Film adaptations of much loved stories are fraught with danger, not least when a fanbase is quick to shout about any potential raping of childhood memories. So when it came to the screen interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are (perhaps the most loved of all children’s picture books) the stakes were extremely high. But rather than give it to a safe pair of hands the job of director fell to Spike Jonze, a director seemingly a million miles away…

Jonze never ceases to amaze me...

I find this film to be a miraculous achievement considering the source material. I did not grow up with the picture book this film is based on as it is not well- known in my country. I stumbled on this picture book in my late twenties when I was working on my thesis on children's literature. I devoted an entire chapter to this book in order to illustrate the power of storytelling and effectiveness…

Some films are about things; literal things, with characters you recognise and narratives you can retell to your friends. Some films get a little deeper; offer some profundity we can apply to our own emotions and experiences. And then there’s the exceptions, films that don’t rely on laborious streams of words and concepts, but are instead more akin to a leisurely drive through a consciousness long forgotten. They are those films that have visceral, human qualities that are hard to…

Film #8 of No Rewatch November

No way did I think this movie could match Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Spike Jonze did it again for me.

The amazing thing about this movie is the sense of wonder and energy brimming and bursting at the seams of every scene. Lust for life as Iggy Pop himself would put it. What Spike Jonze does is put the viewer in the place of Max. Which makes it all the more frightening when…

What a beautiful film and while I haven't seen Adaption yet this solidifies for me that Spike Jonze is one of the most interesting and versatile directors working today. Believe it or not, but I'm not actually familiar with the source material, so Where The Wild Things Are was to me a completely new world and one I am happy to have been invited to. I haven't been transformed into my inner child like this since My Neighbor Totoro and…

Director - Spike Jonze
Writers - Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers (based on the book by Maurice Sendak
Cast - Max Records, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo, Pepita Emmerichs and Steve Mouzakis
Voices - James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara and Spike Jonze

Trailer

Do you ever look back on your childhood and feel like something was missing? When I was growing up, I was very lucky. My parents didn’t break up, I went to a reasonable…

This film hit me like a ton of bricks. Going in completely blind having never read the famous picture books by Maurice Sendak was definitely worth it.

There are so many good points of the film it would be hard to focus on just one, from the wondrous creation of the wild things to the captivating performance by a young Max Records it really packs an emotional punch and at 5 minutes before the end it really hits home. Many…