Friday, March 27, 2009

In contrast to the last two ragey posts...

OMG YAY!






I present to you, (anyone who doesn't troll the intertubes for trailers like me and hasn't already seen this), the trailer for Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

I don't remember being crazy about this book, I'm pretty sure I thought it was scary, I also remember really liking it, so maybe I revisited it later on. In fact I just asked my mother and she told me she had to take it away from me because she thought it was too scary. This was apparently around kindergarten or first grade when I was "sucking up anything I could get my hands on" when it came to books. (like I'm not still doing that.)

I'll have to go find it again and read it before I see this, (and I WILL be seeing it) form a fresh memory.

For any of you more sheltered sobs who have no idea what I speak of, Where the Wild Things is a Caldecott Medal winning children's book (from the 60's, it's that classic) about a little boy named Max who "causes mischief", (chasing the dog with a fork and growling at his mom, the scamp!) and is sent to his room, where from his imagination sprouts the Land of the Wild Things, populated by really big, really scary monsters. He stands his ground against them and becomes the King of the Wild Things (in really cute wolf pajamas). Anyway, I won't even bother to say spoiler warning but he eventually gets homesick and returns home to find dinner waiting for him, hot on the table. There's a moral in there about dealing with anger and learning how to love that's really cute coming from big scary monsters.

The whole story is only about a paragraph long, which makes me think the plot of the movie will be heavily padded, but it didn't win a Caldecott for nuthin' folks. This story is rich and the art is BEAUTIFUL, it holds up even by today's standards. Today wouldn't even HAVE standards if it weren't for this book. If you haven't read it, you should. It won't take up much of your time, and it's a good one to read to any younger siblings or cousins or whatever variation of ankle-biter you have in your life. Get some culture in 'em! Kids now-a-days need to know the classics! Rabble rabble rabble!

-Ahem-

So anyway, the movie is set to be released October 16th of this year (2009). The Wild Things will be brought to life with a combination of live action, nine foot tall animatronics and CGI (mostly for thier faces by the looks of it).
The Wild Things are voiced by Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Angus Sampson, Forest Whitaker, Lauren Ambrose, Katherine O'Hara and Paul Dano. Max is played by newcomer Max Records (who from what I hear had to be fought for by Mr. Jonz)

Lets hope this is one of those times the Nerd Fairy smiles upon us and delivers something amazing.
~Darcy

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