(Hot chicks dykin’ out? Hell yeah, now it’s a wild rumpus.)
Where the Wild Things Are is one of the weirder mainstream movies I’ve ever seen. The pacing is… off. It drags in spots. You’re not sure where it’s going, it feels like an imprecise parable, and it’s full of non-sequitirs. But in a way, it’s a perfect adaptation of the book — a book which is only ten sentences long and, if you read it as adult, isn’t even that well written. But there’s something strange and fantastic about it that it’s stuck with so many of us as a pleasant feeling well into adulthood, like an awesome dream you can’t fully articulate and doesn’t make sense after you wake up. Like the memory of reading the book for the first time, much of WTWTA is like being trapped in the mind of a 10-year-old, but it’s more like the 10-year-old you remember being, rather than the idiot 10-year-old Michael Bay makes movies for.
Everyone knows movie people love self-congratulatory circle jerks, but they’ve got nothing on the people who market them. Remember The Dark Knight? Its success had nothing to do with it being a good movie, it was all because of the “rich transmedia experience” designed by the marketing visionaries at 42 Entertainment. And according to this new LA Times article, Where the Wild Things Are’s success? You guessed it, all because of marketing.
If they gave out Oscars for marketing campaigns, you could pretty much hand out the trophy right now to Warner Bros. marketing chief Sue Kroll, who almost single-handedly managed to find an audience [this may be one of the stupidest phrases I have ever read -Ed.] for “Where the Wild Things Are,” the new family movie that turned out not to really be a family movie at all.
You “found an audience” for a movie that defies genre? Oh my God, let’s rename the sun in your honor!
According to Hollywood conventional wisdom, “Where the Wild Things Are” looked like a disaster in the making. Over budget and beset by endless delays, the movie kept being pushed back on the Warners schedule, picking up a nasty case of bad buzz after word leaked out that children had fled an early test screening in tears, put off by the dark tone of the film.
Hollywood conventional wisdom is the thing that gave us The Rock as the Tooth Fairy, remember? And I don’t know who you hang with, but where I’m from, “makes children cry” is the highest compliment you can give something.
Read the rest of this entry »
This here video’s called We Were Once a Fairytale, starring Kanye West, directed by Where the Wild Things Are director Spike Jonze. It was just released over the weekend, and at 11 minutes, it’s a little longer than stuff I’d normally post. But I promise it’s something worth making time to watch after work if you need. West plays a drunken, sort of pathetic, meta-fictionalized version of himself who stumbles around a club making an ass of himself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The whole thing has Spike Jonze’s funk all over it and that alone makes it a compelling watch. Then at about the nine-minute mark, I don’t want to be a party-pooper mcsurprise ruiner, but suffice to say, Sh-t. Gets. Real. It kind of reminds me of another awesome short film I posted a while ago, Rabbit. Bottom line, prepare for face melting.
(Hot damn, now that’s what I call a wild rumpus.)
Opening this weekend (trailers after the jump)
Where the Wild Things Are
Holy hell, am I hallucinating? Is this movie actually finally coming out? Excuse me while I jizz sperms of happiness. It’s getting sort of mixed reviews, but most of the negative ones seem to be coming from a-holes I never agree with anyway, like Lou Lumenick and Mick LaSalle (this guy liked First Knight and trashed Braveheart, yet still has a job). I won’t get to see it until probably Monday and I don’t want to be a bandwagon jumper, but with Spike Jonze, I say it’s awesome until proven otherwise. I can’t wait.
Black Dynamite
Another one from the hell-yeah-it’s-about-freakin-time files. Though I still think the ending is dumb, aside from that it’s the best parody movie I’ve seen since the Naked Guns. Michael Jai White is amazing. In Obama’s America, I just know black kids are going to be leaving the theater cheering “Right on, right on, right on.”
Paranormal Activity
Expanding wide because of near-universally good reviews, will be easily the most profitable film of the year. Why can’t this happen more often? Instead we usually get Couples Retreat, which everyone knew was bad from the beginning.
Law Abiding Citizen
If Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler are in a movie together and it was good, don’t you think we’d have heard a lot more about it? These people have seen it. I probably won’t.
The Stepfather
Ooh, a horror movie remake, this would be really exciting if I was 13. And a dumbass.
New York, I Love You
Oh boy, twelve filmmakers, one of whom is Brett Ratner, direct a love letter to the city that never stops bragging about itself. I imagine I’ll hate this as much as I hate people who say “only in New York!”, as much as I hated people in San Diego bragging about the weather. You people realize they say “only in ____” in every GD city, right? Except Irvine. Read the rest of this entry »
Warner Bros just released a second batch of character banners (first batch here) for the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. Prepare for another month of torture, because that’s how long it’s going to be until this comes out. This batch includes Alexander (voiced by Paul Dano), Douglas (Chris Cooper), Ira (Forest Whitaker), and Bull (Michael Berry Jr.).
The chicken guy is easily my favorite. It’s funny because chickens don’t have ears, you see. Also, I suspect “Ira” was originally supposed to be called “The Bear Jew” until Tarantino and Eli Roth stole it. And is it just me, or does Alexander kind of look like Willem Dafoe? They should’ve just made one of the Wild Things Willem Dafoe. That would be a way better book. “My mom was being mean and sent me to bed with no dinner, but I showed her, I snuck out the window and partied with Willem Dafoe.” The moral of the story would be that parents just don’t understand. But Willem Dafoe does.
(trailer below, to refresh your memory)
