Cloudy with a Chance of Wild Things

With the upcoming reboot of A Nightmare On Elm Street, it seems Hollywood has finally run out of remakes...we hope. Remember, nothing is sacred. They still have sequels, and the only thing better for sequels than comic books are children's books. The Harry Potter series has become one of the most successful franchises ever, and now Twilight: New Moon is poised to smash box office records this Thanksgiving (trust me, we're not only showing it on 3 screens, we've already sold 300 seats for the midnight show). They've even made movies for Cirque du Freak and Percy Jackson & The Olympians--what is that??

So continuing with this trend of stomping all over our sacred grounds (you're next, little prince!), they've reached even further back, into the childhoods of the adults, aka the ones dishing out $50 for a trip to the theatre. And apparently children in the 70's and 80's were either not very big fans of reading or were just plum stupid. We didn't have any of this 600 page Harry Potter rubbish--we had BIG picture books with only a couple pages and barely enough text to fill a paragraph. And what I've noticed from talking to people is that you were either in one camp or another: Camp Cloudy or Camp Wild Things (none of this Team Edward bullshit!) No one I've spoke to read both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (1978) and Where the Wild Things Are (1963) as a child. Again, we were too preoccupied staring at Lite-Brite and Glo Worm. We were simple back then.

Me, I was where the wild things were. It was my favorite book as a child, and even as I got older I would sneak down into the kid's section of the library and read through it. I never really understood why until I saw the movie (more about that later). Whereas my girlfriend, she was in Camp Cloudy.

I was not excited for the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs because I knew it'd be playing in 3-D which meant it was coming to our theatre, on the big screen, and I'd be cleaning up 800 plastic rappers from the 3-D glasses every single set. And believe me, those little snot-nosed brats took this movie seriously because I'd turn the lights on and you could swear we just got hit by a gummy bear-popcorn hurricane.

Then my girlfriend showed me that someone had posted videos of them self reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Where the Wild Things Are. We didn't have the books with us, so it was a nice way to share each other's childhoods.

It wasn't long after that when I crept into the theatre to do a walk-through and something miraculous happened--I laughed. I was just checking the screen to make sure the 3-D was working properly and little Flint was demonstrating his spray-on shoes when Brent yells out, "How'ya gonna get 'em off nerd?! He wants to be smart, but that's LAME!" They cut to little Flint running home through the rain as Bill Hader's voice begins narrating, "I wanted to runaway that day...but you can't runaway from your own feet." Without even noticing it, I laughed out loud, louder than any of the 100 or so people in the theater. It was a literal LOL. I just couldn't help it. Then Flint's dad tries to console him by saying, "Not every sardine was meant to swim, son," and Flint cries back, "I don't understand fishing metaphors!" Its been love ever since. Every day of work after that I would pop into the theater during our downtime and catch a new clip of the movie, and every time, if I weren't cracking up, I'd be tearing up. :'(

I finally got a chance to see the film in its entirety about 3 weeks in, the Sunday after I'd seen Zombieland. I took my lady to see it and we laughed the entire time. I don't think I stopped laughing for more than a minute. It is the funniest movie I have seen so far this year. I mean, I absolutely adore this movie. For me, its right up there with "Up."

Bill Hader and Anna Faris are absolutely perfect for the voice-overs, not to mention Bruce Campbell and Mr. T, who add some great comic relief of their own. It is this cast of characters combined with some excellent writing which really make this movie stand out. The humor, while it is never inappropriate for kids, never holds back. They really took advantage of the fact that it is an animated movie, using the visuals to exaggerate the emotions and further the dialogue. It is just an all-around awesome animated feature and one of my favorite of all-time.

My All-time Favorite Computer Animated Movies:

5. Wall-E

4. Up

3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs*

2. Shrek

1. Toy Story

I wish I could say the same for Where the Wild Things Are. Unlike Cloudy, I was extremely stoked for this film. The trailers were some of the best I've ever seen, featuring three of my favorite bands: Arcade Fire, Phoenix and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Don't you hate when the trailers are better than the actual movie?

We bought tickets in advance for the midnight showing. The two screens it played on sold out, so the ushers weren't letting people go between the two in fear of overcrowding. (Paranormal Activity was also still sold out) The crowd was made up entirely of young adult hipsters, a surprising number of which dressed up as Max and the Monsters. Either someone was drunk (which is expected at these shows) or they were working for the movie studio (which is really just annoying) because they felt the need to stomp around in front of the crowded auditorium singing, "Wild Thing! You make my heart sing!" Nobody joined in, and he sat back down, defeated. Then later, about half-way through the film, the gentleman sitting to my left leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Howl at the end of the movie, pass it on." So I did, to my girlfriend, who then passed it on to the person on her right. And sure enough when the movie ended, he was the ONLY person who howled. Poor schmuck. I'm all for getting excited about a new film and coming up with guerilla marketing schemes--its what I do--but I don't blame anyone for not participating that night.

Where the Wild Things Are is NOT a children's movie, not by a long shot. In fact, for me personally, its one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen, right next to Requiem for a Dream. Don't get me wrong, the movie has some good things: visually, it is an incredible looking film; Absolutely stunning. Director Spike Jonze did a spectacular job with the overall look and feel. And the acting is superb. James Gandolfini deserves an Oscar nod for his performance as Carol, the emotionally unstable leader of the monsters. But nothing, and I mean nothing can save this movie from the horribly morose subject matter.

If you've read the book, you know little Max gets in trouble and is sent to his room where his imagination runs "wild" and he becomes king of the imaginary monsters. But in the movie they had to fill up an hour and a half, so somehow they decided, "let's just take everything depressing about real life, and use the kid and his monster friends to magnify those horrible memories, fears and insecurities times a thousand! Hipsters will love it! ....Only, we'll market it to kids!" I mean, that's pretty much the movie in a nutshell.

SPOILER ALERT:

So why do I dislike Wild Things so much? Because it hits too close to home. Without giving too much away, Max's childhood mirror's mine with unbelievable accuracy. It stirred up deep, dark, repressed memories I never knew I had in me. Basically, he gets shit on by his sister and her friends, gets in a fight with his mom, and instead of going to his room, runs away from home. He gets in a boat and magically discovers an island inhabited by big, hairy creatures (probably Canada). Anyways the monsters are all unhappy, so Max convinces them he is a king, and promises to make them all happy again. Well to make a long story short, he fails miserably. Epic fail, if you will. He makes things way worse, and rather than reconcile his mistakes, he just leaves. Thats it. And Carol, his best friend, is just left on the shore crying his big monster eyes out. Nothing gets resolved! Carol is still a manic depressive with no idea how to control his emotions, namely anger and depression. And Max is still a reckless, selfish, ignorant little brat. So he sails his boat back to the shore and runs home. He gets inside to find his mom crying at the dinner table because she could not find her son. She's no longer mad that he left, but is just happy that he is ok. Aww, sounds sweet. Well its not! Max is screwed, his mom is screwed, and the whole island of monsters, which HE MADE UP IN HIS OWN MIND are screwed. It just makes you realize how cold and truly messed up our lives can be, and makes you feel like there's no hope and no reason to continue on. Much like Requiem for a Dream.

So I highly recommend that unless you absolutely have to see Where the Wild Things Are, DON'T. And if you can't decide on what to see, but you'd like to see something somewhat funny and uplifting, go see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Please, for Pete's sake.

Bee Tea Dubs: What are your favorite computer animated films? Did you see either Cloudy or Wild Things, and if so, what did you think?