Sunday, October 18, 2009

By Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Back when I was launching Cricket, the literary magazine for children, the mission was quite clear. Young people should learn to read by reading good literature. So Cricket carried stories and art by esteemed Newberry and Caldecott Award winners. Among them was Maurice Sendak, author of "Where the Wild Things Are."

Published in 1963, Sendak's book is considered a masterpiece of children's literature -- although it's only 10 sentences long.

It told the story of a kid named Max who is sent to his room without his supper for "making mischief." Seems he's been chasing the family dog and growling while wearing his snuggly wolf costume.

In his room, the angry boy's imagination takes over and he finds himself lost in a lush forest inhabited by scary mythical creatures, the Wild Things. But he's brave and looks them in their yellow eyes until they crown him King of the Wild Things.

Sendak originally intended for the book to be about horses, but his editor at Harper & Row didn't think he could draw well enough to do horses, so monsters were suggested as an alternative. The resulting images were caricatures of Sendak's aunts and uncles who visited his family home in Brooklyn.

As it turned out, "Where the Wild Things Are" won a Caldecott Medal, awarded by the American Library Association to the artist who creates the year's best children's picture book. Horses indeed!

Now this 10-sentence-long story has been expanded into a full-length, live-action motion picture by director Spike Jonze. "Where the Wild Things Are" is scaring youngsters and grown-ups alike this week at the Regal Cinema 6.

Sendak has wanted to put his story on film since the early 1990s but couldn't agree on a director. Then, after seeing "Being John Malkovich," he offered the project to Jonze.

"From the beginning, I wanted it to feel a certain way," says Jonze of the film version. "Like when I was a kid and I would play with my Star Wars action figures, or read Maurice's books and imagine me being Mickey in 'In The Night Kitchen' ... It's like your imagination is so convincing to yourself that ... you're there, you're in it. And I wanted this movie to take it as seriously as kids take their imagination and not, like, fantasy it up."

Sendak approved the monster designs created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Actors inhabit the costumes but the film's stars supply voices.

Jonze smiles wryly. "I wanted to maintain the charm and feeling, because in the book the characters are so cuddly but also dangerous."

Twelve-year-old Max Records plays the kid. Catherine Keener is his mom. And Mark Ruffalo is mom's boyfriend. The Wild Things are voiced by James Gandolfini, Forrest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose and (of course) Chris Cooper.

"So we shot the whole movie with the voice actors on a soundstage, and we just shot it like a workshop. It looked like some sort of '70s experimental theater or something like that, because it was just this blank soundstage with shag carpeting and they were all in their socks so the sound was muted ... Puppeteering and animation isn't spontaneous in any way, but I wanted the movie to feel alive and immediate. I knew I could get that with Max, but I wanted the Wild Things also to have that kind of performance, so by doing that with the actors where everything is spontaneous, the guys in the suits would feed off of that. They would watch the tapes, we'd do playback for them so they'd be acting along to James Gandolfini's voice in these speakers."

British anthologist Francis Spufford observes that "Where the Wild Things Are" remains "one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate, and beautiful, use of the psychoanalytic story of anger."

"At that screening," notes Jonze, "there was something that was really interesting. This lady was our age and she brought a kid, or a couple kids, I don't know, but she said that the book was something her parents got for her. She was like 'When our parents got it for us, they didn't really know what it meant. But we knew what it meant.' And I think somehow that book, and also Maurice's work just taps into feelings kids have."

Take a kid to see this movie (even a grown-up one like yourself).

"Capitalism"

Is Worth the

Price of a Ticket

Michael Moore's films earn more money than any other documentaries, so I guess that makes him a capitalist. In fact his current film is called "Capitalism: A Love Story" and it's currently raking in the bucks at the Tropic Cinema.

Contrary to the film's title, Moore doesn't seem to be in love with capitalism (even though it's been very, very good to him). Go figure.

"Well, yes, I guess it's ironic if I were saying it," he comments on the film's title. "But it's actually a true statement because it's about the wealthy who love their money -- and they not only love their money, they love our money too."

Known as the most feared filmmaker in America, Moore's previous documentaries have taken hard (and satiric) looks at social issues. His first film was "Roger & Me," in which he tried to chase down Roger Smith, then-CEO of General Motors, to confront him about the plant closings in Flint, Michigan.

Later films ranged from the Academy Award-winning "Bowling For Columbine," a look at violence in schools, to "Sicko," an indictment of America's health-care system. And, of course, his Bush-bashing "Fahrenheit 9/11" got him lots of attention.

Now he takes on the financial world. Focusing on the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting Wall Street bailout, he goes after both the government and big banks.

With Michael Moore's usual hijinks, we see him standing in front of a bank, holding an open bag, demanding, "We're here to get the money back for the American people. I've got more bags. The ten billion probably won't fit in here."

And he shows up "to make a citizen's arrest of the board of directors of AIG."

He's concerned about the bailout money. And maybe he should be. When he confronts Elizabeth Warren, the congressional oversight officer, he asks, "Where's our money." Incredibly, she replies, "I don't know."

He charges, "By spending just a few million dollars to buy Congress, Wall Street's getting billions."

So if not capitalism, what system does Moore recommend? "Well, I'm not an economist, so I don't know. I'm kind of bored with the discussion of capitalism versus socialism -- it's the 21st century, we need to come up with an economic model that's best for us right now."

Moore has urged that no one who sees the movie should use actual currency to do so, but instead barter for tickets in order to help erode the capitalist system. Even so, the Tropic prefers cash.

"Law Abiding

Citizen" or

Cold-Blooded Killer?

Justice is blind, they say. But when the verdict doesn't deliver satisfaction, what are you supposed to do if you're a law-abiding citizen who has been wronged?

In the new legal thriller playing at the Regal Cinema 6, aptly titled "Law-Abiding Citizen," Gerard Butler (the abs-ripped star of "300") and Jamie Foxx (who picked up an Oscar for "Ray") spar off on this very question. What we get is an "engaging, intense, scary story" about a man determined to get his vengeance one way or another.

"Some justice is better than no justice at all," reasons deal-making Assistant DA Nick Rice (Foxx).

Clyde Shelton (Butler) disagrees. After all, one of the killers of his wife and child is walking away a free man. "I'm gonna bring the whole system down on your head," he vows to the DA.

Being a former 007 type, Clyde masterminds a grisly series of revenge that sets matters right. "You messed with the wrong guy," he snarls.

"Who are we dealing with here, a spy?" someone asks.

"Spies are a dime a dozen," we're told. "Clyde was a brain, the best. If he wants you dead, you're dead."

True enough. And you'll find yourself cheering ol' Clyde as he executes his deadly plan even while locked away inside a jail cell.

But then you realize you've been had by director F. Gary Gray and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer. Our hero is gleefully killing everybody in sight. He's no longer a wronged man but instead a dangerous sociopath. Now you find yourself doing a 360° turnabout, rooting for the desperate DA as he tries to save his family from the ensuing carnage.

"It's a thriller, but in a lot of ways it's completely unexpected," grins Gerard Butler. "You're with this character, you think this is your guy. But suddenly you swap over. And you're with somebody else. Your hero comes from another place."

Alfred Hitchcock was perhaps the first director to misguide an audience's loyalty to a character -- getting us attached to Janet Leigh in "Psycho," then killing her off in that shocking shower scene.

"Law-Abiding Citizen" is at heart a morality play. But it enjoys toying with your perceptions of right and wrong. "This is a really unusual story that kind of turns everything on its head," says Butler.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. But as ol' Clyde promises, "It's gonna be biblical."

Giants Cast

Very Big Shadow

on "Big Fan"

I don't know a lot about sports, so when I play Trivial Pursuit my friends trip me up with questions about football. Some of them eat and sleep the game. In fact, one dogged pal camps out at Giants Stadium a day before each game, ensuring that he's among the first in line.

I didn't even do that for the Beatles.

The lead character in "Big Fan" -- the new indie film playing at the Tropic Cinema -- reminds me of that pal, a die-hard Giants fan.

"Big Fan" gives us Paul, a not-very-ambitious parking lot attendant who lives with his mother on Staten Island. He's a guy obsessed by Giants football games. Known as "Paul from Staten Island" on a local sports call-in radio program, he often rails against "Philadelphia Phil," a big Eagles fan. One night when Paul actually encounters a Giants player, his fandom gets him into a violent confrontation that forever changes his view of the game and pits him against Philadelphia Phil for real.

This self-proclaimed "world's biggest New York Giants fan" is enthusiastically portrayed by Patton Oswalt, an actor-comedian best known as the voice of the rat in Disney's "Ratatouille." And his Eagles opponent is played by omnipresent Michael Rapaport (TV's "Boston Public," "My Name Is Earl," "Prison Break" and more than 20 films).

This study in sports fanaticism was written and directed by Robert D. Siegel, the guy who penned "The Wrestler," the acclaimed comeback hit for Mickey Rourke. Before he turned to screen writing, Siegel was editor-in-chief of The Onion, a noted satirical newspaper. He intended for "Big Fan" to be a comedy, but the story unfolded as a drama when he wrote it.

Patton Oswalt was pleased, for he didn't want to get typecast as a funny guy. Instead, he may get the reputation of being a sports nut.

srhoades@aol.com