wild

[jazzfish]

My eyes are feeling a little zoned-out today. I am. . . detached, lightweight. The ground isn't quite where it ought to be, in ways that don't affect my walking.

uilos and I saw Where the Wild Things Are last night. I'm not sure what to make of it or how to talk about it, which is why this is here and not in the medialog. It was an intensely personal and lonely film experience for me, all about wanting friends and needing parents. Watching Max, who's so unlike eight-year-old me on the surface and still had so many of the same emotions, threw me for several loops.

The Creature Shop did a fantastic job with the Things, of course.

I have no idea what kids will think of this movie. I have no idea what anyone else might think of it.

"Is it a story for children? Yes, it is. It's a story for anybody who's listening."
--Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Child and the Shadow" (in _The Language of the Night_, 1979)

Comments

[rbandrews]

Cassie and I liked it. I remember thinking it was strange that a lot of what were intended as 8-year-old social handicaps were equally valid as geek social handicaps. I've worked with and hung out with most of the Things.

[jazzfish]

I think one of the defining factors of being a geek is a lack of social/emotional maturity in one way or another.

The Bull, man. His one line absolutely broke my heart.

[rbandrews]

I don't remember it...

[jazzfish]

"You'll say nice things about us, right?"

[nixve.livejournal.com]

Were there many kids in the audience?

[jazzfish]

Tuesday night at 7 PM, there weren't but maybe a dozen /people/ in the audience. I think I heard a parent or grandparent with a couple of kids behind us.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

So you'd recommend it, then?

I have a hard time with movie adaptations of picture books on concept alone, although the fact that it doesn't try to combine Chris van Allsburg with Robin Williams is a point in its favor.

[jazzfish]

. . . I would, yeah. It paced itself oddly; slow in places, frenetic in places, and generally sort of awkward. But very good.

It's much, much bigger and deeper than the book. It'd have to be.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

It's the added depth that can so easily be the problem, though; you've got some movie-maker putting added depth into the picture book you loved as a kid, and who's to say it's compatible with why you loved the book.

It's good to have a vote for someone having done it well, this time.