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Where The Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze film adaption

the book is only about 20 pages long and nothing much happens. there's hardly any dialogue iirc. hard to get a whole fillum out of that, even if you are a brat like dave eggers
 
I'm looking forward to the big screen adaption of the hungry caterpillar. They had better not fuck that one up.
 
i am personally looking forward to the adaptation of the story of the mole who knew it was none of his business.
 
I took my two older kids (6 and 4) to see this today. I thought it was good, not really what I was expecting though - they've managed to make quite a lot of extra 'back-story' to why Max is a little shit to his mum that gets alluded to but never explicitly IYSWIM. The look of it is really true to the book illustrations, the Wild Things are brilliant and very real looking. It's overall a bit darker than I expected, my two found bits of it quite scary and the elder one burst into tears at the sad bit. Enjoyed :)
 
Saw it Saturday - it irritated and intrigued and bored and fascinated me intermittently. OK, OK, WYWTA was my favourite book ever as a small child so it would always have been impossible to make what I'd perceive as the perfect version. The visual stuff is astonishing, the wild things and their environment very very easy on the eye, some of the camerawork and lighting breathtaking. there are incredibly moving impressionistic moments. but...

It's at least 20 minutes too long. If you're not american, some of the voice work will just grate - these are meant to be WILD THINGS (grrr! arrrd!) not whiny emo gen Xers with interpersonal interaction ishoos. Its woozy, dreamlike pacing works in some parts but is just frankly dull in others. Above all, its overall feel is of self-absorbed adult psychobabble rather than brave, magical, weird adventure. (I found the 'back story' sequences to Max's bitey behaviour horribly glib and fake-modern btw). It's all a bit fey, and its 'morals' as wet as a duvet left out in a rainstorm. Especially when compared with the original, which was refreshingly anarchic and rule-free. This is the milksop be-nice-to-people,-m'kay? remix. :facepalm:I cannot imagine how any child would endure it, much less really enjoy it.

But yes it does have merits - see above - and your mileage may vary.
 
i really enjoyed it, it had many redeeming features and it was much deeper than i was expecting. dark, subtle, emotional, funny definitely worth watching
 
Never read the book, watched the film the other night.. pretty film but wtf? What a pile of shite!!

Is it sentimental value or what? Even Moonpig hated it.
 
Like all of Jonze's films, it sounds like a bit of a marmite film. I've got a friend who's a proper cynic and he loved it, I never see him post film updates on Facebook and he wrote how good it was.

Same with Adaptation - I thought that was genius, but some people would hate it. I basically like Nicolas Cage beacuse of that film
 
upsidedownwalrus said:
Like all of Jonze's films, it sounds like a bit of a marmite film. I've got a friend who's a proper cynic and he loved it, I never see him post film updates on Facebook and he wrote how good it was.

Same with Adaptation - I thought that was genius, but some people would hate it. I basically like Nicolas Cage beacuse of that film
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While Jonze brings a great aesthetic to his films, much of the success of his previous films had to do with the fact that they were written by one of the greatest screenwriters currently working. Both Jonze and Michel Gondry have been left floundering when they don't work with Charlie Kaufman's scripts.
 
I would have thought Dave Eggers would have written a good script. It shows that a good novellist doesn't make a good screenwriter, as they are fundamentally different concepts.
 
Being a novelist is something quite different from being a screenwriter. Eggers strength as a writer is that he has a beautiful prose style, but even his books don't have a strong structure, something that's essential for a screenplay. Great prose counts for very little in a screenplay.
 
trabuquera said:
Saw it Saturday - it irritated and intrigued and bored and fascinated me intermittently. OK, OK, WYWTA was my favourite book ever as a small child so it would always have been impossible to make what I'd perceive as the perfect version. The visual stuff is astonishing, the wild things and their environment very very easy on the eye, some of the camerawork and lighting breathtaking. there are incredibly moving impressionistic moments. but...

It's at least 20 minutes too long. If you're not american, some of the voice work will just grate - these are meant to be WILD THINGS (grrr! arrrd!) not whiny emo gen Xers with interpersonal interaction ishoos. Its woozy, dreamlike pacing works in some parts but is just frankly dull in others. Above all, its overall feel is of self-absorbed adult psychobabble rather than brave, magical, weird adventure. (I found the 'back story' sequences to Max's bitey behaviour horribly glib and fake-modern btw). It's all a bit fey, and its 'morals' as wet as a duvet left out in a rainstorm. Especially when compared with the original, which was refreshingly anarchic and rule-free. This is the milksop be-nice-to-people,-m'kay? remix. :facepalm:I cannot imagine how any child would endure it, much less really enjoy it.

But yes it does have merits - see above - and your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...


This is the perfect review, I agree with every point.
I was hoping for some boisterous, wild, carefree adventuring and instead was confronted with quite a bit of didactic drivel. I left feeling quite sad actually, it's a sad film.
 
It is a sad and funny film, not as good as it should have been, but still excellent, I really enjoyed most of it - but it could and should have been better.
 
I saw it, and I enjoyed it, but I cant really argue with any of the criticisms put forward here.

I don't think it is a film for children though, it is a film about children, about what it is like to be a child. And it can be very sad. Children already know this.

I agree the back story was glib, but I think it was necessary to frame the rest of the film.

And I agree that there was basically no plot, the whole film moved on the emotions of max and the wild things, which was interesting in itself.
 
I saw it yesterday. I thought it was great. I was always intrigued how they would stretch out such a short book into a film. My fear was that the padding out would mean the innocence of the book may get lost in translation. That hasn't happened. It was beautifully shot and that wild things were great-especially Gandolfini. Max was divine and the extra bits enhanced what was a very simple storyline. There was a slightly flabby bit about two thirds through but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was fun and retained the childlike charms of the book plus more.
 
I saw it just before christmas and absolutely loved it. I love Dave Eggars and it was so beautifully shot. It had a beautiful structure, and the end could have been overly saccharine but I thought it was perfect. All the new bits that weren't in the book were so lovely, and I thought it had a lovely freudian take on childhood and learning to get along with other people/ manage your emotions that really made it work for adults as well as children. My six year old niece loved it too.
 
See, I really liked the really simple plot, and the way the characters didn't really develop at all, except for Max throughout the film. As you've probably guessed, I really loved everything about it.
 
is it a good film to take kids to (8 - 10 yrs) or would it bore them senseless? (I'm sensing the latter from some of the comments here)
 
Bunjaj Pali said:
is it a good film to take kids to (8 - 10 yrs) or would it bore them senseless? (I'm sensing the latter from some of the comments here)
Click to expand...


my 10 yr old nephew loved it but not sure if all kids would take to it..maybe you can look at the trailer and judge for yourself.
 
Fuck listening to what that irritating smug cunt Mark Kermode says about films on Newsnights, he's such an annoying tosser...

I want to see this film, I enjoyed the book as a kid, and I can't believe i'd hate it. Worth giving it a watch :)
 
Wanted to see this for a long time - there were some teaser trailers with no dialogue that looked amazing. then saw the trailer with the american kiddy voices on top and now cant face it. Call me a snob, but if it was voiced by gruff french alchoholics with subtitles i'd be there in a shot - im just completely overdosed on US kid movie voiceovers. HAvnt watched a Pixar disney film since Finding Nemo for the same reason.

I noticed a couple of people picked up on the voiceovers so i cant be the only one that cant take anymore...
 
Riklet said:
Fuck listening to what that irritating smug cunt Mark Kermode says about films on Newsnights, he's such an annoying tosser...

I want to see this film, I enjoyed the book as a kid, and I can't believe i'd hate it. Worth giving it a watch :)
Click to expand...

Kermode liked it??? :confused:
 
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