I didn't like it either. The movie was completely dependent on the viewer agreeing with Max that he was getting the raw deal. The author did not leave any room for sympathizing with the sister (she's a teenager, trying to figure out her own idenity separate from her family, trying to figure out romantic relationships when her chief observed relationship fell apart and now there's New Guy, and on top of all that her younger silbing is demanding her attention in activities she's outgrown) or her friends (whose primary loyalty is to the sister who doesn't like her brother, and who were from their perspective were playing a game he instigated -- too roughly and without considering his age relative to theirs, true, but for a teenage boy "are you okay, well, there's no blood, bye" when his friend doesn't even like her brother is actually pretty kind). Nor did the author leave room for considering the mom's perspective -- that of a single parent -- is. We are only allowed to see MAX'S perspective and only to consider MAX'S feelings.

I don't like people telling me how I'm supposed to feel.

Second, I was the lonely kid with a crappy family life, but I was the OLDER sibling. So not only did I not identify with Max's position in that he did NOTHING to help himself at all (not even the things I did, like being a star student for and a bookworm for company, and not getting into situations with unpredictable variables... like a snowfight with five older guys when there was no adult around) but I've BEEN his older sister. Her shoes suck, too, and the fact the author didn't allow me any symapthy for her pissed me off almost as much as the fact that neither does anyone else who has seen it.

I did't like it either...
goos review I'm agree with you

oh...and you having walked out on this movie missed one of the greatest moments of the movie with him and his mother at the end.

man, do i blabber or what?

that post just looks ridiculous.

I don't just read this site Roy. I eat, sleep, dream, and ultimately live this site by letting all your words—word by poignant word—marinate in my brain until all that beauty has been sapped. And then I contemplate suicide.

But, I'll take your bait. And be your monkey, etc. (Btw, how are you doing Roy? Keepin’ it gangsta? Hope all is well.)

Let me preface by saying that I too am a huge fan of Spike Jonze as I am a huge fan of this book (a definite childhood fav) so there’s a part of me that wants to like this movie by virtue of its very being. (And RE: IMDB, any movie that is halfway decent seems to garner an absurdly high rating during its initial release. Like these movie watchers are rating on tilt or something.)

And may I kindly call bullshit on your not having any preconceptions about this movie? Because there’s always a sense/feeling, however abstract, that you bring just by the nature of a movie’s hype, having seen the poster, knowing the genre, or better yet, having knowledge that this is a Spike Jonze-directed movie of a highly popular children’s book, etc.

I also have to preface by saying that I probably don’t watch movies like your average moviegoer watches movies, so my thoughts, opinions have a bit of disconnect. I watched this movie as a film geek/lover of Spike Jonze’s work/lover of the book/lover of childhood. And I think this movie is very much trying to capture that [“that”=childhood]. Just in a strictly sensorial way, all the dusk light photography and isolation rings very true to me. Because that is very much how I remember childhood. As being washed over in that kind of lighting and being isolated. But I think that latter part has to do with me being an only child. But that’s cool, you’re not an only child. (I had a fucking awesome childhood, btw, loneliness notwithstanding, so no pity is necessary.)

[SPOILER ALERT]

And what’s the deal with all the angst you say? My only answer is this: It’s how children behave. All angsty. Especially a child who experiences his igloo collapsing on him because of an asshole teenager and subsequently has to witness his sister run off with said asshole teenager without her providing any consolation or defense. So, to me, it would only be natural for him to run to his sister’s room and do what he did. Maybe I wouldn’t have reacted in exactly the same fashion, but I totally understand him doing that. Later on he sees his mother dallying with her boyfriend and what not, which for me would induce a fit of jealousy, and thus, Max reacts to this in what I think is a fit of jealousy. All in all, the kid just wasn’t having a good day. Try to remember being a kid and remembering how emotionally raw you were. That’s how kids do it. They act out. Or the alternative: they could just sit there and sulk, but of course that would not be visually stimulating and perhaps less cinematic and would make you even more bored. I remember my emotional pain as a child being semi-physical in that it would really hurt. So all that totally rings true to me. And thus, he escapes, as I often did.

OK, cut to the Wild Things.

I personally found them funny and enjoyable and charming, etc. The bird-like one losing his “favorite” arm and having it replaced by a twig. The Paul Dano one who always feels like he’s never heard; that one lives inside me always, meek voice and all. Ira, I know that guy…he’s my cousin’s boyfriend. KW—super-chill and super-cool and kind’ve behaved like my ideal girlfriend. Matters of opinion I know.

I also just loved the creature design. Very true to the book, I felt. All of those nuanced facial expressions were superb, super-detailed and on point and in accordance with their relative emotional states. Pixar-esque dare I say? (Great decision by Spike Jonze to use CGI for their expressions and not animatronics or puppeteering, his original decision.) Anyway, that’s that. It’s cool you didn’t like this movie as I wasn’t necessarily floored by it. (Because naturally any movie I’d be floored by you’d have to like. Or else.)

Yet somehow Roy, I can’t divorce myself from this image that you watch movies with your arms crossed, huffing and puffing, thinking in your mind constantly “Wow me. Wow me. Wow me.” I dunno, maybe I’m totally wrong. But if I’m not wrong I must give you a word of advice. I totally experience movies better when my mind becomes a kind of empty vessel (very Tao, I feel like) and I just kind of absorb what’s going on. They’re all about flexing your empathic muscles, movies are. Having said all that, I still probably react like you do at times watching certain movies, i.e. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… Cos’ I just fucking hate that movie (like all of Kim Ki-Duk’s work I’ve seen). And we’re all totally irrational, fickle, contradictory creatures and don’t follow just one credo in any given moment. So it’s all good, we have our reasons. You didn’t like this movie and I’m here to say: that’s OK. But Lost In Translation? Totally not OK man. (JK.)

But I really think you’d do yourself a favor to re-watch that movie in that empty vessel state I just told you about. That movie just so fucking rocks man!

Pan's Labyrinth was a small disappointment. It was interesting and well done but they promoted it too much like a fantasy movie, while it was mostly a period drama mixed with fantasy elements. Guillermo Del Toro did better with Hellboy, I think.

I don't really like Spike Jonze's movies, he's overrated, though my dislike has a lot to do with the writer, Charlie Kaufman. He always starts with an odd and clever plot idea but then the development process is tedious and irritating to me, sometimes a bit pretentious. Perhaps it's Kaufman's stories you actually like, did you enjoy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? He wasn't involved in Where The Wild Things Are at all.

nomo crispdawg

that was jina and my first movie. awwwwwwwwww.

I loved Pan's Labyrinth, are we soul mates?