A forest grew

Okay. I need to talk about this. Last night, Mike IMed me to tell me that a live-action, feature-length film of Where the Wild Things Are is in production, and he said something like, "This might be pretty cool if they don't eff it up."

Let me tell you, people, Where the Wild Things Are is one of my very favorite books, children's literature or otherwise, and the point of it is its illustrations and its very simple story. Seriously, the book contains about ten full sentences. So I said, "How could they not eff it up?" I immediately figured it would be just like when Jim Carrey and co. shit all over How the Grinch Stole Christmas, bloating the hell out of it so that it would fill up an hour and twenty minutes.

But then I looked at the people involved in this film, and I became utterly conflicted. For one thing, Maurice Sendak is credited as a producer, so he must be involved somehow or other. Then, Spike Jonze is directing, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Eggers. Dave Eggers! That bastard knows how to tell a story. And then! The thing that got me almost on board with this mess: Catherine Keener and Catherine O'Hara are appearing in this movie. Well, Catherine O'Hara is doing a voice, presumably for a wild thing, and Catherine Keener is credited as Connie, who is maybe Max's mother? I don't know. Either way. Catherine Keener and Catherine O'Hara. Also, Lauren Ambrose and James Gandolfini. What?

There are some good people attached to this film, but then the article said that they'd had to do a bunch of reshoots because test audiences of small children were fleeing the theater in terror, which sounds like a pretty good adaptation of this book to me. I mean, these are some pretty fierce monsters, rolling their terrible eyes and gnashing their terrible teeth until Max tames them with a magic trick. They're scary beasts, but as a kid you're never actually afraid because Max, in his wolf suit, is fearless and totally in control of the wild things. He even sends them to bed without their supper! So it would be interesting if the monsters were actually scary in the film. But obviously, the people making this movie want the small children to like it.

Also, how are they going to render the wild things? They can't CGI Sendak's illustrations. I guess I'm more intrigued than irritated by the idea of a live-action rendering of such perfect illustrations, so that's good. For now.

I don't know what to think. I guess I'll have to wait till October and see for myself.