weekend round-up

The weekend came and went with good food, the great outdoors and great movies.

Friday started with a massive pig-out at the cheesy yet super delicious Indian food buffet restaurant. Best idea ever courtesy of Dennis. Pretty much rolled ourselves home and straight into a glass of brandy.

Saturday there was some lovely morning lolling around and then out into the bush for another great hike with Marc and Sadie. It was such a gorgeous day and I've got a feeling that these days are few and far between from this point on. Saturday night was a surprise birthday party for our friend but alas, I found myself not really feeling up to the night at all so I opted for a quiet night in and Marc set out into the night to represent us both.

Sunday, more morning lolling!! But then out into the bush again and home in time to get all costumed up to do some filming! Our friend Ben, who makes these amazing short animated short films, is gathering some material for future projects and wanted some 16mm footage of Marc and I in 1930's garb acting the role of a couple on their wedding day. Even Sadie got in on the action and likely will steal the show from us. It was tons of fun and we got some great shots outside in the fall colours and even inside our place.

Sunday night we rewarded all our hard work with a trip out to see Where The Wild Things Are. This movie is brilliant regardless what any of the critics may be saying.

After the movie our friend Ben called it a "high concept kid's film not for kids" and I think he's exactly right. I can see why the studio hated it. It's certainly not what the movie-going public likes because mostly, the movie-going public is stupid and uncomplicated. Hence the continued success of movies like Big Momma's House. But what I don't understand is, why give the movie to someone like Spike Jonze if this isn't the end result you want??? And I'm sorry, if he's hand-picked by Maurice Sendak then you just have to shut your mouth.

Me, I thought this movie was breath-taking. It's stunning to watch and is like a perfect moving version of the book. It's sad and happy and fantastical and I fell in love with every character (but man, what a great job Max Records did with Max). Considering the book is only 10 sentences long, really you could have gone anywhere with the story to fill it in but it really seems like everything Spike and Dave Eggers did was exactly what went unsaid in the book. It's almost like from this point, the book and the movie can go hand in hand and how often do you get to say that about a movie version of a classic book?

This movie is what being 10 years old feels like: scary, unpredictable, uncontrollable, full of fantasy and love and also, overwhelming loneliness.

The very first scene in the movie -- this short crazy chaotic chase scene with Max -- is bang on and sets the tone perfectly.

And so much of the movie is done with actual puppets and not CGI which is crazy. So the scenes when Max is running with all the monsters and he's looking up at them with such wonder and even a bit of fear, you know a good chunk of that feeling's gotta be real.

And the soundtrack? Well I've been carrying on about it on Twitter for a couple of weeks now and have listened to it about a dozen times now. I cannot imagine a better score for this film. Karen O should perhaps rethink her Yeah Yeah Yeah's career and just do this full-time.

And yes I totally cried. At the end (and don't cry SPOILER cuz if you haven't read the book well shame on you) when the bull looks at Max and asks him if he'll say good things about them, my heart exploded and I got all teary. Then when Max is getting on the boat and Carol comes running I lost it completely. Although it was your standard teary goodbye scene, in a way it wasn't at all. It was just different enough to tug at your heart in a whole different way. The facial expressions on the monsters were perfection and when they started howling, I was done. A big weepy girly mess.

I have zero bad things to say about this movie except that no kid I know would enjoy it. But frankly, who cares? The movie's enough for me in every way.