Where the Wild Things Are

If you enjoyed the book, don't expect to find that same thing in the movie. I read a while ago that the author had written the book about dealing with divorce in the family, and to that end it truly stands up and keeps that issue alive in the story. But when dealing with a book that's twenty pages, and trying to turn it into a movie that's an hour and a half you start to run into a lot of problems with filling in the blanks.

Spike Jonze who directed this I think did a phenomenal job with writing it as well, and with keeping the feel of the story through out the film. At times though I felt mostly disturbed by what I was seeing (It's Spike Jonze, why am I surprised?) but for a kids story to be so bothersome makes me feel they took a wrong turn somewhere.

The story is simple, Max a young boy living in middle America is acting out because his parents are divorced, Mom's got money woes, his big sister is sort of a bitch, and Mom's back on the dating scene. After a rather funny confrontation with his Mom he runs away, takes a little sail boat and lands on the place where the wild things are. After lying to them about who he is they make him their king, and he promises he'll make it all better. One of the Wild things, named Carol (a boy) is upset that one of the other wild things named KW (a girl) has left their family and made new friends. This issue is tearing the rest of the family apart (hence the whole divorce thing) Well things get better, and they get worse and he eventually has to go home.

As we walked out of the theatre a friend of mine said there wasn't any resolution to either of the plots, his families or the wild things. I can't say I was surprised though, if the stories about divorce that's something that doesn't end, and something you deal with, at least on some level the rest of your life. So even though at the end of the movie he's better, he will never be able to reconcile the fact that his parents no longer love one another.

At times I found it to be inappropriately violent, in one such instance Carol is chasing Max because he's mad at him and is going to eat him, if you take that and view it through the spectrum of divorce, then here is the father figure chasing the child not to eat him of course but to beat him. At least that's how I viewed it. There is a very specific family dynamic amongst the wild things, a Mom, and Dad, ones that are more like the children, and when the father is upset that the mother left and chases the child for lying....seemed to me pretty obvious.

Also another thing that kind of bothered me was just how sad it was. It has its funny parts and its more up beat parts, but over all it was very depressing, as the kid tries to wrap his mind around the divorce, and how to deal with not having a father figure we see just how sad being a kid really is. It is, being a kid is a sad experience. People like to gloss over how fun it was, and it was, but there is so much sadness to, and this film is just over flowing with it.

Now for all my seeming complaints, I really did like it, plenty. The voice acting was great, I sat there most of the movie trying to figure out who was doing the voices because I had heard them before. The Jim Henson Company made the costumes for the wild things, and they did the faces with CG since the heads weighed to much with all the animatronics in it. So you can clearly see that the kid is there, standing next to these things and not standing alone talking to a tennis ball on a stick. The kid was great, I never got the feeling he was acting, they auditioned thousands of kids, so I would hope they would find the right one.

It was a really touching movie, and like I said before a little disturbing at times, but I think Spike Jonze did a very good job with it, if perhaps he took a few to many artistic licenses with it. I suppose though how upset could I get if the author saw it and said it was great, but then again, that book belongs to us now, not him...really. Its the property of any person who read it as a child and liked or loved it. Its not exactly what I would have done with the story, but was still thrilling.

There was way to much hand held camera shots, it was pissing me off, I don't get a headache from that, or nauseous, but when its over used to this point its just stupid. When you have a budget of 70 million use it, you have the equipment and toys to make it as fluid or as shaky as you want it, but not that shaky!

Overall it was great and everyone should check it out, but not necessarily in the theatre. 7/10 stars.

Director: Spike Jonze

Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forrest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Ruffalo

Thomas in Love

I cant really say that the description of this movie was wrong, but they ignore a huge part of the way they tell the story. Its a strange one to say the least.

It's the story of a man who in the near future has become agoraphobic (fear to go outside) and has remained in his home with out going out and no one coming in for the last eight years. Well his state appointed psychiatrist wants him to try and get out there and meet people, in a way of speaking. He has to talk to people and interact with a form of video phone they call visiophone. The entire movie in fact is told through the visiophone, and all you ever see is what our main character Thomas sees on his video screen.

So he's looking for love, dealing with his insurance company, his poor mother who just wants to talk to him, a call girl service and so on. The story only picks up what we see on the screen, so hours days or even more go by in a second as one call ends and the next begins, very strange. He meets a few women that interest him, and he eventually has to decide if he wants to venture out into the real world once again. The thing is is that all his needs are met, including his...other appetites, he can have virtual relations with a CGI girl though the phone and a suit that allows him to feel it like its real.

It's a cool look into the future, everyone has these tattoos or make up on their face making them look very hippie, but also futuristic. There is, I'm sorry to say very little personal growth from Thomas the entire movie, which makes it hard to really care about him because he doesn't do anything to really help himself. He's sarcastic and mean at times, he doesn't want help, but if something doesn't go his way he complains, a lot. I still cared for him, but not as much as I could have.

It starts out with a bang (literally) as he has sex with this virtual girl....which was....strange to say the least, but for an indie movie the effects were better than I would have thought. It was a different kind of movie and for that I have to give it some respect, but it felt largely underwritten and poorly constructed plot wise, still enjoyable though, but only appeals to a small amount of people, not commercially. 7/10 stars.

Director: Pierre-Paul Renders

Starring: Benoit Verhaert, Aylin Yay, Magali Pingluat

The Tunnel

When I read the description for a movie and it says that its two hours and fifty minutes it makes me a little careful of when I want to start the movie since I would want to see it all in one sitting. Problem with that is other obligations that I have to deal with as well as the possibility I might get....dun dun dun...bored!

That was not the case with this, the time flew by with it, and I liked it a lot. Its the true story of a national athlete from east Berlin who escapes and then with the help of like minded people dig an extensive tunnel under the newly constructed wall in the sixties to get people out. Its slow and played out, there are several "oh shit" moments in it, and the "villains" who are, don't get me wrong very bad people are still just that, just people. One of them even says if we just had the same ideals we wouldn't have to be like this, wise, and obvious, but also self aware enough for me to say "that's enough" but they don't.

The acting was great, with a really amazing cast, no one of which I recognized (maybe the sister) it was German anyway, so it's not like I would. The film and the actors for their part are really good at showing the pure desperation that they must have felt at the time, and the real danger of what would happen to them if caught. People turn on one another, they back stab, but for no other reason than to save themselves.

They did some very cool things with the lighting and certain shots, and they really understood how to fully use the frame to their advantage. They weren't afraid of the dark, they use it in moderation though. The colors were spot on, it was crisp and clear, very impressive all around.

It was a great telling of a story that is, not largely ignored but certainly less played up than other events of the last century. It was very good, and I highly recommend it, if you don't like subtitles then stay away (and you might be an idiot) 8/10 stars.

Director: Roland Suso Richter

Starring: Heino Ferch, Nicolette Krebitz, Sebastian Koch, Allexanda Maria Lara, Claudia Michelson, Felix Eitner

Secrecy

It had been a while since I had the time to sit down and actually watch a movie, so this whether it was good or bad wouldn't really have mattered, just the act of viewing a movie would have been enough to make me a little happier. Even more on the plus side, it was very good.

This documentary takes a pretty simple stance, America has become a very security and secret orientated government, people on all sides of the issue agree on that. Now the question is as follows, is that a good or bad thing? It's good when we have the technology to listen to Osama Bin Laden's satellite phone calls, which that secret was leaked by a news paper and low and behold he stopped making phone calls with it. There's an example where secrecy was a good thing. A place where its not good would be Guantanamo Bay, or the secret prisons we have set up in other countries.

The documentary is smart, it doesn't try and judge what is right and wrong but simply lets the players tell their side of the story. We go from the conception of the Nuclear bomb through the events of 9-11 and the WMD's. A really cool, and sort of scary bit of information was this, when they made the A-bomb they had to keep it secret for five reasons and they are as follows: The Germans, The Japanese, The Russians, All other countries, and last but not least, the American people! The had to keep it secret from us, and congress, most of the rest of the government didn't even know about it. Since its inception was against the law at the time it had to be withheld from the public's knowledge and the other parts of government.

The documentary was very well made, it had parts that reminded me of another great doc. called "The Corporation" It had music that sounded like Phillip Glass from "The Fog of War" It had these little animated sections that tied the movie together, they were black and white and sort of morphed and changed depicting things that the doc. was talking about, it really added to it.

I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who considers themselves an American, it deals with the core principles this country is based on. If a democracy is of the people, then how can we have people in the government deciding what to keep secret from us about our own country? A tough question. 8/10 stars.

Directors: Peter Galison, Robb Moss

American Drug War: The Last White Hope

As far as drug documentaries go this one was in my opinion pretty even handed. It gave the spot light to people on both sides of the argument while still leaving enough room for the film maker to put in their own spin.

Ive seen a few documentaries about weed, and they all seem to take the same stance: Weed is the best thing that's ever been discovered and its the evil corporations of America trying to hold it down. Well I'm in the boat that believes that weed isn't good for you, but neither is drinking alcohol. But even though it isn't good, that doesn't mean that its as bad as heroine or crystal meth. Which in our country it is categorized as being that bad, basically public enemy number one.

Its pretty obvious that its not as dangerous as they make it out to be, and that comparing it to the synthetic drugs of the last 20 years or so is crazy. The documentary focuses a lot on that, how weed isn't as bad as they said. It also spends a good chunk of its time dealing with the new drugs that have come about in the last few decades, the drugs that people can cook up in their own basements that is much more deadly and potent than weed ever will be. There were certain things they said it in though that was just plain wrong and a little naive, such as weed has never killed anyone. That's bullshit, there is no way that no one has ever gotten some form of cancer from smoking weed. If you can get it from inhaling any other type of smoke then that goes for weed as well. And on top of that, when people drive while high and plow into a brick wall, its the weed that impaired them enough to do that. Just like with alcohol.

The doc. points out that when the drug war in the US started they had a federal budget of 2 million dollars a year, now we are well into the tens of billions. If a persons job relies on getting rid of something for good, why would they ever do the job fully? If you do a job the requires getting rid of something then you put your self out of a job that pays well and gives you power over billions of dollars. The drug war as well as claiming lives also is a business.

There are agencies set up only to deal with drugs, there's the DEA, vice squads, and so on. As well as the majority of people who are in prison are there on drug charges, so now you have the companies building the prisons and the people needed to run it, it helps the economy and turns peoples lives into a commodity. Plus this commodity you can make work for you inside the prison, like a slave. Its a business unto itself, and if you shut that down you lose a lot of money.

It was an interesting documentary, seemed a little amateurish at times, but was overall very well done. It wasn't saying drugs are good, and wasn't demonizing all of them either. 7/10 stars.

Director: Kevin Booth

XXY

Human nature is such a disturbing notion. There are many things that upset me, and there is a scene in this that really pushed me to the edge and it deals directly with the way humans react to certain things.

The story is about a 15 year old girl named Alex, well not really a girl, but not really a boy either. She is a true hermaphrodite, which is actually extremely rare. She has both sex organs, there are several different types of hermaphrodites, and this one is the rarest. A world renowned surgeon and his family are coming to visit Alex and her family to determine what the best course should be for their odd situation. Alex is not aware that she is being observed. Her parents made the right choice to not perform any surgeries on her before she knew exactly what she wanted to identify as, but that in itself is causing a new set of problems since she is starting to become very interested in sex, and she wants to be the dominant aggressor, during sex she acts as the man. The surgeon and his wife brought their son Alvaro who is a little older than Alex. He is interested in her, but is sort of stand offish, I think he's gay and that her ambiguity throws him for a loop, hes attracted, but not to her as being a girl.

People outside of this little group start to find out what she is and things turn bad. There is rarely a happy ending for people like this. And it comes down to the difference between a persons individual nature and human nature in general. Men impregnate women, its the simplest thing in the world, and that's what our nature revolves around. Alex's nature doesn't fit that, she is neither the feminine nor the masculine, she is both, so where does she fit in? The answer is simple and rather sad. She doesn't, and never will. Even if someone does accept her for as she is, she will always be untrusting of people, and her behavior will always cause a problem. She appears to be a girl, but acts as a boy, but not in a "Butch lesbian" sort of way. People like this are a gender unto themselves, she isn't even intersexed, she is a perfect combination of the two sexes, and she cant decide her gender.

The sad part is that society will expect her to choose one, or she wont fit in. Alex is beautiful, but she is a different animal than us entirely, she acts by a nature above our own, basic and yet complex, primitive and yet light years ahead of us. She is a perfect marriage of all that is man and woman, and for that people will try and destroy her.

The acting is incredible all around, its all very underplayed and desperate. The two fathers (Alex's and the surgeon) are butting heads, but they only really come head to head once. The same thing goes for the mothers. Their stories are certainly interesting, but Alvaro and Alex are the real show. The whole movie is very wet and gray, cold even. it all seemed very real, with the help of some well placed and executed hand held shots.

It was a very strong movie, and troubling not only because of some rather upsetting scenes but also because it turns the mirror on our own nature when it comes to people who are different, and its not a flattering image. 8/10 stars.

Director: Lucia Puenzo

Starring: Ines Efron, Martin Piroyansky, Ricardo Darin, Valeria Bertuccelli, German Palacios, Carolina Pelleritti

Open Your Eyes

Most remakes tend to be...crap, for the most part. There are times though of course where I am delighted to find that another filmmaker has improved on an already great idea. That's what brings me to the movie I just finished watching which is the original that "Vanilla Sky" was a remake of.

A young rich man (Cesar) throws a party for himself since its his birthday, he is being harassed by a very beautiful, but maybe a little obsessed girl (Nuria) that he had a one night stand with. He tries to escape from her by using Sofia whom his best friend Pelayo brought to the party as his date by pretending to be with her. Cesar ends up spending the night with Sophia, and its obvious that they both really like one another even though they keep it pretty innocent. When Cesar goes to leave the next morning Nuria is waiting for him, he is coaxed into her car, and she purposely drives head first into a brick wall killing herself and disfiguring Cesar's face.

This is the point in the story that things start getting more surreal. Whats real, and whats a dream become very confused and played with. The themes are simple, Reality is bended, and what is real happiness? The acting is great, and Penelope Cruz who plays Sophia reprises her role in "Vanilla Sky" Its certainly visually stunning, but I think that "Vanilla Sky" took it to a whole new level. I think this version spends to much time talking about reality and less time showing the lines blurring.

One thing I loved about both versions is that no matter what anyone says about the end I consider is pretty open to what you think. The last voice you hear is that of Sophia, if you haven't seen either of these then that means nothing to you, but if you have then its a very strong argument for a certain interpretation of the ending. If its the ending that they push the hardest in the film then it saddens me so much. To me this sort of ending is so much harder to watch than a lot of other movies that are supposed to be sad. But I wont say any more about that for people who aren't familiar with the films.

Cameron Crowe I think did a great job remaking this, and I do like his version better, but there is no doubt that this movie isn't incredible. It spawned a lot of other movies like it, obviously "Vanilla Sky" but also movies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" This movie I think is a hard sell but they certainly hit a home run with it. I recommend it to anyone, this version might not be great for kids though. There is nudity (not a problem for kids, I think) but the make-up they use in it is very upsetting to even an adult, so I think a kid might be a little frightened by it.

The more I sit here and think about it the more I think there might have been things I haven't considered about the story that add even more to it, there are several layers to say the least, but easy to follow. Dense but not overbearing. A really great movie, beautiful and sad. 8/10 stars.

Director: Alejandro Amenabar

Starring: Eduardo Noriega, Penelope Cruz, Chete Lera, Fele Martinez, Najwa Nimri