Trailer Madness

So...no movies for a while. And I won't be watching any until at least next weekend either. That is, unless I finally make it to a theater for Inglourious Basterds.

Instead, here's something I've been telling people about for months. Now that it's getting close, I'm getting really excited.

This was one of my favorite books in elementary school. I haven't even

flipped through it since then, so I don't quite remember the story. As

with Horton Hears a Who! and similar movies based on children's books,

the greatest challenge is taking a ~20 page book with about one

sentence per page and turning it into a feature length movie. We won't

know whether Spike Jonze succeeded or not until we see it, but DAMN,

did he do an amazing job with everything else. The wild things look

absolutely amazing and just like in the book. I'm glad he limited

the amount of CG used and went with some old school costumes and

animatronics. The scenery looks incredibly cool and, as if he was

making the trailer specifically for me, he threw in one of my favorite

songs. A tip for any trailer makers out there - much like the music from

Requiem For a Dream, Arcade Fire will make ANY movie seem better

than it is actually going to be. And of course Wake Up is a perfect choice

based on the lyrics. Throw on top of all that the hand-drawn text and the

messages that say "inside us all is..." Whoever put this together

deserves a raise because it is a perfect marketing campaign. Hopefully

it will be a perfect movie as well. I don't know what to think about the

stories about Spike fighting with the studio about his vision, but it sure

looks like he won because this cannot be what the studios wanted out

of him. But it's EXACTLY what I wanted.

In other new, another one of my favorite books from my childhood,

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, was also made into a movie that

is supposed to be good (although that one looks like it will appeal far

less to adults). Can't win 'em all, but I'm just glad I am getting validation

of my taste when I was in 2nd grade.

Trying to think back to my other favorite books - let's see what's been

done with them:

• Jumanji - movie is ok, although it wasn't stylized at all. The atmosphere of the book was nowhere to be found.
• The Polar Express - never saw the movie - have no intention to
• Where's Waldo - eventually a movie will be made
• Strega Nona - Not sure anyone else ever read this one
• The Giving Tree - Would make a great short, probably not a feature
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Is it weird that I liked that?
• Tikki Tikki Tembo - Would probably be annoying

That's all I can think of right now.