If anyone gets mad about a short poem having to be altered to flesh out a ninety plus minute movie, they need to relax.
You of all people are giving me advice on getting angry over pop culture bullshit?
edit:
Ok, ok, after re-reading my post it does come off a tad (extremely) angry, melodramatic and somewhat self-righteous.
In all honesty, I hope it’s really well done and beautiful. You have to give me some leeway though. I lived a lot of my childhood fantasizing about being other places and other people (it may sound sad but I always wanted to be Peter Parker). I don’t think that’s out of the ordinary. So to see Hollywood bastardizing so many different comics, books and toys (#### you GI Joe) pisses me off and I don’t have much faith in movies anymore.
And no, I won’t really make my kid hate it. I already promised him I’d take him because he said “It looks pretty awesome, dad.”
If anyone gets mad about a short poem having to be altered to flesh out a ninety plus minute movie, they need to relax.
I’d tend to agree with you had they never made the Jim Carrey version of “The Grinch,” which probably ruined that book for a whole generation of kids. Still, I’m cautiously optimistic about this, largely because Jonze is involved.
In the case of fleshing out the original dichromatic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” story into the Chuck Jones animated 26 minute TV version, I say it was an improvement. I could have done without two of the three added songs, and maybe the extended descriptions of the toys, but Tony the Tiger singing, ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and the classic Chuck Jones’ slapsticky comedy of errors with the dog and sleigh added a lot more to the original than just time length.
good job bob, on injecting yourself into the debate!
The big movie this week is Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are—a feature-length adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s very short children’s book. The interest in this ranges from enthused to cautious to downright hostile (one person on the Xpress forums likened the prospect of the movie to having his childhood raped). Personally, I have no horse in this race. The book was not a part of my childhood, and I’m ambivalent about Jonze’s movies. But I’m definitely curious.
Lisa Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A”:
Sendak’s great gift to readers, old as well as young, is the seriousness with which he presents even the wildest mayhem, the deepest contradictions in human (and Wild Thing) behavior; the author empathizes with fantasists but has no time for cuteness. In his transcendent movie adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze not only respects the original text but also honors movie lovers with the same clarity of vision. This is one of the year’s best. To paraphrase the Wild Thing named KW, I could eat it up, I love it so. A
Creatures with large foam heads are frightening…even to adults..
As far as having my childhood being raped..that was long ago…Uncle John said we were just playing, but I always thought there was something wrong..he told everybody did it…I need help I feel so dirty…
