On Hands Off That Rumpus, Dave Eggers!
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
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On Hands Off That Rumpus, Dave Eggers!
What a fucking surprise, snarky bloggers annoyingly chat to one another in sarcastic, quipy, self-loving ways. It's so much easier to sit back, get pissed off and remain ignorant than, you know, make art.
I'll grant you that The New Yorker running a novelization of an upcoming film in their fiction section could be taken as blatant advertisement space masqueraded as content. BUT, whether you like Eggers or not (you do not), he's a widely read, critically praised novelist adapting one of the classics of children's literature. You know who ASKED him to do that? Maurice Sendak (you do like him). Mr. Sendak also LOVES the film that Mr. Eggers and Spike Jonze have made of his book. His words: "There will be controversy about this, but the film has an entire emotional, spiritual, visual life which is as valid as the book. He's (Jonze) done it like me whether he's known it or not, but in a brilliant, modern, more fantastical way that takes nothing from my book, but enhances, enriches my book."
To claim the entire undertaking is immoral, that the film is akin to the recent films of "The Cat in the Hat" or "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is insanity born upon ignorance. Spike Jonze has made two feature films of great distinction that are, yes, art. His cinematographer Lance Acord is one of the premiere visual technicians in the world. There is no indication that any of the chief creative persons involved in the film are in it to make slick product to fill kids heads with junk and sell them toys.
Take issue with The New Yorker, take issue with the quality of text (though how one could take issue with a piece of fiction that contains the line "We’ll cut his brains out and make him eat ’em! He’ll have to think from his stomach!" I, in all seriousness, do not know), take issue with Warner Brothers, they are responsible for what is clearly a horrible offense to your delicate eyes and soggy brain, by god they must have ruined that rainy Sunday after noon you carved out to go through The New Yorker to find things to try and eviscerate on your blog Monday morning.
Mr. Sendak's book will still exist long after the movie has stopped spinning on space discs in the year 2000, along with your precious memories of it. The book is ten fucking sentences long. It provokes your imagination, and the film seems to be aiming for that too, albeit on a larger, more fleshed out scale. How is that wrong?
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On Hands Off That Rumpus, Dave Eggers!
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