We've been baffled, befuddled and blindsided as to what to make of Spike Jonze's much more than 10 sentences movie version of Maurice Sendak's long beloveded (which our mumsy can't figure out why it is so) Caldecott Medal winning Where The Wild Things Are picture book. It's inventive, audacious, dreamy, bleak, and downright boggleminding. It also happens to be the biggest big screen risk in recent memory that a studio has taken by letting Mr Jonze's Sendak approved work play out as it is. No wonder there was a lot of fuss between the WB and the director, cause it's a remarkable unmarketable flick
Can't say that we truly loved it, but can't say that we didn't either. One thing we can say is that you should stock up on yer shrooms intake before viewing, and even if you don't, you should still probably see it cause you'll get juss as delirious even if yer sober. Don't know if kids will take to this very un-PG PG pic at all, but it's middle section, where the Wild Things actually are, is seen just like a children's book usually reads - free flowing, with no real rhyme or reason other than to entertain the end user with a nice little moral or message. In someone else's hands (besides Gondry or Burton, hell, let's throw Kubrick's name in there as well), WTWTA, would have been a disaster, so it has to be said that Jonze hit the nail on the head, even if there wasn't exactly a blueprint on how to turn this short book into a full fledged feature (we'd love to see him go through with the aborted Harold & The Purple Crayon adaptation he planned to make... czech out this test footage)
Best way to describe what it was like to experience the imagery heavy/plot light WTWTA is thru... heavy imagery, and even more sentences than 10! we've rarely done this in this past, and it was only to show how awful a movie is, like VanHelSucks, or not, like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
take one kid who looks as innocent as Elijah Wood with a real name (Max Records) as fake as Max Powers but make him a bit cooler, and more rambunctious like Corey Haim and/or Corey Feldman before theys became uncool and had a reality show
then force him to wear a pair of footie pajamas that are less gay than Ralphie's topped with a Burger King crown
then have him get totally pissed at his family cause no one has time to pay attention to him esp his mum Catherine Keener who has to appear by contract in any Charlie Kaufman or Kaufman-esque type movie who dates Mark Ruffalo who's in the movie for like literally 39 seconds and therefore gots like the easiest paycheck mt EVERest
then the kid runs away and somehow finds a boat and sets sail for the cliffs of insanity! or a rocky beach where the Goonies see the light of day! or any sorta odd island type place ala Lost or Lord of The Flies
where he then runs thru a creepy Twin Peaks forest that's not as creepy as Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, MD
and pretty much anything else from The Neverending Story eggcept this although kids, incorporated or not, loves the Limhal
and then the boy and the harry and the henderson goofballs goof around like theys was on Romper Room and beat the fork outta each other like Romper Stomper
and then theys walk the desert which aint got no two suns like Tatooine!!
and so theys do this stuff, and then run thru the forest again and then the desert again and everytime theys does, you hear some some Polyphonic Spree type-o positive music by Karen O and The Kids which is brilliant stuff, but is played a lil too often
and then the kid and the hairy things get mad at each other or something and then make up or something and then it's time for him to go and then he does and then it ends and another Dave Eggers penned flick that attempts to pull at yer heart strings doesn't really pull at anything juss like his Away We Go did/didn't
All Hands On Sendak: best gift for kids that we get all of our friends' kids be the Nutshell Library, which includes our flav Sendaks, Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, One Was Johnny, and Pierre. not so sure of their greatnesssss? then why did the wonderful Carole King lend her pipes to singing his books as Really Rosie, eh? read em, listen to her CD and feel the earth move under yer feet
Verdictgo: so effin luol dang strange, but that shouldn't stop you from peepering this Jeepers Worth A Peepers
