P.S. – the book is really lame too… nothing happens.
Nate- they don’t seem to take anti-Wild Things sentiments well around here, trolls or honest.
Who are the much-loathed “hipsters” anyway?
Negative reviews from paid industry critics before general release….AKA covering their asses for a truly horrible movie
I called this 8 months ago. Marketing hype.
It’s considered by alot of kids my age (22) to be a piece of sentimental history. If you’ve read any of the critiques of this film so far, you’d know that although it’s characterized by aesthetics of indulgent hipster-isms like using Karen O as one of the film’s composers (even though it makes more sense since she used to date Jonze) it’s being considered by those who’ve seen it (not you or me) as more honest than most kid films try to make kids seem. The trailer tries to make it swallowable for audiences that corporations think are stupid because somehow our minds can’t wrap around daily emotional content that when presented in a trailer would be unrecognizable to us. That’s why they use stupid words like hope, fear, and wild thing. I won’t judge it based on the lame trailer. I’m just glad to hear there’s a movie with almost a hundred million dollars backing that has “fewer” plot points than key character points. I’d also think that hipsters at Criterion who dig that shit with filmmakers like Maurice Pialat and Cassavetes would want to eat out this film
i think you called it delancy. anyone with this much hatred for a film has an agenda.
Wouldn’t something “faux-hipster” mean it was authentic?
Last night I caught the piece Spike Jonze shot on Sendak, which is running on HBO. It’s good. Sendak is a very interesting man. I’ll see the movie. I have no stake in this. I never read the book until last week. I don’t care a jot about Dave Egger’s. I don’t care one way or the other. I will say this: Lance Accord’s cinematography looks typically fine, and the production seems to express a physicality which appeals to me. So…
Since when did Synecdoche, New York become a source of hipster trash?
I’d also think that hipsters at Criterion who dig that shit with filmmakers like Maurice Pialat and Cassavetes would want to eat out this film
Consider me, then, one of those “hipsters” who “dig that shit” with Cassavetes and Pialat. However, there is just no way that you are going to make a satisfactory connection between Cassavetes/Pialat and WTWTA, based upon it being driven less by plot points than character points. Do you really think that’s all their work is about, and that any film that comes along similarly structured can be suitably compared? Are you serious?
After the tiresome duo of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION, I doubt I’ll bother with Spike Jonze’s output any more.
It’s funny you mention the sentimental history part because I’m 22 as well. Whenever WTWTA is brought up all I see are a bunch of suits sitting around a table trying to make a profit while insisting “arty” will be its trademark. The inability for it to connect with an audience isn’t the fault of the talent involved, it was doomed from conception.
Maybe Hollywood will learn from this and at least pretend to create some new original ideas instead of relying on the nostalgia of the 18-25 age bracket to produce easy ticket sales.
And for the record I also dig on Cassavetes/Pialat like Sunday afternoon pussy.
it’s gonna be the kid having a bad reality (ooh looks like his mom’s got dick boyfriends and he doesn’t like school!) but then he finds the magic that’s deep within all of us. And, wow, we’re all so great for loving Arcade Fire, so I’ll see anything with a song by them in the trailer
While I agree with this sentiment, and I feel exactly this sort of distaste whenever I have to sit through the trailer, I’m not fussed. I’ll rent the film next year on the strength of loving the book as a kid. I want to see what Jonze may have done in terms of meta-gimmickry to reverse the damage Eggers no doubt did to the story.
They won’t learn.
Whoa whoa whoa what’s with all the hating of this film. Even if it is disappointing at least Jonze is attempting to make (what I take to be) an interesting/honest kid’s film. You people are acting like it’s g-force or shrek 3. At least give the man some credit for trying to make something unique.
Hipsters RULE!
Fanboys SUCK!
Delancy, Cass + Pialat= Sunday afternoon pussy, huh? Alright. Would it be ok with you if I put that on my profile page?
Wouldn’t something “faux-hipster” mean it was authentic?
That completely blew my mind… I need to think about that a few years before saying anything else.
haha sure KJ.
yeah I think KJ should take note of the really cool title of this thread….
I was thinking, there’s a thin line between hipsters and fanboys. Mightn’t hipsters be just fanboys without the outward display of enthusiasm? More cooly disaffected than exuberant. What do you think about that, David?
@Daniel Kasman – Yes. Nice. Thank you :)
While labels for groups can be useful sometimes I think hipster has become pretty worthless as an identifier. I’m actually glad WTWTA was produced because it’s a quick and easy way for me to figure out if a persons opinions are worth my time. This doesn’t include the people who say “oh it might be good” or “the trailer looks interesting”, it’s mostly the “OMFG WTWTA I LOVE THAT BOOK AND THAT SONG FROM THE TRAILER I’M GOING TO TEXT EVERYONE, THEN TWITTER, THEN FACEBOOK BLOG THE WORLD SO THEY KNOW I’M ALL OVER THIS THROWBACK REFERENCE TO CHILDHOOD, GOD I’M SO YOUNG AND CAREFREE”
And yeah KJ I can accept fanboys being hipsters without social skills and tight clothing.
Delancy, wasn’t it you who said very recently that you drew the line at movies costing $25M? That has been stuck in my head for days now. I may have to act upon that. $25M seems a fair, if still horribly bloated number. But, hey, we got to some slack, don’t we? There’s just way too much money being spent on bogus bullshit. It seems as though every movie now is $100M. Wtf? I’m not even talking about WTWTA specifically. Just generally.
Nate,
If you use the same criteria to judge many of the great films that this site praises, you could say that most of the films look like obnoxious, pretentious trash too. Don’t be so quick to judge a film and certainly don’t judge it by it’s trailer.
Long live the hipsters too, godammit!
This post is around my 6th of all time on theauteurs, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that but I could be wrong. Maybe it was in a thread about district 9 which had an ~$30M budget?
But on the topic of what you said, I agree even $25M seems like a huge number and the $90M for WTWTA? If the internet can create that 20,000×20,000 pixel image breaking down the annual US budget there has to be something about films floating around the tubes.
Does anyone know of a good book that chronicles the work of an independent film house? I’m really curious to understand how a feature film can’t be made for under $100,000. Even pulp fiction cost $8.5M and that was in ’94.
I love the smell of elevated discourse in the morning.
[rant] I really dislike the hating on the hipster subculture, hating on Wild Things, and all of these sweeping generalizations.
If you think its going to be crap, don’t watch it. If you dislike the trailer, ok. But whining about a film and reducing its merit to a staple of hipster subculture is making you no better than the hipsters you whine about! And has anyone ever considered that movies can be both popular and good? I don’t like the general pretentious aura this debate has. I’m not sure if people realize that certain themes can be timeless. Just because we know more than the average movie-going Joe does not give us the right to criticize a film that is honest and different. Even if I don’t like the film, I at least respect the struggle Jonze went through to make the film. [/end rant]
Just because we know more than the average movie-going Joe does not give us the right to criticize a film
It’s more of an obligation to criticize a film
Cecelia, what bothers me about WTWTA (which I prefer to say instead of Wild Things because it just conjures up dirty thoughts about Denise Richards breasts) is how manufactured it is. Films can be popular AND good. Iron man for example is a great movie not because it’s going to change cinema forever, but because it delivers what it promises, entertainment.
This film will fail, which is important, but it needs to fail for what it is; an insidious attempt at clever marketing, not just a bad movie. If popular culture/media doesn’t explicitly understand this then Hollywood is just going to readjust its lasers and fire again with no one the wiser. The people involved with this are simply out for money. Check out the executive producers on IMDB and their honest, true to cinema past projects. So spike Jonze gets a fat paycheck to attempt something mainstream while still on his terms. BONUS: his ex-girlfriend Karen O. is involved, he might just get some, shes hot, great. He knows it’s a doomed project but at least he saves face creatively and can fund 10 personal future endeavors. Good for him, I would do the same.
Now you say, but Delancy, who cares, there will always be big budget bad movies and small budget good films. This is true. The problem is I’m only going to be on this earth for at best 80 more years and if this shit is considered low budget success then every decade for the rest of my life I’m going to have to sit through flavor of the week actors and directors telling me how great the previous decade was when the only difference is that I can’t get my dick up as easily any more. Where the wild things are is marginal at best as a book and trying to make a “faithful” movie is like trying to call my shit mashed potatoes because it has the same consistency. I refuse to eat it.
Drunken Father Figure of Old
This looks like the most predictable and obnoxious piece of trash that I can even imagine. SPOILER ALERT – it’s gonna be the kid having a bad reality (ooh looks like his mom’s got dick boyfriends and he doesn’t like school!) but then he finds the magic that’s deep within all of us. And, wow, we’re all so great for loving Arcade Fire, so I’ll see anything with a song by them in the trailer! I can deal with hipsters loving Synecdoche, New York, but this movie isn’t even gonna be really hipster – it’s just big budget, big actors, big everything, and I can’t wait until it’s completely forgotten next year.