Review - Where The Wild Things Are

Last Saturday, I took the boys to see "Where The Wild Things Are". The movie based on the children's book. After my wife read multiple reviews and comments about how bad and how kids shouldn't see this movie, we still went ahead with our plans. The book, by Maurice Sendak, is for relatively young kids, and is really a very short story. The charm of it mostly being the illustration and the imagination in invokes. So I wondered how Spike Jonze was going to turn a this book, which can be read in about 5 minutes into a feature length film.

My first complaint to the folks that said this movie is too scary for kids, I'm just not sure what movie you were watching. I didn't find any suspense in this movie. There's some yelling and arguing that goes on between characters, but nothing I would consider frightful. Even though the monsters are imaginary, they represent real life in that people are fallible. Folks don't get along easily in life. Humans (and monsters) are dysfunctional. That's truly the beauty of this movie. Max has a hard life, lonely and afraid, things don't work the way he wants them too. He's on the outside. Some of the same things that lots of kids face. The movie portrays very well what kids go through in life and helps the viewer to really step into the story. When Max fights with his mom, and runs away (replacing being sent to his room, in the book) It's real life. It's not some fluffy interaction that might happen on the Brady Bunch. This may be considered something kids shouldn't see, but I beg to differ. In the context of the whole movie, this is exactly what they need to see. To be able to see that parents stink sometimes, families will let them down occasionally, people, in general, are broken and suffering too. When Max runs away, and comes upon the monsters he hopes that he has found his ideal place. It turns out that everywhere he goes, no matter in real life or his imagination, people are the same. Yes, this is a sad commentary on human existence, but in the end, he decides if life is like this everywhere, then he should go back to the people that truly, and realistically love him, his mother and sister. People who he can also love back in the same way. Realizing how important they are in his life, even if they let him down sometimes.

I am so glad this movie doesn't sugarcoat real life. Did my boys get the full meaning of the theme? I'm not sure. Do I think they at least got pieces of truth through it? Definitely. I believe it was very worthwhile to bring them. And I thought the movie was brilliant.

Fugaciuos Film Foray

So over the past week and a half or so, With Liesl and the kids out of town I have gotten a chance to catch up on a lot of movies that Liesl would not really be interested in. And a few that have been on my list for a while and just not gotten the chance to view. While you may think it's rather sad that I've just been sitting around watching movies in my boxers, well, maybe it is... So here's what I've seen:

Harry Potter 1-6

Breakfast At Tiffany's

Lost In Translation

Signs

Dazed and Confused

A River Runs Through It

Fight Club

Out of all those, besides "A River Runs Through It", which I have seen many times before, "Lost In Translation" was probably my favorite. I was really disappointed in "Fight Club" after many people told me how good it was. It just kinda left me feeling sick. It was just really messed up. I thought "Dazed and Confused" was very much like "American Graffiti", only set in the 70's instead of the 50's. "Signs" was really pretty good with a really good theme of losing faith and being redeemed in that loss. I thought "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was a little slow, but the end was really good. Just had to be patient with the story a little.

I've got a few more days before my family returns, I'm not sure if I will rent any more movies, But I've been wanting to watch (for like the 10th time) "The Last Samurai" again. I love that story.

Jumper

A week or two back, Directv (by the way, I love Directv, so if you want to sign up we both get a killer referral bonus) was running a free preview weekend of HBO and Cinemax. When this happens I set my DVR to record a bunch of movies. One of those movies was "Jumper". I had wanted to see Jumper for a while. It's a Sci-fi about a guy who can teleport himself anywhere in the world. Liesl was very resistant to watching this movie, as she doesn't normally like science fiction. Anyway, Overall I thought the movie was very entertaining. I don't think there was anything inspirational or ground-breaking in this movie, but it kept my interest through the whole movie. Hayden Christiansen (older Anakin Skywalker) played the main character. Samuel L. Jackson was the bad guy. His character was kind of not well thought through, but overall the movie was fairly original. It was also kind of cool to get the scenery of several different cities around the world, as they jump from one place to the next. By the end of the movie, Liesl was sitting next to me on the couch, I think it caught her interest too. Hayden Christiansen being in the movie probably didn't hurt either.

Star Trek

I went to see Star Trek last weekend. I have seen every Star Trek Movie released and seen at least several episodes of all the TV series. Let me make this clear, though, I have never been to a Trekkie convention. Anyway, after seeing the trailers and TV spots for the new movie for several months now and looking forward to learning the background of some of the main original characters, I was very excited to see this movie. I am also a huge LOST television show fan, which is directed by the same guy as did this movie, JJ Abrams. So another plus for the movie. After seeing the movie, my impression is this: It was a really good movie, not great, but really good. There are a few reasons for this, but I think to explain might spoil it for some of you, so stop reading if you are going to see the movie. SPOILER ALERT! While this movie is kind of billed as a "prequel" after seeing it, I'm not really sure if it really was a prequel. I don't know how else to explain except to say that the concept of this movie is that Spock has gone back in time and he and some Romulans have changed some things in the past. So what I thought was "prequel info" may not be really true to the story of Star Trek. You don't really find that out, though, until most of the way through the movie, so building up, all this info about the main characters, Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, Checkov, Uhura, Scotty, seems so interesting and relevant and I had totally bought in and was captured by the story. Then they go and throw a major twist that I'm not sure they really had to into the plot. It was already a really good movie, even if they didn't go there. And now I'm wondering if things that happened in the movie ever "really" did, in a fictional sense. I loved the interaction between Kirk and Spock. It was fascinating. The character development was excellent considering they had so many characters to cover. The special effects were flawless. So I was slightly disappointed , but probably only because I had built the movie up so high in my head. Also because I kind of thought there might be some really inspiring theme behind the plot, and there really wasn't anything. But I hope they can keep this group together and make another film.