Movies that move me

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Where the Wild Things Are trailer is up, and everyone's linking it, so I won't bother. But I will say I am the following things:

1) excited
2) apprehensive
3) intrigued by the fact that the vibe feels at once MG and YA, not at all PB, and that the script adds lots of drama that the original PB fans would never have "gotten" when they were enjoying the PB as children. If you follow me.

Anyway, I've been hurt before, by the Narnian films, and The Dark Is Rising, which LORD I wouldn't put myself through, but I've heard only horrible things. So I'm keeping myself from getting excited. But I am pleased with the team that put this one together; unlike those two trainwrecks I mentioned, WtWTA looks like it was made by real fans of the work and children at heart, not just studio big-time POP BANG LOOK AT ME filmmakers. So that's nice.

What else? IDK. Sam and I went to storytime at the Red Balloon Shop on Grand on Tuesday. Holy cow, this was some crowded storytime. Fifty babies, I kid you not. Plus their parent(s), obviously. But seriously, the group we went to at the library in Saint Anthony Park had, at most, 5 babies on any given day. And once it was 2 babies.

Not much else is new. I think I might have an offer for YA MS the First in the next few days, so that's exciting, but it isn't news as much as it is an updated schedule.

Class tonight, after two weeks off. I wrote three short papers in that two weeks, which I will hand in today. Hopefully that will satisfy him -- for now.

Until next time, America.

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David Ostow said...

I felt the same way seeing that trailer. Although less with the excitement and more with the apprehension.

Yes, the people involved in the making of the movie are about as far as you can be from BIG STUDIO PRODUCTION without being either foreign or a complete unknown.

But take Spike Jonz's career as . . . well, Spike Jonz, a punk indie movie maker with roots in music videos and Dave Eggars as one of the biggest egos in a wave of self-conscious, faux self-hating hipster writers and maybe you have something to fear.

I don't worry about the sheen of Hollywood glitz reflecting off of this one but I do worry about the dangerously high levels of hipness surrounding this production.

I'm just happy it's not Michael Gondry.

March 28, 2009 at 5:14 PM
Steve Brezenoff said...

Oh, absolutely. I agree with everything you've said. There is definitely some fear for that. In fact, I was trying to figure out to put it, and what exactly bothered me about that, and it's this: They're taking this treasured children's book and making it for themselves into a film, which is all fine and good and I'm sure their artistic vision is in many ways brilliant. However, they're not making a children's movie, and maybe that's what bugs me so much. Thievery, or something, of a product from one generation who ought to have their turn with it.

(Maybe it is a children's movie, ostensibly, but I think it's fair to say that toddlers parents will find far more to connect with than the children themselves.)

March 28, 2009 at 6:09 PM