sendak was disappointed about--like hed call them every couple weeks while they were filming to be like "hey are you sure you want to do it like that???"

I think there almost wasn't enough of a fear element -- there was never a moment when my [20-month-old] was crying.

o hai sadist dad

everything about this movie was great, except for the lack of story and the lack of script and the lack of any kind of tension or dramatic rooting interest and the cutifying mcsweenifying presence of david fucking eggers. all my favorite bits were lifted straight from (sorry, 'homages to') the films jonze watched in preparation: ratcatcher, black stallion, spirit of the beehive, we love you so, 400 blows.

the only parts of the movie that worked for me were the (a) snowball fight (b) dirtclod fight (c) wild rumpus (d) carol's secret garden. other than that i thought it overlong, talky, bleh...

From the way you people are complaining, I'm expecting to see Dave Eggers walk across the screen and start reading from McSweeney's.

there were points where that is honestly what felt like what was happening.

tony soprano in monster costume reads from mcsweeney's

how can this not be good

Man I can't believe the room-turning-into-forest bit is not in there. I would forgive any and all amount of mopey monsters if they had included that. It's a fucking third of the book!

October 15th, 2009
Where the Wild Things Are
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Into the wild
Melora Koepke

Max, King of all the Wild Things, stares into their yellow eyes and sets off the wild rumpus

Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are will change your life and help you naturally, temporarily regress in the process

I've always thought it was significant that Maurice Sendak called his book Where the Wild Things Are, and not What the Wild Things Do. In a world where the emphasis, even for kids, is so often on human striving and achieving, this grammatical precision is both syntactical and philosophical: When Max goes off into the forest, it is an invitation to play in the deepest sense. Be where the wild things are. Be a wild thing yourself. Be a kid. Just be.

Spike Jonze's long-in-the-works cinematic adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are has a similar phenomenology. So much money is invested into everything related to "Big Film" in these lean times that a pseudo-science has been built up around everything that movies might be able to do for the gigantic industry that makes them, invests in them and watches them. What kind of box-office can this movie "do"? What will it "do" for the audience? How will it "do" in awards season?

Jonze, however, has made a film that simply is - and in that way, is also an exhortation to us to lay aside all the systems we employ to judge and observe and frame and situate and think about works of art, and to let ourselves travel fully, as Max does, across the wild sea on a tiny sailboat to a place that exists utterly in and of and for itself.

Being and nothingness

It's tough enough to create Wild Things. Jonze ended up inventing a complicated process that involved shooting the voice actors actually moving around, with Jonze or Catherine Keener (who plays Max's mom) playing
Max (played on-camera by newcomer Max Records). Then, they shot the larger-than-life-sized Wild Things, and took the expressions and facial movements of the voice actors and bestialized them, then CGIed their facial features and movements on the Wild Things' faces in post-production.

All this to render for the screen (and IMAX) a book drawn in pen-and-ink that has about a dozen sentences in it, total.

For Jonze, the intention was to always "trying to be true to Maurice's work."

"When his book when it came out [in 1963] it was attacked by librarians and child psychologists and Better Homes and Gardens-type magazines, because wasn't a traditional children's book," he says. "It showed this boy being wild, acting out, yelling at his mom, and his mom, instead of calming him down and helping him through his emotions, his mom reacts too... But it was truthful and kids started to recognize that, and it became popular because the kids loved it, and 40 years later, it's a classic... I think the movie is coming from the same tension. I just wanted to be truthful and not condescend to kids."

Certainly, if you're Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) it must have seemed like a dream project: After taking some time off after the success of your first two features, you move to San Francisco in the midst of an impending marital breakup, shack up with Dave Eggers and collaborate for a year on an existential adaptation of a beloved, possibly the most beloved, of all children's books. You assemble a crack crew and an amazing cast - Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose - to conceive and build and voice and play off your Wild Things, and then you move to Melbourne to spend (an estimated) $90-million of someone else's money to film your idea.

For Jonze, and for his adherents and admirers, it's a rare treat. But maybe it's not so awesome if you're a studio exec trying to figure out what to do with this cipher of a movie about an anonymous little kid and a bunch of live-action seven-foot-tall puppets cavorting in the dunes and cliffs and eucalyptus forests of South Australia.

When you go out in the woods today

After a screening in Los Angeles last week, the question on the lips of many critics and commentators (a pedestrian-minded bunch, mostly) was: Who is this for?

In mid-2008, the blogs were buzzing with rumours of children bursting into tears and running out of early focus screenings. While these are likely greatly exaggerated, there's no denying that the subject matter is intense - the film can either be merely a "wild rumpus" extraordinaire (in Sendak's parlance) or a meditation on life, loss, love, breakups, responsibility, reality, magic and imagination, depending on how you take it. It's rough-and-tumble in a kid way, but also deals with the encroaching sadness and tensions a kid can feel in the world of adults.

Still, Jonze insists that Where the Wild Things Are is "for anyone and everyone."

"We wrote it from the point of view of trying to make a movie about what it feels like to be nine years old, so we didn't overthink it," he says. "We just kind of wrote our first couple of drafts very intuitively, trying to write it from that place that kids take stuff from... I guess the idea was that in the same way a kid was observing the world and all the weird adults and all the things we care about, don't care about or get upset about, they don't understand the specifics of it, but they understand the feeling behind it."

Lance Acord, Jonze's long-time cinematographer, says they began with a decision not to shoot in jungles or typical forests, or anywhere one might expect Wild Things to be, and thus ended up eliminating the entire colour spectrum of foliage and lush, tame nature by "basically getting rid of the colour green entirely."

To their landscape of blues, yellows and greys, in which the forests are burnt out and the oceans are stormy and the sands are deep enough to drown in, they added unexpected visual and narrative elements, notably an extended rumpus sequence that involves a dirt-clod fight and a lot of destruction of property, as well as two pet owls and a giant poodle.

For some who remember the Wild Things and their habitats as a live part of their own childhood, this change in location might seem jarring. Whereas Sendak had the jungles growing inside Max's room, Jonze has constructed an elaborate seaward journey so that Max can get himself to where the Wild Things are, which is, frankly, a bit Life of Pi.

I can't resist asking Jonze why, in his version, the forest doesn't grow up around Max's room, but rather lies outside the safety zone.

"I loved that part of the book; it was something as a kid I always loved - those drawings and flipping back and forth between those four pages, and seeing the bedposts growing into trees and the roof growing vines. But as we started writing it didn't seem to make sense anymore. In the context of what we had written up to that point about Max and his home life, it got to a point where it didn't make sense to have that kind of fantastical things. It doesn't feel true - what feels true is running away."

http://www.hour.ca/film/film.aspx?iIDArticle=18485

oh fuck i didn't mean to paste the whole thing - just the last paragraph.

"it got to a point where it didn't make sense to have that kind of fantastical things. It doesn't feel true - what feels true is running away."

i just don't get this. it was more true 30 years ago? i don't get his point. maybe i just don't understand the nu-genius. i mean he WAS running away in the book too. in his mind.

so, in the movie does he ACTUALLY run away and get in a real boat? cuz if that part is his imagination too, what the hell difference does it make whether he starts his journey in his room or not?

or did they just want to take ALL the fun out of the book?

maybe they secretly hate this book.

it's also such a beautifully written line:

"That very night in Max's room a forest grew and grew - and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around..."

if you can say, "meh, we can do better" to that image maybe you shouldn't be adapting a classic.

sofia coppola better leave harold and his purple crayon the hell alone!

someone has to bring to life the idea of Harold angrily scribbling on a wall while "Dumb Waiters" plays in the background

harold draws a hotel room and sits on the bed for two days and listens to the hurting by tears for fears and broods.

it's worse, he's listening to tv on the radio

When Max goes off into the forest, it is an invitation to play in the deepest sense.

hmm... but max doesn't go off into the forest!

uh guys honestly this is all a bit "but the orcs can't CROSS rivers without the benediction of a wizard!"

I have no opinion on WTWTA, I just like the idea of gently emo Harold and his purple crayon (which would be a metaphor for the frustration of puberty)

ps Tom Bombadil isn't in Where the Wild Things Are either.

Thank Christ! Tom Bombadil is a dirty hippy!

Anyway cutting unneccessary shit out of a 1,000 pages is a bit different than cutting the central image out of 100 words.

i agree with that. i think that the image of a pissed-off kid sinking deeper and deeper into some sort of psychic malaise visualized by the transformation of his bedroom walls into a really gnarly forest has a lot (lot, lot) more story appeal than the ken-loachish/truffautian running down the street in fear that jonze used.

right. i even agree! but that's a very different criticism than you left out the coolest part of the book!

no it isn't

in fact one might say it's the exact same criticism

(again, haven't seen the movie yet and no real prejudgment other than thinking that the trailers looked disappointing after reading everyone's raves about them)

feel very ambivalent about this pitchure

"i think that the image...has a lot (lot, lot) more story appeal than the [image] that jonze used" sounds a lot like "[jonze] left out the coolest part of the book"

imo

if we're gonna be close readers and all

this was like the opposite of what pixar does which is make kids movies that appeal to adults, only it's a (hipster/kidult) adult movie that appeals to kids, i guess? the monsters were cool looking, i really like catherine o'hara as judith. there were moments of max in full-on beast mode that were genuinely like at a damn time machine of me or my brother as kids.

the task of building a story based on such a sparse text is pretty unenviable, i just wish a more substantive story was built.

re: room not turning to jungle like the book do

jonze going for something more 'true' seems like a bad look in a movie about a kid chillin with sad bighead monsters.

probably won't see this, my wife has a visceral reaction against it and it sounds like it has problems (can't believe they left out the room-turns-into-a-forest visual trick, that's ridiculous. as someone else pointed out, its a third of the book!)

This is not a film of the book. That would be very, very short indeed.

just wait 'til MY film version of "In The Night Kitchen" comes out. Jonz'll be quakin' in his keds, I tell ya.

unless it was like koyannisqatsi style and its about an hour and a half of room-jungle transformation followed by rumpus time and goodbye

xpost

I just read somewhere that the Wild Ones were based on Sendak's aunts and uncles.

This movie maybe touched me because it not only invoked childhood but specifically mine wrt divorce.

"i think that the image...has a lot (lot, lot) more story appeal than the (image) that jonze used" sounds a lot like "(jonze) left out the coolest part of the book"

uh what? one of these criticisms is over adherence to the original text, the other is not.

Film criticism based on adherence to original text leaves me stone cold these days. Different media, blah, blah.

I don't generally care about adherence to text either but in this case it was a really striking and distracting choice for Jonze to make... like a lot of this movie, it made me think more about Jonez and his choices than the kid or the story.

I found it engaging enough that I just went with it.

I haven't seen it yet so tbh I just want to make more puerile jokes about Harold and his "purple crayon"

That versus the giant tickle feather.

my girlfriend was doing some anticipatory hatin' on this film, based on the fairly reasonable dislike of dave eggers and 30something hipster nostalgia, but i was cautioning restraint, hoping the film could be pretty good.

but everything i've now read/seen/heard seems to confirm her worst fears. j. hoberman says that after a visually exciting first 20-odd minutes, it descends into an endless "muppet therapy session."

by the way the eggers-penned "away we go" was probably the most astonishingly bad film i've seen in the theater in decades. but i was still hoping to be able to cut him some slack. i suppose i'll catch up with this on video and see if i can stomach it after the first reel.

i don't have any particularly heartrending memories of this book that would cause me to go gaga in anticipation or dread of this film, but i did dress up as max one halloween ca. 1983.

fwiw its much better than 'away we go' and thats not meant to be damning with faint praise (altho it is def in spite of eggers, not bc of some marked improvement in his being able to write adult characters who are not 12)

That versus the giant tickle feather.

oh god I had blocked all memory of that out of my mind

away we go was so fuckin bad

i kinda want to see that one too. just cuz. i still want to see gigli too actually.

...Did anyone here actually see this movie? I definitely connected with it -- but I have a weakness for these sorts of kids films that try to explore the anger and darkness of childhood in a personal way or from their POV.

Yeah, the trappings are very indie -- having a constant blasting Karen O. soundtrack will do that -- but I really dug the kid's performance and the film's overall tone. Catherine Keener was really great, too, as was the entire voice acting cast.

Glad it had a big opening weekend, can't see a huge repeat audience for it. In some ways, strangely less accessible than Jonze's last two movies, as there isn't a ton of plot.

I must say I can't believe there's so much fuss in this thread about one choice that was different from the book. Yes, I liked the book too when I was a kid. I thought the way it was done in the film was pretty effective, with Max running away and a long transition of him taking a boat over the sea.

explore the anger and darkness of childhood in a personal way or from their POV.

maybe that is what the movie aimed to do, but i really wasn't convinced by the darkness/anger. the kid's acting was as good as can be expected, but he honestly just seemed like a little shit -- the motivations for his behavior were implied to exist offscreen, never explored, and the collapse of his fort and his mother's boyfriend weren't sufficient, per se, except, err, as triggers for his tantrums. moreover, the monster chats he engaged in about his upset (and loneliness? where was that from?) seemed more like overarticulated children-of-therapist dialogue than true-to-life.

if i want to see anger and confusion of childhood, i'll take ratcatcher, black stallion, nobody knows, treeless mountain, spirit of the beehive, 400 blows, or my life as a dog any day -- all films Jonze watched in prep. for Wild Things.

if i want to see anger and confusion of childhood, i'll take ratcatcher, black stallion, nobody knows, treeless mountain, spirit of the beehive, 400 blows, or my life as a dog any day -- all films Jonze watched in prep. for Wild Things.

OTM (especially if you toss in "E.T." and "Wizard of Oz"). Still liked this one fine, but it's a far cry from those other flicks (actually, haven't seen the two Asian ones).

The thing is -- some of those films mentioned is that, while they may be extremely effective, they're also not terribly relatable, with often really amplified dark, bleak "realistic" situations. But looking to those kinds of movies for childhood angst is a bit like watching Dancer in the Dark for a treatise on the American court system and capital punishment. Unless you had a legitimately dramatic terrible/abusive/poor upbringing to which I say... sorry!

Not that they're bad films at all, but it's not really the same vibe I look for in films like WTWTA, not would I expect this movie to be in same category as Nobody Knows, if you see what I'm saying. A fantasy can convey a more particular truth. The pure emotion of the star in this did work for me, though I totally understand it not working for other viewers (even the other three people I saw this movie with). I actually liked that the kid's problems weren't too clearly defined, where his father was or how deep his sibling relationship was - leaving some blanks works for a performance/story like this, I believe.

the kid's acting was as good as can be expected, but he honestly just seemed like a little shit -- the motivations for his behavior were implied to exist offscreen, never explored

The kid blew me away--the look on his face after Keener drops him on the floor!!

I was way more annoyed by the ~implied~ motivations of the monsters. I was willing to ride for them as psychologically complex but it was hard to do without any sense of what was driving their emo! I kept waiting for the Easy Kid Lesson allegory to pop up, but it stayed pretty ambiguous. After it was over my gf asked me "is something wrong?"

"That shit was real sad!"

the kid was fine. the monsters are what annoyed me. too much ego and not enough id with these monsters.

I was way more annoyed by the ~implied~ motivations of the monsters. I was willing to ride for them as psychologically complex but it was hard to do without any sense of what was driving their emo!

OTM

like, i can buy them as standing in for various aspects of a troubled kid's psyche, if they had actually been portrayed that way. but the monsters were portrayed essentially as neurotic adults. that was irritating.

basically the movie was lost for me once those monsters opened their mouths. up until then it was promising!

:O

monsters should be all id!

seriously! this movie is such a tragedy.

I don't think I'm seeing this movie unless, ten or so years from now, a kid I've made, that came out of me, asks to rent it.

well erm, the kid doesn't know what's driving his troubles, and they're the kid's invention, so why should they have any answers?

Somebody way upthread said something about how the movie makes the challenges of adulthood seem as mysterious and difficult and opaque as the challenges of childhood and I like that reading but don't really buy it

ha xp

well erm, the kid doesn't know what's driving his troubles, and they're the kid's invention, so why should they have any answers?

ha this is why I quit going to therapy, eh?

monsters should be all id!

yeah this is pretty much true. as soon as i heard they were all regretful and sad i was quite alarmed.

was there an away we go thread? not sure i can stomach thinking much about it. my girlfriend and i wanted to walk out on it within 30 minutes but somehow politeness got the better of us and we stayed. amazingly the film just got worse and worse, like a slow (very slow) motion train wreck.

I'll still take Away We Go over Revolutionary fuckin' Road.

haven't seen R.R., but hard to imagine it being worse than A.W.G. not that i'm inclined to find out. sam mendes is kind of a chump.

away we go thread
A thread for free-floating hatred of "Away We Go" a.k.a. the Dave Eggers movie

oh shoot, didn't realize it automatically inserts the title in from the ILX url there. neat.

to respond to you upthread, hoos/nhex:

no matter how good an actor the kid is (and i'm not convinced the kid wasn't just "cute"), the fact of his sketchily-drawn character was disappointing and could have easily been remedied. 'relatable' as i think you mean it is a function of careful and precise characterization, and since there was so little of this, i'm not all that convinced there was much 'relatability' without outright projection. (Nor, for that matter, am I convinced that 'relatable' is a desirable trait of a protagonist.) the universal appeal of the book's max -- a tantruming chubby black-haired kid who engages in a bit of id-driven fantasy after driving nails into the wall -- comes from the specificity of his depiction, whereas for me the 'unrelatability' of the movie's max -- an inexplicably volatile suburban white 'everyboy' who engages in a murky, ill-defined fantasy with a bunch of superego-driven goons.

(there was a clause at the end of that mess above, but i accidentally deleted it. i kind of like it without the end)

from the local free weekly here:

"At its lowest point, the film feels like something made to be watched in a room whose walls are made of a rare record collection: someplace delicate and precious, but often pretentious."

as a delicate and pretentious record collector i should be offended, but i like this line anyway.

the movie and it's problems summed up in one pic:

http://auteursnotebook.s3.amazonaws.com/Individual%20images/wild-things-1.jpg

yah in the NYer review it says that one of the monsters says to max when he becomes king is “Will you keep out all the sadness?” which sounds like the worst

not to belabor the obvious, but if that sounds like the kind of thing that will bother you - don't see this

remy: i completely see this from a different pov. i didn't think Max was murkily defined at all, the various bits they gave us (missing father, deteriorating relationship with sister and mother, lack of friends and antisocial loneliness, fear and hostility towards older children and his mother's boyfriend, among others) were plenty for me for me to go on. are you honestly saying the book's Max is more developed than the film's? i mean even your description - "inexplicably volatile suburban white 'everyboy'" - i find this remarkably cynical, especially "everyboy".

1) the father isn't missing. in fact, claire talks to her friend (via phone) about how she and max are planning to visit him on the weekend. divorce, probably. big whoop! more common than not! anyway, there's nothing /in/ the film about this, just a loose allusion to a preterit situation. no drama is established here. there exists the possibility for later drama (squandered), but no tension whatsoever.

2) deteriorating relationship with mother and sister? max gets mad at claire, but mostly because he's a little turd who writes checks his skillz can't cash, and his igloo defaults on the principle. regular old day in kid-land. not a deteriorating relationship; just growing up. max is pissed at his mom for dating, i guess we're supposed to assume, but that line of emotion isn't explored in any way. only gestured at, in a non-plotty way. set-dressing. again, zilch as dramatic tension goes. zip, zero.

3) fear and hostility of older children is, i assume, supposed to be because claire is getting older and max feels sour-grapey about his snowball war. but this is never really shown.

4) friends not shown on screen =/ lack of friends. if we'd felt (been told, given direct evidence) that max wanted friends, was trying for friends, was failing at friends... then i might have cared. as it was, it told me nothing. again, no dramatic tension. no drama, period.

'suburban white everyboy' = max does roughly what any young person would do in any of his circumstances. with the exception of elevating the conflict beyond what is dramatically necessary. there's no tension or conflict or characterization built in the film's first ten minutes that necessitates, cultivates, or illucidates his tantrum: some good things happen, some bad things happen, and max disproportionately WIGS THE FUCK OUT. even as the volatility of childhood is concerned (and conveyed cinematically), there's gotta be some driving force for action on the scale of his explosion. otherwise it's unearned. the unstructured mess 'having a sad day, having an angry day, having an okay day, having a .... totally lacks dramaturgical construct. if eggers/jonze wanted to show the emotional messiness of childhood, i am certain they could have done it without being so messy themselves.

max is pissed at his mom for dating, i guess we're supposed to assume, but that line of emotion isn't explored in any way. only gestured at, in a non-plotty way

there's no tension or conflict or characterization built in the film's first ten minutes that necessitates, cultivates, or illucidates his tantrum: some good things happen, some bad things happen, and max disproportionately

wow, you def did not "get" this film. which is not to say that i "got" the whole thing, but i am certain that the lack of on-the-nose direct cause-and-effect plotting is some of what most drew Jonze (and Sendak!) to this script - to me it's a much much much better telling of the sort of EMOTIONAL CONFUSION of life (not just for 9yr olds!) than a bunch of the other kids movies listed upthread.

the "disproportionality" is the heart of it! i go through such swoops of feeling, in my life, and i'm so often unsure about why. (and i am not clinically depressed or bipolar either.)

I'm not going to argue over who "gets" it - it's entirely possible that we all get it, we just don't agree.

BUT I thought there was entirely too much on-the-nose direct cause-and-effect plotting. Kid gets mad because dad is absent, mom is working when she's not having Mike Gruffalo over for make-out parties, and his big sister is going to smoke cigarettes behind the school instead of hanging out in his igloo. It's all your standard broken home latch-key kid afterschool special shit.

The freak-out isn't disproprtionate and random at all, it's a movie freakout with a specific backstory. But it should be disproprtionate and random - because thats what kid freakouts are.

Across the board, again and again, it reduces the story from the universal to standard plot tropes by explaining too much - it's the same deal with the running away vs. magical transformation of his room. In the book it just happens because that's what happens to kids - they get sent to their rooms and their rooms turn into the world all around. They freaks out just because they freaking. He becomes king just because he says "be still" - not because he claims to be able to "keep the sadness out".

the whole keep the sadness out with my sadness shield, destroy loneliness w/ my magical bombs or whatever was kinda where I knew I wasn't going to like the movie much. I knew it was going to go in that direction because of some reviews I read but the fact that it started in *right off the bat* with that stuff as soon as he got to Monster Island, yeesh

i was pretty excited to see this but this thread is making me reconsider

the whole keep the sadness out with my sadness shield, destroy loneliness w/ my magical bombs or whatever was kinda where I knew I wasn't going to like the movie much

For me it was the reverse. I was worried that this might turn out to be a kitsch world where misbehaving little boys get sent to their room w/o supper, a 'Mad Men' nostalgic view of suburban middle class childhood and instead, it was a childlike existential crisis. Remy may think that Max freaks out disproportinately to his situation but part of the charm, for me, in this film was exactly how much Eggers/Jonze (I've met Eggers but I am otherwise unacquainted with either's work) mined the whole childish aspect of this; the childish emotions, the lack of reference and weakenss of children's logic.

Of course, I love the transformation of the room in the book but I can also see how keeping Max in the house would lessen the drama and regardless, just like Hobbes in Calvin's mind, WTWTA, the island and its inhabitants are in Max's mind while he sits in his wolf suit in the boat both chewing over and escaping from his flamboyant fuck-up w/ his mom.

Max (in the movie) actually seems to be exhibiting some at least incipient fear/confusion of sexuality, too, what with his father/role model gone, his mother dating, his sister hanging out with boys, the manifestation of monster couples shacking up (to what purpose, exactly? monster make-out sessions?). He first freaks out when his mom kisses Ruffalo (paging Freud).

Well made (from a production standpoint; subtle CGi), but ultimately way too emo, and the soundtrack made it godawful to sit through. It's not a bad movie, but I sure didn't enjoy it. Bummer.

didnt have high expectations for this but i liked it a lot - tony soprano was a rad monster - spike jonz worked some beautiful crafty magic - and lol at people upthread all mad at the wild things - u r mad at it lol at u why dont u run away to an imaginary island

go be emo on an island

go make an emo island

go island an emo

go emo island

emo island adventures

where the dl;dr emo message bord posters are island

islanded in an emotional sea w/horrible creatures, catchin a wave, see u

island

of monsters

wilding

The amount of concentrated, demanding cynicism and unnecessary analysis in this thread is really, really depressing.

so is the movie!

"unnecessary analysis"

who decides how much or which analysis is "necessary"?

also: examples?

(also that's a very eggers-ian critique.)

Yeah, I mean - how could anyone come away less than depressed by the movie? Even the final reunion of mother and child is sort of down, this weird we're-in-this-together-so-let's-make-the-most-of-our-miserable-lives detente. The book is so full of fun and adventure and life in its simplicity. The movie is nothing but heavy. I got the impression the monsters, after Max leaves, are about to go spike their communal Kool Aid and just kill themselves. Like, go back to your life, Max, you still have a chance. Here on monster island there's no hope.

Here's a simple reaction for you: I liked this movie. It made me cry. It was difficult and fun and sad and cool and unnerving and melancholy and altogether like childhood, in my opinion.

Childhood is a tough time. There's confusion and fear and real pain. Also, cool friends (real and/or imaginary) and adventures and lots of fun. I think the Sendak/Jonze/Eggers trio nailed it. And there's another county heard from.

this was probably the best childrens movie ive ever seen, it wasnt just cutesy and happy, it was actually emotional and beautiful

fwiw my gf didn't think this was depressing at all

i didnt think it was depressing, i thought it was uplifting in a melancholy way, if that makes sense

Watched this with three others and we all disliked it to varying degrees. I thought visually it was interesting, and had me loving it for the first 20 mins or so where there was some humour (haven't read the book). I was quite impressed with the monsters and how they looked like illustrations come alive. Anyway I fell asleep about twice and nothing had happened when I woke up.
I also felt it was quite self-consciously 'hey, adults, this is what it's like to be a kid' to an over-indulgent extent, but I see that this is what people liked about the book (and what the book probably did so well) - if it hadn't been based on a book I would have been cringing all the way through.

I'd like to try it again with the sound off and a really good record playing.

It'd be great with no dialogue save the start and the finish. In fact, it'd probably be a masterpiece if the middle 2/3 were silent.

Basically Eggers and Jonze backed themselves into a corner. The reason it's not an insufferable kids movie is that they chose to give the monsters adult neuroses, but those adult neuroses are what cause so many of its thematic/tonal problems. For what it's worth, some young teens emerged from the theater behind me, smiling and calling the movie "really cute."

I mean, of course childhood is tough. We were all children, and we all had tough patches of childhood. But as a fantasy metaphor for adolescent turmoil the movie's a bit of a muddle, and if the message ultimately is no more than "childhood is tough," then it's sort of facile as well. The movie says more about that in its masterful first 15 minutes than the ensuing 75 or so adds. Doesn't make it bad, just problematic.

a couple of times in this thread it's been mentioned that the monsters have 'adult neuroses' but i disagree: i think their neuroses are v v childlike, in that they're blatantly the kid's manifestation of his own insecurities/troubles/etc:
- carol can't control his rage, acts out and throws violent tantrums
- the goat boy always feels ignored
- judith is negative and kind of a plotter
- kw is the sister that's found new friends
i don't get what seems so 'adult' about any of the monsters. they seemed totally childlike to me. and as for max being a character that ppl couldn't empathize with: i've worked and been around kids my whole life and max is, most definitely, less of a shit in terms of behaviour than about 75% of other kids.

the book has already been written and read. i didn't go into the movie expecting any kind of grand statement, or any kind of new meaning to be assigned to childhood. it was just a pretty film, and i really enjoyed the soundtrack. i guess if you don't like that kind of music then obv you wouldn't like the soundtrack. otoh, i hate hate hate the kind of pan flute music recommended upthread... so obv a ST can't please everyone.

What about the monsters that pair up and live together, one presumes romantically? Or the fact that Carol and his g-friend had just broken up? Maybe not adult stuff, but definitely not 10-year old boy stuff. Also, kids of that age don't usually dwell on existential quagmires. Older, sure. Younger too, sometimes. But not that age, I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong/different. Sigh. Why am I so wrong and different? And why is the sun going to burn out? Make the sadness go away! Woe is me ...

see, i didn't get that carol and kw were a couple: they are the only two that looked alike so i read that as being a representation of max and his sis, with owls being these new friends she's left him behind for. a lot of it felt like it was abandonment-based, which i definitely related to, and i think is something a lot of kids deal with. and the whole dying-sun thing... i mean, for a lot of kids learning about that stuff is really fuckin scary and they really take it to heart and worry over it.

the monsters spoke abt their problems in a weird overly literal unhinged adult/kid/mentally ill hybrid - not sure if that really made sense in any sort of real world way but i felt they owned it - i liked that they were these raw self conscious spazes - especially carol - tony soprano radiates pathos

it was cool too how they had their own societal norms w/a lot of overlap w/our world and then some left field shit - there was bewilderment and culture clash between the monsters and max that none of them knew how to deal w/or even recognize

i know its been said but the movie is pretty original and deserves imo to be judged on its own merits - preconceptions abt the book monsters twee indie bullshit and whatever else to the side

I guess I saw the monsters' collective attempts at distraction/fun as a futile method of forestalling overwhelming ennui. In this sense, it's almost a cautionary tale: Max meets the depressed monsters and thinks, jeez, it could be a lot worse. I could be stuck on Eeyore Island for the rest of my life!

btw the owls were pretty lol they love it when i do this

Oh, the owls were just Max's subconscious manifestation of, um ... snowballs.

Actually, the owls were funny. As was the raccoon gag.

The monsters are adults who've refused to grow up. This is what happens to Peter Pan, kiddos.

see that would've been fine in a better movie imo

the raccoon and the owls were the best parts of the movie

i don't mean to be a gloomy gus.

i think this movie's combination of tones just rubbed me the wrong way. i am not a fan of lugubrious twee.

http://www.terrybrooks.it/art/covers/hook.jpg

hook is so bad

the raccoon and the owls were the best parts of the movie

and the dog

i am not a fan of lugubrious twee

But you like Dimmu Borgir!

i'm not a dimmu borgir fan!

OK, so it was an educated guess ;)

s'alright

i'm not a dimmu borgir fan!

― i ain't no daggum son of a gun (latebloomer), Monday, October 26, 2009 2:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lololol at the defensiveness/disgust.

i will not stand for it!

http://www.metalsucks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/black_metal_fan_mallcore.jpg

hook is so bad

― latebloomer, Sunday, October 25, 2009 11:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

sbloomer

hook is worse than bad. there ought to be a law against that movie.

lol does robin williams play peter pan

Never saw this. I remember being in Paris when it came out over there and it seemed to be playing everywhere. Wondered if maybe they would perversely champion it: Le cinema, c'est l'Hook!. Did not know that this was written by l'autore del ciclo di Shannara.

sbloomer

;_;

guess i lost my marbles

bob hoskins is so fucking awesome

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born October 26, 1942) is an English actor, known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, and for his performances in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Hook (1991), and Super Mario Bros. (1993).

seriously this man is responsible for my taste as it stands today

Hook was bad but the pinball machine based on it was AWESOME.

Also, I was going to comment on the film but i simply agree with everything DAN P3RRY MAD AT GRANDMA has said.

Bob Hoskins in Beardface??????

b.o. fell off 56% this weekend

can't wait until this becomes a "misunderstood" classic

(braces self for sb bombardment)

b.o. fell off 56% this weekend

new deodorant?

I liked a lot of things about this - visually amazing and great monster suits. Hated a lot of the monster dialogue (I chalk this up, perhaps unfairly, either to Eggers's terrible writing sensibilities or just to the general hollywood need to have timeless cartoonish characters say smarmy contemporary-sounding things, because that's "edgy" or something). Almost could have been better with the sound off - I loved the giant desert dog and the image of Carol alone on the cliff staring into the ocean especially.

I thought it was pretty clear that the whole thing was about divorce from a child's perspective. I agree with whoever said above that Carol is pretty clearly a representation of the father (there's a shot early in the movie of a globe with an engraving - something like "You own the world, love Dad," and Carol says the same to Max). Max is the false "king" who thinks he's supposed to somehow make everyone happy and keep the family together but can't in the end and takes the blame on himself. Plenty of allusions to a father that gets a little "out of control" - not only in Carol's behavior (he literally destroys homes, among other things), but in the early scenes, e.g. where Max gets up on the counter and yells at his mom.

I'd like to try it again with the sound off and a really good record playing.

― Nate Carson, Sunday, October 25, 2009 6:41 AM Bookmark

Or what he said.

I thought this was very good. doubt the kids would think the same thing.

I saw Carol more as Max's doppelganger. I thought Gandolfini gave a brilliant vocal performance, ditto Catherine O'Hara.

Music didn't bother me.

Much of my antipathy towards this movie would have been avoided if Dave Eggers hadn't been involved/born.

see, I had forgotten he was, til the end credits!

Also, he doesn't annoy me, as I have never subjected myself to anything of his book-length work.

(or that hipster yuppie film he wrote this year)

Huh. Interesting, well made, original, very good characterisation, still kind of lame. I would've made the Wild Things scarier and FUNNER, at least at first. I think child me would've found it extremely boring.

Oh, and the songs were dreadful.

Though Gandolfini was excellent, as was the kid.

Finally saw this. Take all the dialog out of this and it would be amazing.

Fantastic Fox and Where the Wild Things Are

someone warn enrique that it's Sicinski!

this was fine, but really empty feeling - couldn't help but feel after watching it that basically nothing had happened.

Just like life, man. Just like life.

dude if my life was full of 10 foot tall monster bird men throwing trees around i would hope i would not be all "well so that happened what do we get for lunch now"

yeah but you would, eventually

Yeah, I get the whole Max and monsters = dealing with divorce thing. It's not a hidden thing, it's blatantly obvious. I think this movie will reward with repeat viewings, but based on the first one, 3/4 through it went from fun/exciting/unique/funny to dull/sad/awkward really quickly.

Carol's rule about not letting in the two owls didn't make any sense but then again when you're a kid your parents have rules that don't make any sense, and they often don't take the time to justify them either.

All in all I think plotwise there were so many spot-on recreations of what it's like to be a GenX/GenY kid (forts, dirt fights, mood swings) and that was my favorite thing about the movie. It was really like 'this is what it's like being a kid'.

would've made the Wild Things scarier and FUNNER, at least at first

my main issue with it - the entire experience with the wild things is emo from the start, we never get a sense of their appeal being WILDness; Max being able to escape from his real life for the thrill of fantasy and rule-breaking, rather than for wah wah boo hoo. Even Carol smashing the houses is sooky and devoid of fun, as opposed to Max's own busting up of his sister's room - and it upsets the family around Carol, as it upset the family around Max, so there's no release involved at all.

Carol's rule about not letting in the two owls didn't make any sense but then again when you're a kid your parents have rules that don't make any sense, and they often don't take the time to justify them either.

Uh, petty jealousy...

my main issue with it - the entire experience with the wild things is emo from the start, we never get a sense of their appeal being WILDness

^exactly.

Good god this movie is fucking boring.

It's like he's trying to make the shittiest version of Time Bandits he can.

with a load of muppets

The movie is nothing but heavy. I got the impression the monsters, after Max leaves, are about to go spike their communal Kool Aid and just kill themselves. Like, go back to your life, Max, you still have a chance. Here on monster island there's no hope.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, October 24, 2009 1:01 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

This post cracked me up.

I just saw this movie. I'm a little torn on it. On the one hand it's mopey, crappy shit. But they did do a pretty good job at doing... what they were aiming for, I guess. They really should've made Max younger, a 7 or 8 year old - he'd be less self-aware, less capable of angst, he'd just be a kid having fun with his monster bros. The kid in this was really good though, and so was Gandolfini - and normally I HATE celebrity v/o, because it's almost always lazy and half-assed. And the monster f/x were cool... there was a good issue of Cinefex on it.

i just rewatched this. disliked it the first time, loved it this time. couldn't really tell you why.

I was a major hater of that trailer but I liked this. so did my kids.

I've got those sendak monsters tattooed on my synapses from childhood too, but it's a movie based on a book, it's its own thing. jonze turned it into some weird fabulistic meditation on divorce and how kids experience its effects. it's got his fingerprints all over it, but I don't think some slavish film interpretation would/could work so why not go idiosyncratic?

I wish it was a little more, uh, entertaining? but on the whole I dug it and I kinda respect the struggle the guy had to go through to make it. iirc he spent years on this thing and about halfway through the studio was threatening to trash the whole thing and start over again w/ somebody else.

one of my favorite films of the year. agree with princess TT that it's probably a bit too mopey & grim, but only just. loved the characters, the dialogue, the costumes & effects, photography & scenery, the weird matter-of-fact ambivalence running through it all. skipped it in theaters, but watched it 3 times in as many days when i rented the DVD. and for god's sake, watch tell them anything you want, spike's interview with/documentary on maurice sendak. so freaking great, even better than where the wild things are. sendak = hero for life.

In an interview with Newsweek, Sendak felt that parents who deemed the film's content to be too disturbing for children should "go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate" and he further noted "I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child's eyes. So what? I managed to survive."

ok i can handle them casting mark ruffalo and letting him keep his top on but why does he have two lines in it? Also this made me really sad, I really liked it. I feel like this movie would not have any appeal for kids at all tho. Thought that while the overall metaphor was p. obvious, carol was still a difficult, complex character whose motivation was not always clear.It was hard to follow in that way. I felt tired for everyone in it. why are they killing me with this daniel johnston cover??? I thought it looked really beautiful, the puppets had actual weight, which i kindof miss from movies. they felt like real things.

Count me in with the haters. One extra criticism not noted upthread, it ruined the "we'll eat you up, we love you so!" line. It should be almost sincere, with the wonderful and terrible passion and rage of a monster - not knowingly and quietly whispered with maternal affection. Ugh. I know it has its defenders but I think it rides entirely on Sendak's title and character designs, if it had somehow been made without those it would have been an utter failure.

It's like he's trying to make the shittiest version of Time Bandits he can.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Sunday, May 2, 2010 7:01 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark

hahaha otm

just watched this and it was OK really but man did i get tired of Tony Soprano grumbling and whining

I just rewatched the movie, but this time I had done a bit more research on Sendak and his idea behind his trilogy, including In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There.

I've no idea whether or not Spike Jonze and co. actually read any of the studies, but I read a bit of Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (volume 63, if anyone wants to look it up). In it, there is a study of Sendak's work and I have to admit, it allowed me to enjoy the movie more.

In fact, I liked the movie even more this time round. I had the same issue with the monsters' dialogue as others did when I first watched it, but I let that 'slide', as I was more interested in its symbolism.

If it can be reduced to one thing, it is that of the classic (albeit overused) concept of art as a cathartic experience. There are many things going on at the same time and the film does add a lot, but these monsters definitely represent 'inner monsters' who do not just live in Max's imagination, but represent various sides of him. They're kind of like living thoughts.

A lot of Max's worries, as others have written, spring from the absence of a parent, but his condition/depression(?) is compounded by the little things of everyday life of a boy. I'm thinking of the snow fight here.

The first time I saw it, I never thought of this, but he seems to overreact when the boys destroy his igloo. But thinking about it some more, I guess small things like this hurt you more when there is so much more going on inside you. Yes, he is a child who is definitely emotionally unstable and traumatised.

First manifesting itself as fury, his way of dealing with this trauma is by escaping into an imaginary world, which allows for change and growth. It's a world some never leave for fear of what reality might bring.

Need to rewatch sometime. This movie is indeed a deep well.