Where The Wild Things Are

Who wouldn't want to watch this movie?

Wild Things is the swing and the miss. I attempted to watch this movie four times. Each time I got a little bit farther in… and fell asleep. Now, work had been stressful and I was exhausted, but I made it through the next cinematic adventure just fine, so what happened?

Where The Wild Things Are is one of my favorite children’s books. I’ve always loved the imaginative creatures that Max encounters and Maurice Sendak‘s breath-taking art work. So it was great to see these creatures come to life on screen… eventually.

They added a lot of angst to Max. From the book, I gathered that he was a brat. From the movie, he’s lashing out because his dad is … missing? And Mom has a new boyfriend that looks like kind of a sleeze. I get it, where are the Wild Things? Max imagines himself getting on a boat and landing in the land of the Wild Things. Finally!

The Wild Things start off promising. Smashing trees, throwing each other around… But then it’s as if Spike Jonze, the director, remembered that he’s an independent film director, so all the creatures started talking… and talking… … and talking.

I think the creatures are supposed to be personifications of Max’s psyche. They are an outward manifestation of all the issues of a child living in a broken home. It’s all very cathartic for him, but the audience languishes. When does the wild rumpus start? That’s what I’m here to see!

Breath-taking imagery just couldn't get me to sit through this one.

I enjoy great independent films. A lot of my favorites feature people sitting around talking. And, I don’t feel like you could carry a full-length feature with just smashing trees and flying around. I guess I just didn’t get who the targeted demographic should be, and that bugged me. Is this a kids’ movie? Or is it for young twenty-something independent film lovers with storytime nostalgia? I just don’t know who this movie is for!

My kid was bored and my wife and I are  just beyond being twenty-something (we’re now thirty-something), so the movie didn’t hit home for any of us. Swing-and-a-miss.

It got returned to the Redbox about half-watched after four attempts…

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mr. Fox lacks the wonderful illustrations, but has the power of Roald Dahl's imagination behind it.

Fantastic Mr. Fox, however, sent it out of the park. Now, this film is rated PG and features characters that smoke, and, get this, ‘slang humor’. Honestly, I don’t want to spoil the fun of discovering the slang humor just by watching the film, but trust me, these animated animals are not going to say slang your kids shouldn’t hear.

I remember watching Mouse and the Motorcycle as a kid. I remember loving how the fur moved oddly (due to the animators no doubt inadvertently bumping it as they moved the characters around). It was the same wonder I would feel watching Claymation, and really watching the figures for fingerprints in the clay. It told me that someone made this! By hand!

My eyes popped out of my head watching this...

Fantastic Mr. Fox’s puppet-style stop-motion animation is a lot more cleaner and refined, but there is still that awe of knowing that these puppets were really made by someone! And they’re doing amazing things!

Add to that the direction perfection of Wes Anderson(Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited) and a stellar cast (George Clooney, Merryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Defoe, Owen Wilson, to name a few); and this has the makings of a great film!

Also independent, also based on a children’s book (this one written by Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda), this one succeeds where Wild Things fell on it’s big monster face: it appeals to ALL audiences.

Lately I cringe when a movie claims to be ‘great for the whole family!’ because that generally means it’s intended for kids, made by folks who may or may not ‘get’ kids. I’ve said it before, but kids’ movies shouldn’t talk down to kids. You should be able to watch films with your kids without feeling like stabbing sharpened pencils in to your ears and gouging your eyes out with spoons. Just sayin’.

Mr. Fox is truly a film the entire family will love. I laughed at stuff my kid didn’t get, she laughed at stuff I didn’t think was all that funny. The smoking thing? It was old school Disney: only the bad guys smoke. And those bad guys are gross. No worries of the kid coming out of the movie thinking that smoking is cool.

AND something that’s been missing in a lot of movies: it’s quotable. I’ve been driving my family crazy quoting and referencing since we saw the movie. But it feels good. I don’t have to keep pulling up original Star Wars trilogy quotes, I have something new!

Any thoughts?

Since everyone saw these two before me, care to weigh in? Did I break your heart by not being able to sit through Wild Things? Was Mr. Fox the biggest turd you’ve ever seen? Let me know below…

Martin Luther King, Jr. via last.fm

I recently read a wonderful post by Ron Mattocks at Clark Kent’s Lunchbox about what our hopes teach our children about their futures. Using Martin Luther King‘s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech as a catalyst, Ron tells us stories of his father and the effects his father had on his life and parenting style. It’s great. I highly recommend you head over there and read it.

As for me and my dreams, I grew up with a passion for animation, especially stop-motion animation. Using a VHS camcorder, I discovered that the camcorder would back up the tape 2 seconds when paused. So I would record my action figures for 3 seconds, move them, record for 3 seconds, move them… The result was choppy at best, but watchable, and I felt great! I felt like Chuck Jones must have felt when he discovered that Wile E. Coyote has to disappear for 24 frames when he falls off the cliff before you see the puff of dust when he hits. 24 frames achieves maximum hilarity.

In school, I built my own clay figure of Batman, and with a couple of friends, we animated a short film of Batman stopping a blob-like creature from stealing a TV from a cardboard electronics store. It was the only film I’d done that included dialogue! I remember showing it at some kind of open house we had, and a parent asked me when I’d be putting my films on Nickelodeon. I had to wait several hours for the head-swelling to go down in order for me to leave the building.

Unfortunately, I let my own fears get in the way. I wasn’t a good enough artist. I wouldn’t be able to get in to my dream school, or schools, it shifted daily from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to CalArts. I read stories of animators and cartoonists that sounded like they led terrible lives. Charles Schulz, creator of the ‘Peanuts’ daily comic strip, once said of cartooning, ‘It will destroy you. It will break your heart.’ He also said, ‘You can’t create humor out of happiness.’ So the career I wanted could possibly result in a life that was less desirable. Which way would I go?

That answer was ultimately answered for me when I met a red-haired girl who had a charming little girl of her own. In that relationship, I saw the life that I wanted. I saw more children and more happiness. I resolved that if I was Charlie Brown in the Peanuts strip of life, I was going to kick the damn football while avoiding the kite-eating tree.  Quickly I realized that I wanted the life of my dreams, and not the career.

One line that struck me from Ron’s essay was ‘Walking away from a dream, even for all the best and selfless of reasons, is no less painful as it shrinks in the distance behind you.’ That fit my decision to a ‘T’. Now, more than ever, it seems that Comic Books have taken over the cinema, and animation (at least CGI) is reigning supreme. Could I have seen a piece of that action?

On one hand, I feel the pain Ron describes of not actively pursuing the career of a cartoonist or animator, but on the other hand, I feel like that era of cartooning is vanishing. Everything’s done on the computer now. At 31 years old, I feel like a dinosaur. No one’s doing the animation that I wanted to do. I want to go back to hand-drawn animation, even hand-painted cels! I literally get teary eyed when I watch a film like ‘Pinocchio’ or ‘Fantasia’ and think about how the animators toiled over every bubble that rose up when Monstro crashed to the sea, or every broom that nearly drowns Mickey Mouse. The technique and artistry that was invented at the time was beyond compare.

If the Disney Company can start with a mouse, imagine what your kids can do! image via Wikipedia

Of course, Disney recently released ‘The Princess and the Frog’, and Studio Ghibli‘s ‘Ponyo‘ just saw its’ American release, and those are more traditional. Henry Selick and Aardman Studios are still out there doing stop-motion, but these are all the exceptions, and certainly not the rules.

That’s probably enough animation history for one post. What I’m trying to get at is that I would not trade my life today for anything. I am still in the job I got at 18 to ‘get me through college’. But that job has taken me places and taught me things that I don’t think  I would have gotten otherwise. And, of course, there’s my family. I have the best family on Earth! Without my family, this blog wouldn’t exist. Outside of my family, my heroes have shifted from Frank & Ollie to the likes of Ron Mattocks and Joe Schatz. These guys make being a Stay at Home Dad and blogger/writer look like feasible things that can become reality.

It is my hope and dream that I can nurture my children in to whatever they want to be. I tease my wife about my ability to get the kids to say that Batman is their favorite over Superman (she likes Superman better), but right now Calli would rather choose ‘Princess movies’, Kat is in to romantic manga and anime, and Tristin squeals when he sees his Spider-Man teether. I couldn’t be prouder of my independent thinkers!

As far as serious career paths my kids are considering? Kat wants to work with tigers. We just got an invitation for her to participate in the People to People Student Ambassador program. This is a program that has been around for over 50 years and is offering Kat the chance to go study in Australia. I have heard this is fairly expensive, but I will do everything in my power to make sure that she gets to go. If I have to create fundraisers, sell my soul on eBay, whatever, just so she can take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Currently, Calli is a Princess. Who could ask for more? The other day, we asked her to pick up her toys. She put her little balled-up fists on her sassy little hips, looked up at us and said, ‘I can’t do that! I’m a Princess!’ We’re working on that…

Tristin is succeeding in holding up his large cranium. At 5 months old, he’s wearing a 12-18 month hat. Beyond that, today he managed to get my water bottle away from me and take a few sips. I’ve never laughed so hard at his big eyes as the cold water ran down his throat! He immediately went for more.

Whatever the kids wind up doing, I will support whole-heartedly and be the proudest father in the Universe, on this they, and you, have my word.

The Ultimate Payoff:

I remember as a kid listening to Patrick Stewart narrate it from a cassette I found at the library. Of course, I saw the Disney version more times than I can count, and who can forget the use of the wolf’s theme in the holiday classic ‘A Christmas Story‘?

So I was surprised, as I went on a Netflix streaming video bender last night, that I discovered a new, unique retelling of the classic tale. Directed by Susie Templeton, this new vision of Peter and the Wolf is a stop-motion masterpiece. As you watch the film, you feel as if you are watching dolls created by a master craftsman come to life. It is easy to find yourself fully immersed within this beautiful universe.

While it remains true to the original incarnations by not utilizing any dialogue, it has some unique variations as well:

• The wolf is truly menacing, getting ahold of the duck, who does not survive. (I know, that was a spoiler, just thought I’d warn those with small children. If they are easily disturbed, you may wait until they’re a bit older.)
• The hunters are equally menacing, throwing Peter in to a garbage dumpster and threatening him with their rifle.
• The bird breaks his wing, and Peter gives him a balloon to help him fly.

I loved watching this. The ‘acting’ of the animated characters is captivating. You truly understand why Peter’s grandfather wants to keep Peter out of the forest. There is a scene with Peter and the duck ice skating on a pond that gives you the sense that you are skating along with them. It feels like the really good View-Master reels living and breathing in front of you.

This version of Peter and the Wolf won the 2008 Oscar for best animated short, and deserves all the honor that it has been given.

I leave you with a 30 second preview, and my highest possible recommendation. Enjoy!

And just for fun, here’s another vision of Peter and the Wolf by the beatboxing flutist, Greg Pattillo: