Yesterday afternoon I got to share a late brunch with my friend Sergio who flew back home to Detroit last night … his time was limited in town but I’m glad I got to see him all 3 days he was in town. Last night I met up with Kirsten, Josh and Darion and the 4 of us made our way to the ArcLight Theater in Hollywood, CA to see Where the Wild Things Are:
Because I loved this storybook as a child I had high hopes that the movie version would be just as good. I have to admit that I really liked the movie … up to a point. Let’s start out on the positive … young actor Max Records, who plays the lead boy in the film, was a revelation. He was so enjoyable to watch on the big screen … for me, he really made the character in the book come alive. Never once it look like he was acting — he really became the character. Spike Jonze’s direction was superb … the visuals were just outstanding and the movie really is a sight to see. For me, the movie was only half good. It started out strong and held me rapt for the first half of the run time … but once the Wild Things started to show how emo/whiny they were made out to be, I quickly lost interest. For me, the story held such wonder and imagination as a child … and visually, the movie does as well … but the “poor me”, self-loathing, whiny bullshit that the Wild Things started to spew was such a turn off. I was totally bummed out by the time the movie was over. I was sure one of the Wild Things was gonna commit suicide … and I’m utterly convinced that some of them are emotional cutters. Dude, I get that this film was meant to be an emo masterpiece but it got really heavy-handed midway thru. Once the main Wild Thing named Carol ripped off the arm of his best friend out of self-hating frustration, I was pretty much checked out. I personally felt that casting James Gandolfini as the voice of main Carol was a huge mistake. All I could hear was Tony Soprano … his very audible nasal breathing-while-talking manner was hugely irritating. So yeah … the movie is really, really good for the first half and almost just as equally bad for the second half. Because the book is only like 13 sentences long, the director really had to take liberties with the extrapolation of the story … IMHO, he got it half right.
Not sure what the plan is for tonight … David and I are expecting his sisters for a visit later on this week and we have LOADS of cleaning to do before they arrive. Depending on how much work we get done will determine if I will be able to get outside and see the sun.
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