Where The Wild Things Are

Started by tpfkabi, November 27, 2003, 09:31:27 PM

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Stefen

Quote from: polkablues on September 23, 2009, 09:00:58 PM
Guys Neanderthal meat heads in their 20s and 30s standing in line waiting for Boondock Saints 2?  That's NOT the demographic this thing was made for!

Fixed.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

MacGuffin

When Spike met Maurice: Bringing 'Where the Wild Things Are' to the screen
Source: Los Angeles Times

When bestselling children's author Maurice Sendak contacted Spike Jonze at the start of this decade and broached the idea of a big-screen adaptation of his illustrated classic "Where the Wild Things Are," the filmmaker demurred. The book was a childhood favorite for Jonze, but how could he possibly translate a sweet story of a mere 10 sentences into a feature-length film?

"I was very hesitant in terms of, like, when I first started talking to him about ideas," Jonze told me last month during a conversation about the process of creating a distinctive look for the movie's big beasties.

Jonze warmed to the idea, however, during a frosty patch in his own life. He re-read the storybook about a little boy in a wolf suit who imagines himself in a magical neverland at a low ebb in his life -- it was during the break-up of his marriage to Sophia Coppola in 2003 -- and the director had a thunderbolt of creativity, a sudden moment of clarity. He phoned Sendak, spewing a torrent of ideas about how to bring "Wild Things" to the screen.

"I was telling him things I wanted to do and ideas of what the movie was about," Jonze recalled, "but I also wanted to make sure that this doesn't betray what the book is."

Instead of being proprietary about all the new narrative twists and embellishments, Sendak encouraged the director -- or to be more precise, he demanded that the "Being John Malkovich" director be bold enough to put his own stamp on things.

"His attitude is so counter to that, to protecting anything," Jonze said. "His assignment to us was, 'Take this, make it your own. Make it something personal. This book was something I made when I was your guys' age.' It was almost like he handed it to us."

Jonze enlisted big-deal literary sensation Dave Eggers to co-write the screenplay but continued to solicit Sendak's input. Because of his health, though, the 81-year-old author was unable to travel to Los Angeles to give his OK to the movie's monsters, plotting and overall production design. Undeterred, Jonze sent Sendak reams of drawings and photos of the work in progress. And from 2004 to 2006 he took every opportunity to travel back to Connecticut to meet with Sendak in his studio, an old converted barn.

"That's where we got all the tweaks on the characters," Jonze remembered. He added, while laughing: "He was like, 'The muzzle is too long on the bull' or 'The feathers on the rooster could be much more flamboyant!' "

Once the production moved to Australia for principle photography, Eggers' younger brother Toph -- who happens to be the co-protagonist in the author's breakthrough memoir, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" -- was consigned to shoot and edit a video diary for Sendak. For his part, the author remained fully committed.

"To be empowered by an artist whose work you respect and whose work has effected you for so much of your life was not only liberating, it was a mandate," Jonze said. "Like, OK, we gotta go there. We can't compromise it in any way."

At Comic-Con International in July, Sendak left little doubt that he continued to have Jonze's back after seeing the finished product. 

"I've never seen a movie that looked or felt like this," Sendak said. "And it's his personal 'this.' And he's not afraid of himself. He's a real artist that lets it come through in the work. So he's touched me. He's touched me very much."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

Quote from: Stefen on September 23, 2009, 09:20:56 PM
Quote from: polkablues on September 23, 2009, 09:00:58 PM
Guys Neanderthal meat heads in their 20s and 30s standing in line waiting for Boondock Saints 2?  That's NOT the demographic this thing was made for!

Quote from: Stefen on September 23, 2009, 08:54:47 PM
I just saw a preview for this during the Ultimate Fighter on SPIKE. haha.
"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

Stefen

Yeah, so? Wanna fight about it?
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

polkablues

Oh, god damn it...

http://www.openingceremony.us/products.asp?menuid=5&designerid=246&productid=10483&cn=menu5

The first person I see on the street wearing this wins a free rock to the back of the head.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Stefen

This reminds me of that time we all went and got those red Team Zissou beanies.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

picolas

Onion A.V.
Hater: Where To Wear The New, Expensive Where The Wild Things Are Clothing Line

Of course there's a clothing line based on Where The Wild Things Are . Of course there is. Lisa from The Real Housewives Of Atlanta has a clothing line. Charlie Sheen has a clothing line. Rachel Bilson has a clothing line. And you know what they say: "If that girl from the OC who isn't Mischa Barton can do it, literally anyone can do it!"--They

And why shouldn't a children's movie about adorable monsters have a clothing line? Kids love dressing up like their nightmares. Witness the Twilight line for Hot Topic . But, unfortunately, the Where The Wild Things Are clothing line isn't for children. It's for adults who so identify with a children's book about adorable monsters, that they want to pay $300-$800 to wear the skins of said adorable monsters in public. A small, twee, immature, impossibly-irritating demographic to be sure. 

Still, sometimes all you need is a little context to see the versatility of ridiculously expensive furry monster wear for alleged grown-ups.  Turns out there are several scenarios where clothes from Opening Ceremony's Where The Wild Things Are line would look appropriate.

For example, at a Snuffleupagus tribute show:

Or at your workplace, if you happen to be a hooker at a furry convention:

You could wear it to Whole Foods

Or To Rite Aid

Or, really, anyplace else with long lines and barely contained chaos where the sight of you in your asshole suit would just be one more annoyance added to the giant pile. 

If you're planning a molting-bird-creature look to wear to the open field where you plan to set all of your money on fire, this is a good one:

And, of course, you could wear it while standing around wondering where your life went wrong

Cause that's what pretty much everyone else who sees you in these expensive Halloween costumes will be thinking.

jtm

Quote from: polkablues on September 29, 2009, 08:41:28 PM
Oh, god damn it...

http://www.openingceremony.us/products.asp?menuid=5&designerid=246&productid=10483&cn=menu5

The first person I see on the street wearing this wins a free rock to the back of the head.

i'm guessing you are really against this film.

because otherwise, there's no absolute reason this should bother you. 



polkablues

Imagine there's something you really care about, and then you go on the internet one day and see that it's being gangraped in front of you by hipsters. And the hipsters each paid $600 to do it, just so they could prove themselves the most elite of hipsters to all the other hipsters. And just like that, a small part of you dies inside.

Yes, this bothers me.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Neil

it's not the wrench, it's the plumber.

pete

if it's onsale for $600 on the internet, I doubt it's the hipsters that'll be buying them.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

polkablues

The fact that it's $600 means that only the hipsters will be buying them. It's not based on love of the source material, it's a status symbol. If they were selling the thing for 50 bucks, or even 100, I don't think I would give a shit about it.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Stefen

If they were selling it for $50, I'd fucking buy one but at $600, um, no -- let the rich upperclass hipsters have it. fuggin jerkoffs.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

modage

I saw the film tonight at a Vice Magazine screening room with 100 people who would buy one of those.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Stefen

Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.