I realize there might not be a lot of punch in the punchline of this comic. But I felt like authoring it because it was based off an actual conversation Cami and I had after leaving Where The Wild Things Are on Saturday and it got a laugh out of me.
For those of you looking for something a little snappier, I already have a joke in mind for Wednesday’s comic related to Where The Wild Things Are in general.
While I was swept up in the emotion of the film, Cami was apparently distracted enough by her boredom to make note of the film’s color scheme. Ultimately she came to the conclusion that – while she enjoyed the movie – it wasn’t anything she felt like she needed to see again anytime soon.
She’s right, though. There WAS an awful lot of brown in this movie.
Maybe Jonze was going for something deliberately organic to reflect the raw, untapped “otherness” of the Wild Things, but it’s not expressly overt. To that end, if you’re making mental notes about the color scheme of the film, maybe the emotional content is not reaching you in a way that it should…
For me, Where The Wild Things Are does a great job capturing the feeling of childhood. The feeling of being invincible, of having so much energy you don’t know what to do with it. Of running in a thousand different directions, making up (terrible) ad libbed stories about your adventures, talking to yourself and having all of it feel absolutely real.
That Max runs away from home one evening and traverses rough seas before landing on the island home of the Wild Things is purely incidental and deliberately unexplained by anything conventional or imaginary. Jonze is communicating clearly that we are entering into Max’s imaginary world. But he doesn’t draw a line in the sand, either.
I think what I liked most about Max, the Wild Things and the land they inhabit is even Max himself is caught off-guard by how thoroughly he’s rendered these imaginary characters. For the audience, the subtext that each one of the Wild Things reflects a component of Max’s personality adds another level of enjoyment.
From a technical standpoint, the Wild Things themselves are amazing creations. The mix of puppetry and CGI was completely seamless to me in the way that all good CGI should.
Watching the film, I knew that the Wild Things were actors running around in giant furry suits. But the way their CGI faces communicated their emotions made me believe they were real.
A by-product of the scant narrative in the original childrens book, there are a lot of open spaces in the dialogue of this movie. That leaves a lot of room for furrowed brows and concerned glances across camera. I believed in every single one of them. The Wild Things are the result of movie magic at its best.
Beyond that, I’m not sure I can do the film justice by trying to explain it any further. Not to go all New Age on you, but either it’s going to speak to your inner child, or it’s not. Anyone that ever fancied themselves an explorer or an adventurer – a creator (or destroyer) of imaginary worlds – this movie is for you.
If not, maybe all you see is two hours of brown? I don’t know. All I know is that it spoke to me and I thought it was great.
Gordontalked a little bit about and advanced screening he saw of Where The Wild Things Are on last week’s The Triple Feature. But expect Joe and I to be up to speed this week with a more thorough examination to follow during tonight’s podcast at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com
If you saw Where The Wild Things Are this weekend, I strongly encourage you to listen to the show live and contribute your .02 cents. Leave comments in the chat filed or call in to the show LIVE as we’re recording it! We’d love to hear your opinions.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed today’s comic and I will see you here again on Wednesday!
I dunno. It was okay. I thought it looked kind of weird.
Are you kidding? Spike Jonze captured everything wonderful and terrifying - exhilarating and mystifying - about childhood!
Well, whatever it was, it certainly was a lot of brown to look at for two hours!
Tom, I’m assuming that you didn’t take you’re little one to the movie, since you didn’t mention him, but I think yours is around the same age as mine (she’ll be 3 on Friday). Simple question, would you take him to see it?
I ask because we took Lilly to see Up and she LOVED it. And Where the Wild Things Are is currently her favorite book, and she’s seen the commercials on TV, and seems really interested, but because of some of the things I’ve read, I’m hesitant to take her to see it, before I’ve gotten the opinion of a parent I trust.
Allan,
We didn’t take Henry to Where The Wild Things are because the PG rating gave us pause. I would say we were justified in that decision. The movie is not bright and sunny. In fact, it’s dark and borderline depressing.
The subject matter isn’t going to leave an impression on her (basically, the Wild Things re-enact the divorce of Max’s parents) But the film visually is dark and spooky at times. It’s also somewhat violent. One of the characters has an arm ripped off near the end. It’s played for laughs, but I don’t think a 3 year old would be able to grasp that.
I mean, UP has scary moments, too. But ultimately, I think it’s a brighter, warmer film than WTWTA.
You’ve been talking a lot about WHere The Wild THings Are, a movie I have very little intrest in because, like Cami, it seems like to hours of brown but you have completely over looked Paranormal Activity. I saw that movie this weekend and I have never been so scared in my life. I literally screamed in theater (which is totally ok since I’m a chick) but either way it’s the best horror movie I’ve ever seen. I thought you would have brought it up in a comic at some point.
TotalMovieFreak,
Paranormal Activity is VERY much on my radar and I am very interested in seeing it. I think it only broke into wide release this weekend, right?
I’m a total sucker for the marketing they’ve put together on this movie. People keep comparing it to Blair Witch and I loved the build up to that movie. The movie *itself*… meh, not so much.
But, yeah. I wanna see it. I’m a little psyched out by the feedback I’ve been reading. Some people were really disturbed by the movie. Do I dare invite that in? 😀
I saw Wild Things over the weekend, and while I really enjoyed it (teared up at both the ending and most of the soundtrack), I didn’t love it like I thought I would. Not out of dislike of any part of it, but because Max simply isn’t a kid I could identify with. When I was a kid, I’m not saying I was his exact opposite. In fact, I was kinda similar. But… in a different kind of way. When I look at Max and all the things he does, I see a real kid, but not one that I relate to or that brings me in. So, sorta just watched the movie, never got totally sucked in.
Didn’t care much for the creature designs either (but then, I didn’t like them much in the book either). I did love their personalities, though, and by the end I didn’t care what they looked like.
Also, Paranormal Activity is the scariest movie I have ever seen (and it did go wide this past Friday. It’s been a heck of a journey for that film, when I saw it it was only in about a dozen college towns around the country). Just putting that out there.
Thanks Tom. That’s kind of what I figured, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it from someone who’s seen the movie. Jill and I may have to try and catch it on our own.
I intend to eventually go and see this movie, but I have many reservations and your review does indeed continue to enforce these reservations. I have no doubt that it is a fine movie but I’m curious as to why it was made in the first place. I mean, did the book of 9 written lines really need to be turned into a feature length movie? So I ask you this, did this movie require the association to the children’s book to succeed or would it have been just as successful as a film (not in terms of sales) if this story was told without using a brand label?
Jarrod,
To answer your question, I think the movie is a symbiotic creation. I don’t know that it would have stood on it’s legs without the brand association. I mean, maybe it would. But that’s conjecture.
The success of Where The Wild Things Are comes from the fact that it expands on the book in a reasonable way. What Jonze brings to the table I think is relevant to a lot of movie-goers. We kind of get to the core of why Max acts out and misbehaves, but Jonze also allows audiences to draw their own conclusions about it.
There are a bunch of people “complaining” about taking their wee young ones to it and saying it’s awful.
I have to question their judgement when they are taking 20 month olds to PG rated moves. Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot! What are they thinking?
chuckers,
I think people are seeing that it’s a movie based on a book that you read to wee ones, and they’re missing the PG (or overlooking the rating). Besides, in my house PG isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. Granted, we usually try to well scrutinize the movie first, but my daughter has seen, and LOVES Enchanted. However, we’re also watching it at home and not in theater.
Up we did see in the theater, and she did fine. That said she also got up to pee during the 2 most scary scenes in the movie (although that ended up being a coincidence).
What bothers me is when I go into a movie that’s rated R or movies like Dark Knight and see adults in there with young children or even strollers.
That said, I agree, it’s the responsibility of the parent to somehow get informed about the movie (or video game for that matter) before they allow there kid access to it. Hence the reason I came here and asked the question of Tom. As a result of his feedback, we’ve decided not to take our daughter to see the movie. Unfortunately it also probably means that I won’t get to see it until it hits DVD, but that’s better than needlessly traumatizing my child, so it’s all good.