Having vaguely remembered the beloved Maurice Sendak children’s book, I went into Spike Jonze’s latest with absolutely no expectations.  And I walked away fairly impressed.

Where the Wild Things Are, in case you haven’t heard, is actually not a children’s movie.  In fact, parents, or adults in general that have read the book, may enjoy it more.  Jonze and co-screenwriter David Eggers have crafted a story that is not about the whimsical nature of youth or imagination, but one that deals with the theme of ‘belonging’.  Young Max (Max Records) is a hyper, imaginative young boy who is still coming to terms with his parents’ divorce.  His mother (Catherine Keener) works hard to support Max and his older sister, but is also on the lookout of a new love.

Skipping over the family drama bits, Max finds himself in a strange land across the sea, a land populated by creatures several times his size.  Most are human-like in speech and behavior, but still retain an element of scariness to them (the sharp teeth don’t exactly endear them to Max).  It is in the world that Max sets himself up to be the king, ruler of all.  Not in a malicious way, but only to help his new friends, especially Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini).  Only when he deals with the responsibilities of being king does he understand how hard it is to make everyone happy, even when the best solution is compromise.

What I find fascinating about this movie are the lessons that he learns while being king, and how they can apply to Max’s “real world”.  There isn’t a sitcom-esque moment where Max has some kind of epiphany and realizes what the real problem is.  In fact, that moment is implied and never really underscored.  Much like in real life, there aren’t really any moments where you can pause and reflect upon your lessons; you’re constantly being challenged to apply the new teachings.  All of the themes of loss, divorce, love, etc come into play during Max’s time among the Wild Things, and he comes back a more enlightened kid because of it.

Many of the themes will probably fly over kids’ heads, which is why critics have said that it’s much less of a children’s flick than it “should” be.  Still, it’s entertaining and certainly ranks among Spike Jonze’s best.

7.5/10

The land the Wild Things inhabit is a land where all your expectations about a children’s movie are turned on their heads. The elements that are usually trite and shallow in most children’s films are fresh and fully-developed but the parts that usually work in children’s movies don’t work here.

Where the Wild Things Are expands upon the classic book (necessary because the book is something like nine sentences long) in some interesting ways. We meet Max in the real world, where he lashes out angrily at his sister and bites his mom. He runs away from home and comes across a boat that takes him to the land of the Wild Things, who now have names and personalities. Max becomes their king and leads them in a variety of pursuits like fort-building and dirt clod fighting.

While the film never explicitly says so, this is all an adventure in Max’s imagination. And it really does play out as if a child made up the story. Staying truthful to a child’s vision is quite interesting intellectually and conceptually, but in a lot of ways it doesn’t really work as a movie. It’s just aimless (kids don’t think in story arcs). Max become king because he says so. The dirt clod war ends with hurt feelings. A fort sounds cool so they build it. The actual plot doesn’t really do anything. It stays remarkably true to the conceit of an adventure a child in a certain mood might imagine but there’s a reason kids don’t write many movies.

The film succeeds in other ways, however. It creates some very well-developed and complex characters in Max and the Wild Things. All the Things are distinct, with their own personalities, flaws, and problems. The way we get to understand these characters is truly remarkable for any movie, let alone a kids’ movie where characterizations are often paper thin.

Director Spike Jonze also succeeds in imbuing the film with intense and earned emotion. This is not a happy kids’ flick that glosses over the negative parts of being a kid. It understands that kids feel the same emotions the rest of us do: anger, sadness, aggression. Like Dorothy in Oz, Max’s real life problems and emotional issues find homes in various Wild Things. (“And you were there,upset-for-being-ignored! And you were there, sister-abandonment-issues!”) And while this is fairly obvious, Jonze does a good job of not beating you over the head with it. Once again, the film’s emotional depth is a wonderful achievement.

But it doesn’t really make for a good movie. It’s technically quite proficient at imparting the emotions it wants but those emotions are all intensely mopey so that the film has an oppressively melancholy quality to it. The breaks for levity are just too few and far between. I’m not necessarily against a melancholy film or an aimless plot for that matter, but together they are a deadly combination, especially since the melancholy itself is aimless. There’s no apparent reason for the Things to be so despondent and there’s no real resolution. With motionless plot and characters the film feels slow.

And so I appreciate the concept of the film intellectually, respect its ambition, and have found some very fascinating and thoughtful discussions about it online, but it makes for a fairly dour and slow viewing experience. Ultimately it didn’t work for me but I appreciate how it’s given me much to think about. I’m curious if a second viewing would be more stimulating now that I’ve had a chance to ponder it a while and maybe I’ll give it another shot on DVD.

Some prognosticators thought it might sneak into the expanded Best Picture list this year but that seems unlikely now. The Things are technological wonders with furry bodies and computer animated heads. I could see a Visual Effects or Costume nod. Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a band I really like, provides the music for the film, often accompanied by a chorus of children. I’ve listened to the soundtrack and I think the songs mostly work better as little snippets within the film like in the rousing music that marks the beginning to the wild rumpus. Still maybe a Song nomination is possible.

To recap:
Most children’s movies: Happy, fun, and full (often too full) of plot but with thin characterizations and little emotional complexity
Where the Wild Things Are: Aimless, dull plot full of moping but populated with complex characters and emotional sincerity

The guy in the wetsuit and scuba gear strums his guitar and sings: “If I was a great white I wouldn’t bite you. But I’d swim right next to you.” And right behind him in the blue depths, swimming along apparently uninterested, is this enormous, white-bellied, 40-million-year-old apex predator. Clearly a great white shark.

The audience at the Montrose Pavilion for Mountainfilm’s annual tour show, a near sell-out of about 600 people, gasped as one, then held its breath as if for the safety of the bubbling troubadour.

You couldn’t hold it for long, though, because The Great White Shark Song got funnier, and deeper, and more macabre as it went along. When in the lyrics a human pulls out a harpoon and wants to shoot the great white, he sings: “. . . Then I’d realize how f*cking really hungry I am right now. Sorry about your leg. I’ll be back in a while. For the rest. Don’t stress. My sister will be back to clean up the mess. Relax. Kick back. It’s only a great white shark attack.”

The seriocomic genius behind the four-minute movie has the unlikely name of Andy Brandy Casagrande IV. He’s a producer and underwater cinematographer for National Geographic. And the film has its Nat-Geo message side: “. . . If I realize that you don’t care about the sea, well that means you don’t care about me. Oh, well. That’s fine. I’ll just bite you in f*cking half this time.”

This is classic Mountainfilm: quirky, brilliantly-conceived entertainment that makes you think. There were 10 other shorts on the program including Look To The Ground, a visit with a blind mountain biker; Pickin’ and Trimmin’, about the rich life of a small-town barbershop in Drexel, North Carolina; and The Good Fight, a portrait of pioneer environmentalist and Grand Canyon river runner Martin Litton, who, after rowing a dory through Lava Falls—he was 89 the last time he did it—likes nothing more than to light up a stogy and do Winston Churchill impressions.

There’s something about short films. (The longest in Montrose was 23 minutes; the shortest—a gorgeous, white-on-white, mid-storm evocation of powder skiing in the Japan Alps—was barely four minutes.) Somehow they set an audience free. It’s like a table of heavy hors d’oeuvres: Eat ‘em up, enjoy each bite-sized morsel, there isn’t going to be a main course.

Someone recently turned Ellen on to Wholphin, “a DVD magazine of rare and unseen short films.” It’s a great idea: Four times a year a group of San Francisco film buffs put together a DVD of shorts from around the world and send them to subscribers in a slick packet with photos and interviews and other extras.

Before we opened the first package Ellen kept saying, “Wholphin.” And I kept saying, “What-fin?” Turns out there has been one documented case of a captive false killer whale mating with a bottlenose dolphin (they were at Sea World in Hawaii) and the result, a cross-species girl baby, is called a wholphin. (You mean Napoleon Dynamite’s childish drawing of a “liger” wasn’t so crazy? I guess not; there really are ligers, too.)

I guess I can see a link between a wholphin and outside-the-box filmmaking. A slim one. But that is another beauty of shorts. They don’t always have to connect, to make perfect sense; they are free to leave you with a small slice of life, tantalizing, incomplete.

One of the best on Wholphin #9 was a how-in-the-world-did-they-make-this? documentary about a hotly-contested beauty pageant inside a women’s prison in Columbia. Another featured a very brave monologue, from the bathtub, by a polygamist sister-wife (she and her younger sister are married to the same man) in Utah. You desperately want to know the rest of the story.

Then there were three very short shorts by Spike Jonze, each one featuring the voice of Maurice Sendak. Jonze has been in the news of late for his controversial feature-length interpretation of Sendak’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are. These shorts were wacky, gory, funny—not for kids but childlike in their wild freedom of invention. “But then I realized,” Jonze says in the accompanying interview, “we’re all totally crazy: The way we relate to each other and imbue everything with our own emotional perspectives on everything is insane.”

Like a guy playing guitar and singing underwater in the company of great white sharks.

There are many reason I hang about the halls of cinema.

The feeling you get when an idea pops and you know it’s going to be a progression on your last one.

The feeling you get from watching the first complete cut of your new film and it looks remotely like you imagined it.

The feeling you get from trapping emotion in a can.

The feeling you get from watching old battered flicks on a big screen.

The feeling you get from being close to someone else’s work.

The feeling you get when a trailer takes your breath away, despite the fact you almost never watch trailers………..

To name but a few………..

Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)

Hello all.

To be honest, this was not the original film for this slot. Originally, it was The Conformist, an outstanding film that I love a good deal. I took it out due to the fact that a portion of my love for the film stems from the same love that I have for Dead Man. I always wanted to see an actor acting out Plato’s Allegory of the Cave on-screen and this film has it. I decided to replace it with one of the Honorable Mentions for this project, the bizarre and entertaining Adaptation. It took me years to see this film, I had seen everything else Kaufman and Jonze related and even, at some point, owned this yet had never seen it.

The film starts with a bizarre opening- self-deprecation, full of wants/needs, just plain out there –to find out that Cage is portraying a “real” person. The audience finds this out through slicing Cage, as Kaufman, on the set of Being John Malkovich. I say “real” in the sense that he is portraying a real person but at the same time it is still a portrayal by an actor within a film, which takes a portion of the “real” away. I love how Cage discusses how he does not want to “stuff Hollywood” into an adaptation where within the movie, Adaptation, it could not have any less “Hollywood” in it. The insight into his mind is both essential and brilliant (despite what the film eventually leads you to believe). The viewer learns so much about Charlie and how both normal and abnormal his thought process is.

There are not enough words to describe how great Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep are in this film (especially while on-screen together). That is not to take away from Nicolas Cage’s performance. He, through both Charles and Donald, does an outstanding job portraying on one side a neurotic and borderline crazy individual while at the same time portraying a charming, personable, and somewhat charismatic individual. It is all very clever and well done.

In addition to the comment about not making the screenplay “Hollywood,” Charles wishes to make it as simple as possible. If you know the film, then think about this comment. Coming from Kaufman himself, stating that he wants his screenplay to be as simple as possible. This film, particularly its screenplay, is so far from simple. This, like Otto e mezzo, belongs on my list of thirty or so films everyone needs to see once.

Thank you for reading!

From director Spike Jonze comes the indie retelling of the children’s classic “Where the Wild Things Are.”

Mildly funny.

Gente, fico feliz só de ouvir, compartilho aqui!

Karen O & The Kids:

E o filme não aguento mais esperar…

Am 17. Dezember ist es endlich soweit: Spike Jonzes Adaption von Maurice Sendaks Kinderbuchklassiker WO DIE WILDEN KERLE WOHNEN kommt endlich in die deutschen Kinos. Seit Jahren warten alle Fans auf diesen Film, zwischenzeitlich war sogar zu befürchten, dass er es nie in die Kinos schafft. Doch alle Unkenrufen zum Trotz hat Jonze es geschafft, hat sich mehrmals gegen das Filmstudio durchgesetzt und immer seine Vision verfolgt. Und eines kann ich an dieser Stelle schon verraten: Das Ergebnis ist einfach nur schön!!! (An dieser Stelle sei anzumerken, dass schön das perfekte Wort ist, um diesen Film zu beschreiben. Atemberaubend, grandios, hammergeil oder sonstige Wortspielereien werden dem Film in keiner Weise gerecht)

Und um allen Fans und nicht Fans das Warten auf den 17. Dezember zu verkürzen, hier noch mal ein kleiner Appetithappen in Form des ebenfalls einfach nur schönen Trailers. Und die deutsche Synchro ist gar nicht mal so schlecht…

I have to admit that I’ve never read the book of “Where the Wild Things are”, or if I have, I don’t remember reading it. Of course I’ve heard of the book and I’m very familiar with a lot of the art work and images, but I really couldn’t tell you the story inside pages. When I heard that there was going to be a film about this book, I didn’t think much about it because I wasn’t familiar with the plot.

Where the Wild Things Are – Movie Review
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Adam_Renfro]Adam Renfro

I have to admit that I’ve never read the book of “Where the Wild Things are”, or if I have, I don’t remember reading it. Of course I’ve heard of the book and I’m very familiar with a lot of the art work and images, but I really couldn’t tell you the story inside pages. When I heard that there was going to be a film about this book, I didn’t think much about it because I wasn’t familiar with the plot. What changed for me was when I first started seeing the trailers for the movie. I really liked what I saw in these brief clips and thought I should check this out and see what it’s all about.

Perspective. That’s what I feel this movie is about. The perspective of being a kid. Who doesn’t remember how different the world looked when we were younger. Not only because we were smaller at that age, but also because of our innocence. My first impression after the movie was that what I saw was not a kid’s movie. I know that it’s based on a beloved children’s book, but the story and movie I saw was geared more towards adults and their memories of childhood. This movie made me think about my own childhood and what it was like growing up. It made me look at the world as I remember it as a kid. Everything always seemed so much bigger when I was younger. I used to love the fact that I was small enough to fit into places that no adult could. One of the greatest parts of this movie is helping us to remember how it felt to be a kid again.

In this movie, Max is a complete brat. Although they never say, it seems that his mother is divorced and raising two kids. Max is the youngest and his sister is at the age of hanging with her friends and dating and being too cool to hang out with her little brother. Max doesn’t seem to have many friends either and therefore tries to do anything to get attention from his mother, his sister or his sister’s friends. His constant need for attention and getting his way comes to a boiling point when his mother tells him that his behavior is not acceptable and he breaks away from her and runs away. His mother tries to catch him but just can’t keep up. So begins his journey to the land of the wild things.

At this point in the story, you would imagine that the kid’s part of the movie would begin. Not so. When he meets the wild things, they each seem to deal with some aspect of Max’s own behavior and his own inner demons. One is lonely. One is always being ignored. One is used to getting his own way. Yet another just wants to be left alone. Unknowing how to cope with such vastly different personalities, Max must learn to cope with each monster and try to unite them together to face their lives as a united group. They make Max their king and in the process Max actually grows up and realizes how to manage these feelings and emotions himself.

One of the traits of a great movie, is that you leave the theater still thinking about it. The more I think about, the more I can envision the message being conveyed. As the years go by, I do think this will become one of the first true masterpieces of film to come out of the early 21st century. I think the kids will enjoy the movie, especially the parts with the wild things, but adults will understand the deeper meaning and remember just what it was like to be a kid and how we each began our own journey to adulthood and being more than just a kid but an adult who is just a kid at heart.

~A. Renfro [http://comicbookculture.net]Comic Book Costumes!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adam_Renfro http://EzineArticles.com/?Where-the-Wild-Things-Are—Movie-Review&id=3171910

Thanksgiving has come early for Warner Bros. as Where the Wild Things Are is one big, fat turkey. A movie for grownups masquerading as a kids flick, Wild Things doesn’t succeed on either level and in turn polarizes both of its audiences.

Movie Review – Where the Wild Things Are
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Bill_Bonfanti]Bill Bonfanti

3 out of 10

Thanksgiving has come early for Warner Bros. as Where the Wild Things Are is one big, fat turkey. A movie for grownups masquerading as a kids flick, Wild Things doesn’t succeed on either level and in turn polarizes both of its audiences. Who was this film made for? I’ll answer my own question. Director/writer Spike Jonze has made a self indulgent mess of a movie strictly for himself.

The film is meant to capture the imagination; instead it captured only my boredom. It plays like a weird version of Ordinary People starring the characters from Sesame Street. This domestic drama is brought to you by the letter Z. The events in the film, such as mud ball fights between Max and the wild things are supposed to be fun and whimsical. They are not. Instead they actually kind of come off as really strange torture porn starring overgrown Muppets.

I can appreciate the artistry that went into this film, but Wild Things adapted from the beloved children’s book by Maurice Sendak, shouldn’t be a film that solely caters to artists and hipsters. Adapting a children’s book should never serve as a playground for experimental, avant-garde cinema. When setting out to make a children’s film, it is absolutely essential to serve that audience. Wild Things could’ve been funny and amusing for young ones while also exploring more adult oriented themes such as isolation and domestic strife but there truly isn’t one funny moment in the entire film.

Warner Bros. has apparently been trying to market the film to adults more than children, but while watching the trailer, I don’t get that at all. It certainly looks like a movie for kids to me. Serving an indie film up for mass consumption for children worldwide borders on a criminal act in my mind. My six year old son has never been scared during a movie. He’s watched everything from G.I. Joe to Transformers to Harry Potter and comes out smiling and laughing despite the cartoon violence that appears on screen. In fact, these films have enhanced the power of his imagination. By the end of Wild Things, my little guy was sobbing his eyes out, scared spitless by the domestic monster that Carol is. My true goal as a parent is to protect and preserve the bubble of innocence that exists in childhood and by taking my son to see this movie, I’ve failed him somewhat. I knew going in that this film wasn’t going to be a typical kid’s flick, but nonetheless, with source material like this, I truly didn’t expect Wild Things to be this harsh and unforgiving.

I know that many people will read this review and think that I’ve lost my mind and just didn’t get the film, but the truth is, I totally understand the movie. Understanding the concept and themes doesn’t take away from the fact that I was bored stiff throughout the entire film. I looked at my watch multiple times during the movie (never a good sign) and somewhere around the half way point I realized how much I hated the movie. That being said, there are elements of the film that do deserve praise.

The acting is uniformly solid. Newcomer Max Records is quite astonishing in the lead role, giving an extremely natural performance that will resonate with audiences. Records is quite the find and should have a nice career in front of the cameras should he choose to pursue it. The actors lending their voices to the furry creatures are all fine although none of them, with the exception of James Gandolfini, bring any real personality to their respective characters. Gandolfini as Carol is the lead character among the wild things and as such has more to work with than the other actors who include Paul Dano, Chris Cooper and Catherine O’Hara. As good as Gandolfini is, it’s oddly disconcerting to hear the voice of Tony Soprano come out of the mouth of a giant, furry puppet.

Jonze has delivered a beautiful film with its washed out, minimalistic color scheme but everything else falls flat. He has infused his normally, edgy filmmaking to this film and on that level he has achieved some success. While I’m all for filmmakers expressing their artistry, I just don’t feel it is appropriate to do so in a movie fashioned around a children’s book. We have plenty of time in our lives to expand our minds as we get older, but those first few precious years should be surrounded by fun and laughs.

The screenplay is over long and goes nowhere. There is really not much to the story other than that Max, feeling alone and unappreciated takes off for parts unknown only to meet up with the wild things. Feeling acceptance and love, Max thinks he’s finally found a family that can appreciate him for who he is. The wild things turn out to be just as dysfunctional as his real family and Max has a Dorothy moment (there’s no place like home) and realizes the best place for him to be is with his family. That’s the story ladies and gentlemen. Originally told in ten sentences, the story works quite well. At over ninety minutes, it feels bloated and unnecessary.

To sum it up, I truly despised this film and I don’t believe it deserves to be celebrated in any way (except for its discovery of Max Records). Don’t take the kids. They will either be bored, scared, or confused. More than likely a mix of all three. If you are a fully fledged adult, you might enjoy the beauty of the film, but that’s about it. If you are of college age and experimenting with as many drugs as I did at that time in my life, then you will enjoy every trippy moment of Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are.

Bill Bonfanti is FilmGo.net’s movie critic and Box office analysis. http://www.filmgo.net Every week you will find new reviews and box office predictions for the current crop of films in the theater.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bill_Bonfanti http://EzineArticles.com/?Movie-Review—Where-the-Wild-Things-Are&id=3242310

Now available in the new issue of Little White Lies magazine is my essay on director Spike Jonze and the “fabled filmmaking class of ‘99″ entitled “Taking Over the Asylum.” The issue is chock full of Jonze tidbits including an interview with the man. So check it out if you’re inclined. But act fast if you’re interested in snagging a hard copy version of the magazine since they typically sell out. An online version of the magazine will be up in a month or so, though. But I can’t stress enough how wonderful Little White Lies looks in the hard copy format. Great stuff.

Purchase your copy here.

A shorter version of my Jonze piece will also be in the upcoming issue of surf/skateboarding/snowboarding mag Huck… out soon.

I should add that the covers for both magazines are visually linked too. Very nice.

The Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack dropped from DCG/Interscope on September 9th.

When Spike Jonze set out to recreate Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, he enlisted the help of ex-girlfriend Karen O, vocalist for the Brooklyn-based garage punk group the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. To put the record together, she recruited the likes of bandmates Nick Zinner and Brian Chase, Tristan Bechet from Services, Dean Fertita from Queens of the Stone Age, Bradford Cox from Deerhunter, Jack Lawrence from The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs, and Imaad Wasif from New Folk Implosion. The supergroup was then born under the namesake Karen O and the Kids.

Along with her troupe of contributors, Karen O managed to translate Jonze’s vision of escape from adulthood exquisitely well into the film’s soundtrack. The product is an auditory masterpiece that features a depth that perfectly supports and complements Jonze’s creative vision.

When setting out to compose the soundtrack, Karen went for a decidedly childish approach, which can often spell disaster for most projects. Each track on the record takes on an often haunting feel, but is eventually triumphed over by an overwhelming feel of playfulness. To create that sense in the music, Karen drew on the more juvenile aspect of her writing style, explaining it to Rolling Stone by saying, “I guess there is a childlike innocence about my music or my persona that [Jonze] always just kind of dialed into.”  Many of the tracks feature an intentional dissonance that both overwhelms and envelopes the listener, making the listening experience just as entertaining as the film itself, just without the monsters.

When listening to the record in order, it is overly apparent how Karen positioned the songs in such a way as to have the mood of each track assume the polar opposite of the one before it. This varying mood brilliantly mirrors the constantly changing state of emotions of a child, bringing the record to an entirely more visceral level. It’s as though she herself was experiencing the same emotional turmoil as the protagonist Max throughout the production of the record.

In the end, the product from Karen O and the Kids is just as admirable a feat as the film itself. To call Karen O the “Spike Jonze of Soundtracks” may seem a bit exaggerated, but at the same time, it’s impossible to ignore the truly exquisite writing that defines the soundtrack. By paralleling the emotional movement of the film itself, Karen O and the Kidshave managed to create a soundtrack that stands perfectly beside an already stunning film.

– John Luposello

Vi fick i uppgift att ge ett bra och ett dåligt exempel på reklam. Jag valde att titta närmare på just dramaturgi aspekten i två reklamfilmer.

Den bra reklamen jag valde är Spike Jonze IKEA reklam.

Den bygger upp en emotionell relation till denna stackars lampan som blir helt ensam i denna världen. Finns det någon som inte känner sig ledsen för lampans skull? När reklamen verkligen fått oss att må dåligt för den lilla saken får vi oss en smäll på nosen och vi är tillbaka i verkligheten. Vi kan inte hjälpa att skratta åt hur lätt lurade vi är. Alltså ett jätte bra exempel på hur vi blir engagerade i en reklam.

Min kalkon reklam är Willys “Berikar Sverige” reklam

Kort och gott så tappar jag intresset och har ingen lust att se klart resten av den eftersom jag redan vet vad erbjudandet är från början. Det är svårare att tro att bara komma på en dålig reklam bara sådär eftersom man sorterar bort dem i och med att de faktiskt är kassa! Så det är ju bättre att göra en bra reklam, för man kommer ju ihåg dem åtminstone. Det kan ju vara en fördel… … Lättare sagt än gjort kanske.

Recently I defended Michael Bay (while simultaneously expressing how odious his movies can be), and now I rush to the defense of another man used as a lazy punchline to a billion deeply unfunny jokes about bad cinema: the acting colossus called Nicolas Cage. As with Bay, Cage is treated like a cautionary tale about how that vile, Chthonic monolith called Hollywood can drive people insane with greed, how talented individuals can lose their way and begin a descent from making art to making dross. He is accused of sleepwalking through films, cashing checks, appearing in unworthy crowd-pleasing dreck, and working with anti-cinematic infidels. His personal life is raked over (he keeps impulsively marrying women! He calls his kid a silly name! He buys too much crap!), his eccentricities treated as signs of mental illness, and his success used as example number two in the case against modern culture (example one being the success of Bay). Only Ben Affleck is treated with less respect, a fact that I intend to address in a future post where I defend him too. (I’m serious about that. Affleck is awesome.)

There are millions who seem to love to take a short-cut in thinking and just refer to Cage as a has-been with no understanding of what a joke he has become, though Cage’s most famous critic has been Sean Penn, the former friend who once told the New York Times, “Nic Cage is no longer an actor. He could be again, but now he’s more like a…performer”. This was said around the time that Cage appeared in two Bruckheimer productions — The Rock and Con Air — which seems to be the one thing an artist can do that will sink his credibility. Why did Penn single out Cage for that and not Cage’s co-stars Ed Harris, or Sean Connery, or John Cusack, or John Malkovich? They’re respected actors who have won awards and are considered to be fine actors, but Cage falls into the line of fire for moving from carefully considered character pieces like Leaving Las Vegas to action movies, three of which he did in a row (the third being the classic John Woo SF actioner Face/Off). His wildly broad performances in those movies were almost certainly a factor, but then he has always given broad performances, within which lie subtle moments (see also Wild At Heart, Birdy, Peggy Sue Got Married, etc.). They’re entertaining displays of eye-rolling crowd-pleasing acting pyrotechnics, but there’s a soul there too. This is what I think of as getting The Full-On Cage Experience, with madness and soulfulness tied together. Penn could never pull off anything like that. When he mugs, he ends up wrecking the movie.

By all that’s holy and unholy, how much better was Penn in Milk, or Dead Man Walking (incidentally, that’s one of my favourite screen performances of all time)? It’s not even a fair competition. Besides, this accusation, insinuating that Cage is no longer an actor, is rich coming from someone who appeared in I Am Sam. I’ll take an entertaining and unpretentious actor having fun playing a demonic avenger with a flaming skull than some humourless chide wasting his talent on Oscar-baiting bullshit like that any day of the week. Sadly, Penn’s not the only one who thinks Cage has pissed his talent away. In this little essay, Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman compares Cage to Dr. Wesley T. Snipes, which is prescient considering Cage’s current tax woes, but while Snipes has descended into Direct-To-DVD hell, Cage is still working on big-budget movies and smaller curios, still attracting the viewing public, and still cranking out performances that are — at best — thrilling, and — at worst — merely entertaining.

The one argument that genuinely annoys me is the one where Cage is cranking out piss-poor, lazy performances since his last truly astonishing performance in Jonze and Kaufman’s Adaptation. I’ve often said that I think his work in that (along with his work in Leaving Las Vegas and Raising Arizona) deserves a coveted Shades of Caruso Free Pass…

…but of all the movies he has made since, only three performances really disappointed me: his work as Benjamin Gates in the first National Treasure movie, where he seemed awfully tired; his creepy performance in Next, the empty action thriller adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s clever short story; and his catatonic turn as a greasy-haired loser assassin in the disastrous remake of Bangkok Dangerous, which I suspect he took so he could get a holiday in Thailand. That last one really did give me cause for concern, but Gleiberman likes to make out that Cage is regularly signing on for “grade-Z genre schlockers”, which apparently include Ghost Rider and The Wicker Man. Neither of them are good movies, but they were not developed as low-budget cash-ins. Ghost Rider was obviously meant to be a big comic book adaptation, with a pretty good cast and a $110m budget, and even if it was absolutely dire, it was made with love by fans of the character, of which Cage is one.

The Wicker Man is a dumb-ass movie by any standards, but it’s made by Neil LaBute, who was once a promising director. He could have turned in a thoughtless remake of the excellent original (which would fit under Gleiberman’s umbrella of “genre schlocker”) but instead made something personal, for better or worse. For all it’s faults it’s obviously of a part with his other movies, dealing with his favourite themes of misanthropy, deceit, misogyny, fear of opening up to others, and gynophobia. I’ve occasionally argued that The Wicker Man is a satire on male fear of impotence and castration, a paranoid comical fantasy about a scheming cabal of exaggerated feminist ballbreakers who are out to destroy the penis, turning all men into drones and semen-donors whose sexuality is merely a sacrifice of power to the almighty womb in order to replenish the earth with children.

Sadly, even if this was LaBute’s intention — and even if Cage was in on this project for that reason alone — it’s still ridiculous and poorly made and filled with wonderfully camp moments. Cage maintains that the comedic aspects of the movie were not lost on him. In an interview with Spike Jonze, Drew McWeeny discusses meeting Cage, and Jonze is full of praise:

Jonze: I love [Cage]. We had the best time working together. He really works and focuses.
McWeeny: His publicist was a little wary of me being there, I guess, because he doesn’t do a lot of press and he doesn’t allow press around a lot, but he really was very accessible once I’d been there for a few days, and he kind of warmed up to me. And he was really just fascinating. I loved chatting with him about stuff.
Jonze: Totally chill.
McWeeny: Yeah. And I think far more self-aware than most people think. Like I think some people think Nic is in this vacuum and doesn’t realize how crazy some of his performances are. I got the feeling he was totally aware of how people perceive things. We were talking about THE WICKER MAN, and he was like, “How do people call that an unintentional comedy? I’m in a bear suit kicking Lelee Sobieski in the throat. I know it’s funny.”
Jonze: He just takes it so seriously that nobody knows how to take him. Like PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, I was like, “What is that?” Like I was 15 so I didn’t really know.
McWeeny: I just love how you can always count on him to push things further, like VAMPIRE’S KISS. He ate a roach, man.
Jonze: And also just the insanity of that performance, just the balls-out fearlessness.

Is it enough that Cage is aware of the ridiculousness of the movies he is appearing in? For me it is. I strongly suspect Cage is the most easily bored person in the world, and unfortunately that is paired with the ability to get work in movies that pay millions of dollars for him to spend on cars and comics and castles. Some of the films he has been in lately are truly awful, and I would never argue that they weren’t. Neverthless, I watch them for those flashes of manic commitment from Cage — The Partial Cage Experience — that delight me so. Are they valid acting choices, or is he merely trying to entertain himself while he trudges through formulaic populist bilge? As far as I’m concerned, even if he’s merely trying to entertain himself, he succeeding in entertaining me, and surely that’s what counts.

The only other popular actors that delight me as much are Clooney (who can do pathos and comedy equally well), Streep (who is always the best thing about everything she has ever been in), and maybe Jeff Bridges. Even those fine actors have not given me as much pleasure as Cage does, even when you forget about his early, golden years and concentrate on this bizarre stretch of poor movies. Since Adaptation we’ve had the insanity of Not The Bees…

…a literally hysterical fiery transformation…

…a Shout-Off with Rose Byrne (who is utterly overmatched, despite her invention of the word “chuldren”)…

…a run in with an obnoxious know-it-all child (the best part of which is how he treats the kid like an adult for most of the scene)…

…and a frustrating teaser of what could be his finest hour, if ever Rob Zombie got the money to make it…

His willingness to make fun of himself is the thing that keeps his crazy public and professional persona viable, and though many of his actions seem completely deranged, I honestly believe he’s playing a trick on us. Can someone who makes a series of adverts like these really be unintentionally weird?

(N.B. Anyone who has a sense of humour about themselves gets a break from me. Even the reportedly tyrannical and insensitive director Michael Bay gets points for playing up to his image with this commercial for Verizon:)

I’m a fully paid up Cage fan. For entertainment value, he can’t be beat. To see a person with such intelligence, quirkiness, restlessness, fearlessness, and energy do his thing in such big-screen movies is a rare thrill. If I squint I can see why Cage is now considered a hack by critics and film-watchers, because it’s easy to confuse being in a terrible movie and actually being terrible, but I worry that maybe people are also turned off by his intensity and his allegiance to the weird. The odd soporific performance aside, perhaps what baffles people the most is seeing him devote so much energy to projects that they feel don’t deserve it. Personally, I think that’s admirable. He’s getting paid enough, after all. Dance, you fucking monkey! Dance for your millions!

And yet even though I revel in his passionate and unpredictable work in crud, I’ve become concerned that we would never get another performance out of Cage that is as electrifying as his best work (disclaimer: I’ve not seen Lord of War or The Weather Man, and some have said he gives solid, rounded performances in both). Once upon a time he would work with Lynch and Scorsese, and the performances he gave were over-the-top yet grounded in some kind of emotional profundity, but lately those performances — while entertaining, memorable, and stronger than popular wisdom would have you believe — are lacking that extra fire. Well, I’m happy to report the return of The Full-On Cage Experience, as he takes on the task of being the 21st Century Klaus Kinski. More on that tomorrow, when I review Werner Herzog’s excellent Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

This is amazing!, MySpace users  around Australia will be treated to a special pre-release Black Curtain screening of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ on November 30th for FREE (YES YOU READ CORRECTLY…FOR FREE!). All this 4 days before its official national release on December 3rd the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ Black Curtain screening will give MySpace fans around the country the opportunity to be some of the first in Australia to see this iconic tale of childhood  and self discovery translated  to the screen.

How you can get the tickets?…IS VERY SIMPLE!:
The only way MySpace users can attend an exclusive preview screening of Where the Wild Things Are is by befriending the Black Curtain profile (www.myspace.com/blackcurtainau) where from 4pm on Tuesday November 24^th, they will find a code to SMS in order to be sent a unique ticket to their mobile. This preview screenings will taking place in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Based on one of the most beloved books of all time, “Where the wild things are” tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are.  Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions.  The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule.  When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.

Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara and Forest Whitaker, “Where the Wild Things Are” is directed by Spike Jonze from a screenplay by Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers, based on the book by Maurice Sendak.

So, what are you waiting for?…be ready for the final countdown on Black Curtain and be ready to msn the code. Be the first to watch this big blockbuster!.

If you are not a myspace member, just go to www.myspace.com and create an account, is really simple! and start to enjoy the benefits!, and of course become a friend of Black Curtain to have the chance of be part of this screenings and the future ones!

Wanna see more about this movie?…just watch the trailers here!

GOOD ONE MYSPACE!

Golem of Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

I haven’t seen the Spike Jonze film “Where the Wild Things Are” (2009), but the brilliant work of acclaimed Australian Conceptual Artist Patricia Piccinini (born in 1965 in Freetown, Sierra Leone) reminds of such wrinkly creepers, including the Middle-earth’s Golem of Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003), New Orleans’ Ben Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and Transylvania’s Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

Piccinini explores what she calls the ‘often specious distinctions between the artificial and the natural’. By displaying the similarities and differences between the organic, natural and our constructed material world, Piccinini challenges our classification of life. This inspires her to combine human and animal physiology and technological development in many of her works.

www.patriciapiccinini.com

Location: 
Melbourne, Victoria
, Australia

This is a really cool cake, check it out at Coco Cake Cupcakes.

I really love how the piping for his hair isn’t all one color. It makes the cake look way more interesting. I also love the cute ribbon at the bottom. I wish I could make stuff like this!

And here is a cupcake tower made by someone else:

İki gişe rekortmeni filmin soundtrack’leri de en az filmin oyuncuları ve çekimleri kadar konuşuluyor.

Birinin adı ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon‘. Vampir trendinin sorumlusu, Edward fanlarının kan çanağı… Cuma günü ülkemizde de vizyona girecek olan filmin başarılı soundtrack’inde bir sürü tanıdık isim var! Victoria Legrand ile Grizzly Bear’ın etkileyici birlikteliği, Lykke Li’nin ilahi melodisi, Thom Yorke’nin kanımı emen parçası, Bon Iver ve St Vincent’ın sakinleştici etkili düeti… Ve ayrıca Death Cab for Cutie, Editors, Band of Skulls, The Killers, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Anya Marina, Muse, Hurricane Bells, Sea Wolf, OK Go, Alexandre Desplat…

Diğerinin adı ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. Seneler önce masalın başında Maurice Sendak, seneler sonra kameranın başında Spike Jonze… Patrick Watson’ın çocukluğundan beri hayran olduğu masala yazdığı parçayı film için Jonze’a yollaması,  fakat kendisinin soundtrack’te parçaya yer vermemesi ile küçük çapta sansasyonunu da yaratan albümün baş kahramanı Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)… Karen O’nun Deerhunter’dan Bradford Cox, The Dead Weather’dan Dean Fertita, Liars’dan Aaron Hemphill, Gris Gris’den Michel ve Yeah Yeah Yeahs’den Nick Zinner ve Brian Chase ile bir araya gelerek oluşturduğu ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ topluluğu ‘Karen O And The Kids’ parçaları en az film kadar ilgi çekmişe benziyor.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

1. Meet Me On the Equinox // Death Cab for Cutie
2. Friends // Band of Skulls
3. Hearing Damage // Thom Yorke
4. Possibility // Lykke Li
5. A White Demon Love Song // The Killers
6. Satellite Heart // Anya Marina
7. I Belong To You (New Moon Remix) // Muse
8. Rosyln // Bon Iver & St. Vincent
9. Done All Wrong // Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
10. Monsters // Hurricane Bells
11. The Violet Hour // Sea Wolf
12. Shooting the Moon // OK Go
13. Slow Life // Grizzly Bear (with Victoria Legrand)
14. No Sound But the Wind // Editors
15. New Moon (The Meadow) // Alexandre Desplat

Where The Wild Things Are

1. Igloo
2. All Is Love
3. Capsize
4. Worried Shoes
5. Rumpus
6. Rumpus Reprise
7. Hideaway
8. Cliffs
9. Animal
10. Lost Fur
11. Heads Up
12. Building All Is Love
13. Food Is Still Hot
14. Sailing Home

El otro día hablaba con mi amiga A. de que aunque el mundo (o mundillo) de la moda sea bastante -por no decir mucho- odioso, frívolo, competitivo, cruel, mezquino, difícil, falso y esté lleno de gente que reúne todas esas características y las multiplica, también acoge a personas que son capaces de hacer cosas tan preciosas y únicas que consiguen ponerte la piel de la gallina al primer golpe de vista.

Hay gente que consigue valerse de la moda y hacer arte aunque ella (la moda) no lo sea por definición. Cada día veo fotografías, vídeos, montajes o desfiles que me dejan boquiabierta y por todo ello merece la pena aguantar la mitad de la basura que se genera en torno al sector (lo mismo que en otros). Toda esta mermelada mental viene a que mañana llega a Barcelona Scott Schuman, autor de The Sartorialist, uno de los blogs de streetstyle más importante del mundo si no el más. Tiene más de 100 mil visitas al día y se ha convertido en uno de los personajes más influyentes del mundo de la moda. Además del interés que tiene por los estilismos que retrata, Shuman es buen fotógrafo (capta las personalidades, sus fotos transmiten una especie de optimismo) y su blog consigue atraer y después, enganchar. Penguin acaba de editar su primer libro que ya está agotado en la página de la editorial y en Amazon. Aquí podéis ver una muestra:

The Sartorialist Flick Through from Susie Bubble on Vimeo.

Y dejando de lado el mundo de la moda (o no tanto) hoy por la mañana me he enterado de que Wes Anderson, uno de mis directores de cine preferidos (The Royal Tenembaums, Rushmore Academy, Viaje a Darjeeling) estrenará próximamente una película de animación basada en un relato de Roald Dahl, que casualmente es uno de mis escritores de ayer, hoy y siempre ¿Podía pedir más? Sí, un trailer que mola tanto como este:

Y siguiendo con directores que nos gustan y sus trailers y enlazando con la capacidad de hacer cosas preciosas capaces de poner la piel de gallina de la que hablábamos antes, la última peli de Spike Jonze que por lo visto parece que va a ser el bombazo de la temporada (Opening Ceremony ha hecho una colección basada en la peli. Atención a los disfraces y cuanto molan). Seguro que el trailer ya lo habéis visto 80 mil veces: