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posts about #adaptation more → Where The Wild Things Are : When Kids' Tales Go Tinseltown
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Where The Wild Things Are : When Kids' Tales Go Tinseltown |
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The weird surreal '70s and '80s movies I watched as a kid had a much stronger influence on me than kitschy contemporary stuff like BEETHOVEN or LOOK WHO'S TALKING. I mean, think of RETURN TO OZ. That's the kind of movie I'm expecting this to be. And I'm expecting kids to be amazed and terrified by it.
We're on the verge of a kiddie entertainment renaissance. This is a good thing! There's been a huge dearth of good kids' movies outside of Pixar for a long time.
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They viewed in front of 5000 people. I'm pretty sure there were no dry eyes.
One of the things that amazed me was how he was able to convey things that are a little scary without making you feel danger.
It works so well that trying to describe it to you would be trite.
It will be fine. And I'm pretty sure Jonze won't erase your imagination if you see it, so you will be fine too.
09/03/09
Similarly, sorry to those of you who are despairing over the upcoming remake of The Neverending Story but if you really love the story so much, wouldn't you want it to be accessible to a new generation of children who probably won't find the 80s style appealing? Besides, if we want to get technical, The Neverending Story was originally a German book. Which means that (1)Germans could have distressed over the English translation, (2)English readers could have distressed over the film adaptation of a book they enjoyed, and so on and so on forever. Let's just let it go because we don't want ulcers over some movies, do we?
09/03/09
I think more people are really just lamenting the death of creativity amongst the Hollywood types. It feels like a big money-mongering cop out for a medium that many people once thought of, and still do think of as an art form.
09/04/09
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I am one of those who thinks to myself that kids should be cool with the old versions. I can enjoy black and white films from the heyday of Hepburn and Tracy, after all. But I don't want to be a curmudgeon, and it's not like it hurts me or alters my life in anyway. So I'll be a weird parent who shows her kids old movies right alongside the newer ones. That doesn't bug me... in fact, it makes me happy.
All this to say, Cunning Linguist, I got your back.
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For the first time I'm not worried about a childhood memory in Hollywood's hands.
While the movie will share zero space with my childhood experience of the book, sometimes these page-to-films catch the way the original story excited my imagination... (also, vice / versa) and maybe that will happen this time. I can always hope, can't I?
09/03/09
People spoof and parody and remake Moby Dick and The Seventh Seal and a million other critically-acclaimed books and movies and the originals -- if they're really all that amazing -- are still upheld.
Why do all those "angry" or "apprehensive" think that they own their favorite movies and books?
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Anyway, my point is, the super short source material here doesn't lend itself well to an hour and a half+ movie; thus my reservations.
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I have to admit I never liked the book when I was a child but the movie looks interesting to me.
09/03/09
When I saw the preview, I was excited because I'm purposely separating my memories of the book with this interpretation. Plus with Maurice Sendak's approval, I feel a bit better about it.
I'm still going to pull out the book and read it to my husband though- he'd never heard of it.
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09/03/09
THIS. This is why I hate when they turn beloved children's books into films. In my opinion one of the greatest things about being a child is your imagination. It's utterly amazing. You can create whole worlds out of it. It becomes personal to you. How you interpret a story or its images is up to you. It's the wonderful thing about being a child. Films like this take that away. They tell you what you're supposed to see or what they want you to see.
My other great fear is that kids will always think of it in the context of the movie. The book is pretty damn great. I fear they'll never read it because they have the movie.
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I honestly believe this.
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