Comments on: The Shadow Editors: Hands Off That Rumpus, Dave Eggers!

By: Liquid

Liquid — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:34:00 +0000

I haven't been called a rotten fuck in ages!
In my defense, I was going by the poster image…It had the look of CGI, and since that's the going thing these days, I jumped to the conclusion that Hollywood was making *another* attempt to cash in on a beloved children's book (what, hard to believe?).
And since this particular beloved children's book was one of my favourites when I was wee, I didn't even want to look into it for more info, lest I become sunk in depression.

My apologies, you dirty fuck.
(I'm still not watching the trailer.)

By: Tulletilsynet

Tulletilsynet — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:47:53 +0000

A bit closer to Herodas's dialogues, I'd have said…

By: Cahiers

Cahiers — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:10:25 +0000

Oh and here's your NY Times Magazine story, 7 pages. Jonze is on the cover.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06jonze-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

By: Cahiers

Cahiers — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:09:45 +0000

It's not 3D, and it's not CG, and from the looks of it's far from a pukefest you rotten fuck. It's stop-motion, Wes Anderson adapted and directs.

Here's a look (you rotten fuck).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGU8CrXEXXg

By: Liquid

Liquid — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:38:51 +0000

"Hey, Eggers: rewriting Where the Wild Things Are doesn't make you Maurice Sendak any more than beating off to a picture of Posh Spice makes you David Beckham. "
Wow. For the win.

Also, I am annoyed that they're also turning Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl into a 3d animated (I assume) pukefest. Just sayin'.

By: iplaudius

iplaudius — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:26:56 +0000

Another perspective on what’s going on here: the script of a good movie can suck. The movie can be visually stunning, “moving,” well acted, emotionally realistic, etc., and yet the script be lousy by the standards of written texts. People who read and write don’t like that, but there it is. The short story fails, because it needs the rest of the Hollywood Gesamtkunstwerk.

For what it’s worth, I too loathed the story and scoffed at the obvious advertising.

By: Balk

Balk — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:54:37 +0000

It looks like this!

http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/the-shadow-editors-hands-off-that-rumpus-dave-eggers/2

By: J-Mac

J-Mac — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 02:12:14 +0000

Holy crap! Ken Layne!

By: sigerson

sigerson — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:26:46 +0000

Note that my mother added: "No, I think YOU would like a 6-foot monster to wrestle with." Damn straight I would!

By: sigerson

sigerson — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:25:12 +0000

I hear you, Ken. I'm worried about the "spying on my Mom and her creepy new boyfriend" jag that apparently is part of the movie. Max (in the book) isn't a damaged little kid ready to injure himself and he sure as shit ain't weighed down by his family life or any guilt trip.

By: sigerson

sigerson — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:22:24 +0000

It was missing that satirical portrayal of fascism that made the novel truly subversive.

By: joeclark

joeclark — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:14:13 +0000

Gee, I wonder what the second half of this unnecessarily-paginated conversation looks like.

By: kenlayne

kenlayne — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:13:13 +0000

Have not really looked at the internet in a couple weeks. This was the only thing I missed!

I am not an automatic fan of Maurice Sendak — "In the Night Kitchen" is just dumb and fucked up, and scares my kids — but the best Sendak books are a very nice combination of mischievous art and carefully worded stories that are fun for the grownups and children alike.

Max, as Tom says, is not a twee emo butthurt kid. He is a regular kid, who is being a little motherfucker because that happens, and he has a pile of self-confidence and imagination and that particular Sendak style of child indignation.

He is not sad and he is not lonely. He is running loose in a fucking wolf suit, for fuck's sake, threatening to kill and devour his (human) mother, because that's how wolves roll.

So she says oh yeah, well go to bed you nut, no dinner, calm down. And he stomps up and — because like most children at this age and this hour of the day, he is both spastic and exhausted — he falls asleep, immediately, and has this quick, crazy, wonderful dream.

And he wakes up a little while later, because he smells the sandwich and soup that his mom set out in his room, because obviously she was trying to make him dinner and he was being nuts and then he conked out and minutes later she finds her kid passed out, in a wolf suit, and she leaves his dinner.

What would possess someone to muck that up?

By: Dan Kois

Dan Kois — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:16:06 +0000

Very much so!

By: Patrick M

Patrick M — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:09:28 +0000

I totally agree that this should have been a "Shouts and Murmurs" (that's what your point is? I think?) but here's my question: Even if I agree, is it still OK for me to buy the fur covered edition to complete my collection of fur covered books (Margaret Wise Brown's Little Fur Family, Spiegelman's Open Me I'm a Dog and The Highwayman: Narrative of the Life of James Allen alias George Walton)?

By: spanish bombs

spanish bombs — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:10:04 +0000

Kois, I was disagreeing with you…

Animals howl, he had been told, to declare their existence.

PÃ¢tÃ© was a regrettable name for an unfortunate food.

He swung it around, he stabbed trees and rocks, he whacked branches and relieved them of their snowy burden.

By: derekj

derekj — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:36:34 +0000

actually, i was trying to take it easy on these two new films by saying that they would be more sophisticated versions of the shrek trend, which is not quite right since sophistication (reflexivity and euphemism) is the problem with shrek. what i meant is that these two films will cater to adulthood in a different but equally bad way, and that way is… i don't know, something to do with indie rock and design snobbery and obama?

By: Sablesma

Sablesma — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:32:59 +0000

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Editorial inclusion of fiction-as-advertisting and whatever your feelings are about Eggers aside…You didn't like Starship Troopers?

By: derekj

derekj — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:26:55 +0000

i've reviewed a few children's movies, and now more than ever i guess the question nags: is this movie pandering to experience at the expense of innocence? shrek, etc. this is marketing rather than art, right? selling children's films to their adult parents? i watched miyazaki's ponyo a couple weeks ago. wonderful film for children. adults: not so much. i liked it a lot for this reason. the previews that preceded the film included (where the) wild things (are) and anderson's fantastic mr. fox. my question, which may not be but seems fair, is will kids enjoy theses films? they managed to enjoy shrek, clearly and regrettably, but will they enjoy these more sophisticated versions of the shrek trend?

related: do kids respond to the arcade fire? that band always struck me as sounding gestural and nostalgic, like it needed footnotes to truly enjoy–not in a complicated and smart or good way, only that its textures and spaces were the shadows of certain antecedents.

i don't have kids, but i want them to be happy and have their own good art. is that what's happening here?

By: spanish bombs

spanish bombs — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:49:52 +0000

Since when was Eggers "critically praised"? Are standards this low? Even his best books get mixed reviews.

By: Dan Kois

Dan Kois — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:48:37 +0000

Agreed!

By: spanish bombs

spanish bombs — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:46:11 +0000

You are VERY confused on the authors' feelings toward the book. Sendak's original work is universally considered a masterpiece of illustrated children's literature. The movie and Eggers appear to be defacing this, hence the ill will.

Also, you probably have bad taste!

By: pourover

pourover — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:25:19 +0000

I dislike everything about this story â€” not least the clumsy prose in which the wild things are mired â€” but what felt like an insult was the magazine's publishing a "young adult" or "kiddie lit" story in a place where I expect to find writing for grown-ups. In other books, Dave Eggers has shown himself to be an unparalleled master at writing about the assorted agonies of childhood and youth, and it may be that, with this novelization, he will enchant young readers. But for The New Yorker to publish the story was to fill its fiction slot with news. I do hope that no one over the age of twenty-five derived any literary satisfaction from the final third of the excerpt.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:20:00 +0000

All well and good! Still. Does not not make me cringe whenever I see Mike Myers on screen.

By: sigerson

sigerson — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:02:54 +0000

There are a couple different trailers of the movie on Youtube (go search for them) as well as a 5 minute featurette with Sendak and Jonze flattering each other, plus some clips of the film. (Artic Fire soundtrack, OF COURSE).

When I heard that they were make a movie of Where the Wild Things Are, I just knew it was going to suck. Just like Bridge to Terrabithia and Cat in the Hat and The Grinch that Stole Christmas and Starship Troopers and yadda yadda yadda.

That book still seems to glow and hum with magic energy to me, even know as a middle aged dude. I dressed up as Max on Halloween several times in the 70s when I was a young boy. Yes, the trailers did move me to tears. James Galdofini as the main monster friend just seems perfect in so many ways. In fact, just writing about the trailers is causing a little welling of liquidity right now….

So, hopes are high that the movie is in fact like "stepping into the book". My little son has just started walking so he's too young for the book but I hope someday to introduce him to it and fire up his imagination and thirst for adventure.

And, yes, if there is a Max figurine I will buy it for my boy. Although I bet he would prefer a 2 foot tall monster to wrestle with.