Wild Things Romp

We all remember the little boy who screamed at his mother, dressed like a wolf, and was banished to his room to play with his lonely imagination-with no supper of course. Our generation, and our parents', grew up on Maurice Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are, and as you all probably know, director/producer Spike Jonze finally made it into a film. Spike Jonze, a Rockville, Md., native, was a prominent music video producer, working with bands like the Beastie Boys, Daft Punk, and Weezer. He started to dabble in full-length films- mostly documentaries but also some well-known movies - and finally made it big when he co-created Jackass on MTV. His fame in feature films started after directing 1999's Being John Malkovich, and followed with his 2002 work, including Adaptation and Jackass: The Movie. Even after he soaked his feet with his first films, he continued to do what he was known for and worked with artists like Kanye West and Bjork, producing their music videos. He was set to produce Synechdoche, New York, starting Philip Seymour Hoffman, but decided to do Where the Wild Things Are instead. Let me just speak for everyone when I say: Thank you Spike Jonze for choosing Where the Wild Things Are over the low-key Synechdoche. Where the Wild Things Are started a craze last spring when the first trailer came out, featuring Arcade Fire's single "Wake Up." Since that lovely day when we first got a view of Carol, the main monster, a countdown started in a lot of people's Facebook statuses. Since its Oct. 16, release, the film has grossed over $30 million in just the first weekend and was the number one film, beating out Law Abiding Citizen, Paranormal Activity, and Couples Retreat by well over $10 million.

The movie's adaptation of the children's book gave fans some doubt, since it's pretty hard to make a full length movie out of a 10 sentence book, but do not fret, Maurice Sendak still had a huge role in making the film. He aided Jonze with the production and had a large say with the screenplay; this not just an arbitrary altered copy from one person as the author of the book still had a lot of input with what happened to his work. With the film we get a large look at Max's home life and his family problems, which are reflected in the monsters that he imagines. It is all produced and written so perfectly that it is almost Sendak's own imagination for the film, not just Jonze's.

The most noteworthy feature of this film is the aesthetics. Whether the scene is dark, happy, or depressing, it just looks beautiful. The settings, which include the desert, woods, sea, and even Max's home, are all so perfectly done that all these places blend in perfectly. Max's room includes all aspects of his kingdom, and the little things we see at the beginning of the film are seen in his imaginative world; a rubber band ball becomes the monster's homes, a fort becomes his safe haven under a pile of monsters, and his globe reminds him that the whole world is his, like the monster KW tells him in his imaginary world.

The monsters could have been interpreted in many ways; we have Sendak's pictures, but those are like caveman drawings compared to what Jonze has created in the movie. Body suits and suit performers are used, which gives the monsters' a natural flow with humanlike movement and the fur's movement on the suits. But don't get me wrong, we aren't watching the Ninja Turtles mock fight here, the monsters get many bumps and bruises throughout the movie, and the suits have a large range of movement. While the bodies are doing their job of moving naturally, the faces are done with CGI, giving the faces full motion. The monsters faces move and bend to show every emotion possible, from total glee to heart-wrenching sadness.

They didn't throw in actual actors in the body suits to beat each other up and throw rocks, but big A-listers took the voices of the monsters. Max Records, Catherine Keener, and Mark Ruffalo star in the film, but as for voices, we have James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, and Paul Dano, to name a few. To keep going on the theme of perfection, these actors' voices mixed so well with the monsters, you are at first confused by their sound, but in the end you can't help but place the voice to the monster's face when repeating their lines over and over again with your friends. Also Max Records as Max, I said from the first five minutes of the movie, is amazing. The way that his facial expressions can be heartbreaking, and then light up in the same five minutes is breathtaking; this kid will be the next Haley Joel Osment or Abigail Breslin.

When you enter this movie, there are a couple things you need to take into consideration.

First, ignore the regular movie theater, go and spend the extra couple bucks to watch it in IMAX because the experience is so worth it. You will get a clearer picture and a crisper sound, and you will most certainly not regret it.

Second, this is not a children's movie. You may see a couple kids in the crowd, but I will bet you anything that they will cry most the movie, crap in their diapers in fear, and have nightmares of Carol eating them for well over a week. This movie was made for all of us who grew up on the book: 20-year-olds and above, nothing less (don't be discouraged if you see a 60-year-old man with a white beard down to his belt; it happened to me, and it might happen to you).

And last but not least, be ready to cry. This is our childhood transformed into a visual masterpiece, and if your tears aren't due to Max's loneliness, Carol's great depression, or Alexander's insecurities, they will be from the sheer fact that our lovely childhood can be made into such a disheartening film with the themes of life never being fixed. You can be the king of all things wild, and you can have your imagination run amok with monsters, but our life is just tripe and it started with our childhood. Max taught me that.