Maurice Sendak, legendary author best known for “Where The Wild Things Are,” has died at the age of 89. A major, major loss for literature and for culture.
Below, a reposting of my (positive) 2009 review of the “Wild Things” movie; directed by Spike Jonze with Sendak’s blessing and endorsement:
Apologies for not putting this link up sooner – busy day of podcast recording.
In any case, the movie is as good as you’ve heard. Proceed to theater immediately.
If you HAVE seen it, and you stayed through the credits, and you want to know why half the theater was so excited, read this (spoiler-warning, obviously.)
The new “Amazing Spider-Man” trailer, which is supposed to be in front of most “Avengers” prints, is now online; confirming that The Lizard (the CGI on the whole still looks shockingly bad) will be wearing his labcoat for at least a little while and that the standup-comedy Spidey and missing-parents stuff aren’t looking any better with more polish, and that omniously-stupid “do you know what you really are?” business crops up again:
http://latinoreview.springboardplatform.com/mediaplayer/springboard/video/ltrv001/955/485569/
For all the “Avengers vs. Batman” talk that will surely dominate the summer movie coverage, this honestly strikes me as the genre movie that could be negatively impacted the most by “Avengers” sucking all the air out of the room: Nolan’s Batman is very much it’s own thing, but ASM looks to be playing the same game as “Avengers” (scifi-heavy superheroics in New York) but not nearly as well.
Who’s the guy asking Connors if he said anything about The Parkers at one point? Has the trailer revealed it’s previously-unannounced Norman Osborn?
UPDATE: Devin Faraci claims to have some inside sources on the project, and says that they’ve confirmed what the trailers (this one moreso than the others) have hinted at about the reboot making a major, fundamental change to Spider-Man’s origin. If true, it’s sort-of a spoiler (though the trailers are pretty-much saying it right out at this point) so read it only if you wish to HERE.
I have a slightly askew relationship with the “organized atheism” movement, not so much ideologically but tactically – I think some facets of the movement can be a little petty and mean-spirited sometimes (re: the “you know it’s a myth” billboards that amount to a neener-neener against various faiths during their holidays); and I’m unable to subscribe to the tenet that “All religions are bad.” Sorry, I can’t go there – they’re all a little silly, conceptually, sure… but not only are most self-identified persons of faith either decent or at least harmless; the vast majority of the world’s hundreds of thousands of organized-religions are fairly benign.
That having been said, I’m fairly comfortable in my infrequent calculation that while not ALL religions are bad… between three and four of them (the religions) ARE bad – or, at the very least are a net-negative influence on the modern world as a whole to a degree that is not offset by whatever good is done by individual adherents. And this kind of shit is WHY…
That’s Pastor Sean Harris, rather explicitly suggesting that parents should – upon witnessing their children behaving in homosexual and/or gender-non-normative ways – essentially beat the behavior out of them. Charming.
He has, of course, offered a toothless apology on his blog.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers. This fellow, and the cheering/clapping ignoramouses hanging on his every word, are Believers; and that designation has NOTHING to do with their being religious and EVERYTHING to do with the words coming out of his mouth.
Oh, and have you heard? Activision has hired right-wing folk hero Col. Oliver North – convicted (later overturned on appeal) in the Iran-Contra Affair – to do commercials shilling next “Call of Duty” video-game.
Yeah, things are goin’ swell…
Universal has inked a major production deal with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writers of the “Transformers” movies and the “Star Trek” reboot, that will include among other things a remake of “Van Helsing” with Tom Cruise tapped to star. Yes, really – a do-over of a failed decade-old Hugh Jackman vehicle starring Tom Cruise. I don’t even know where to start a joke about that…
K&O have had a good year as deals go – despite “Cowboys & Aliens” tanking, they’ve already lined up this new set of projects plus an agreement to take over the writing duties on Sony’s pre-planned “Amazing Spider-Man” sequel (the gossip is that Sony is VERY unhappy with how “ASM” has turned out, and are effectively looking to reboot the reboot in terms of a new creative team if the film does well enough to get a sequel.)
Is “Halo 4” releasing on Election Day fishy?
I know, I know… commercialism, first-world opulence, more-plastic-for-the-landfill, etc… but I just LOVE this commercial Target has been running for “Avengers” merch:
What I like about this is that it really does nail – intentionally or not – exactly why the project works so well: The beats and energy of the kids “playing Avengers” is nearly indistinguishable from the actual Avengers in movie, which understands (especially in regards to it’s best-ever version of The Hulk) like almost no other superhero movie before it that the foundational versions of these characters tended to act like the energetic children their stories were aimed at (seriously, pretty-much every “WTF?” thing about weird old comics is answerable with “because that’s what a seven year-old would think/do.”)
Hey look, here’s that final “Dark Knight Rises” trailer that’s supposed to be stuck in front of “The Avengers” prints. Good news: Bane’s voice doesn’t suck now. Bad news: Batman’s still does.
Yup. That’s that movie alright. And a decidedly solid trailer to boot – definitely leaning hard on the “this is serious drama” button.
Are we finally going to see (competent) hand-to-hand fight scenes in a Nolan Batman movie? …probably not, but the trailer is kinda hinting at it at least. I DO really like that so much of this seems to take place in the daytime, it’s a nice switch – although… huh. Y’know, if the big setpiece action scene of this is also a big goodies vs. baddies brawl in the middle of New York Gotham… that would really kind of suck for Nolan and company.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 