11/25/2023 0 Comments Solar eclipse maestro rampupIt is not a golden-hued, idealized home, nor is it a thin caricature of domestic melancholy. What they do, in those evocative opening passages, is to show Max's world, all the good and the bad of it, richly drawn, deeply felt and beautifully textured, so that we can understand why he would want to escape it-and why, later, he would ache to return. "Don't worry, this isn't needless psychological hogwash intended to "explain" the behavior of an iconic character (we're not dealing with Rob Zombie's Halloween here). What it does, more than any movie that I can think of, is replicate what it's like to be a kid, how it feels, the fierce energy of an imagination untethered, and how that runs parallel to the first, terrifying pangs of sadness and fragility and loneliness and despair. Make no mistake, it is an unconventional family film-but that is a good thing, inasmuch as it is noticeably lacking in pop culture references and bullshit moralizing. "It is also, yes, 'difficult' and 'challenging' and all those other buzzwords that dull Hollywood types attach to any movie that can't be put into a box that spits out Happy Meal toys. The preview audience I saw it with laughed at the jokes, but sat in hushed silence otherwise, lest they break the delicate spell the film casts. It's an enchanting film, warm and winning, a picture that envelops its audience and holds them in its grasp for its entire 101 minutes, which go by in a blink. After years of preparation, after rumors of behind-the-scenes rumblings, after all of the breathless pre-release hand-wringing (Is it too intense for kids? Is it too smart for family audiences?), Spike Jonze's film version of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are was well worth the wait. Jason Bailey says it best when he says, "Holy crap, they pulled it off. If you still haven't seen it, you definitely should, though frankly, my favorite picture of 2009 wasn't even nominated: Where the Wild Things Are. We covered The Hurt Locker here last month. Well, the Oscars have come and gone, and while it wasn't exactly an outstanding year in terms of the triumph of art, at least the deserving picture won over the commercial powerhouse. (Click on the links to read the full review.)
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