It would seem as if the greater majority of my friends grew up with the book Where the Wild Things Are. Considering the expansive, varied imaginations of my crazy friends, this isn’t an overly surprising piece of news. What is surprising is that of the majority that had the book in their lives growing up, many don’t remember how much story was told in so very few words. Around 300 words. Ten sentences to be exact. Much of the plot comes from the illustrations in the book.
This is probably why the film adaptation is most interesting to me. Spike Jonze managed to fill almost two hours of major theatrical screen time with a story for adults that will take them back to the point in time where their imaginations ran, for lack of a better word, wild. Beautifully crafted puppets brought to life with CGI emotions painted on their faces bridged the gap between pages and motion pictures in a way that’s never really been attempted for a children’s story before. With an amazing voice cast (Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’hara, and Chris Cooper) behind the puppeteers and a light indie-pop music score — it’s pretty hard not to love this movie.
I haven’t made a post on here in a while and two weeks ago a friend had bugged me about it, so now that I’ve finished gushing over a movie, I guess I’ll throw out an update about my summer, fall, and thoughts on the future.
The summer in general was pretty dull. Most of my time was spent with either friends or family because money was tight and I had major plans for late summer. Those major plans consisted of back-to-back blink 182 concerts on August 16TH and 18TH in Council Bluffs and the Twin Cities. The shows were awesome and I’m glad I got a chance to see them live, which just a year ago didn’t seem like it’d ever be a real possibility. Both shows were more or less sold out and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many kids gathered in an Iowa fairground out in the middle of nowhere. I got a limited edition concert tee which will never, ever be handled again until I’m dead. Overall, it was worth a summer of pretty much nothing for an August of amazing-ness.
Fall brought around school. Which I hate. Probably more than anything I’ve ever hated in my life. I’m really unhappy with what I’m doing right now and I feel extremely trapped. To get into a program that I really want I would have to probably go out of state which would be hard. I’ve basically received an invitation to stay at my uncle’s in Chicago if I decided to go through with that, but I can’t see leaving the family I have here. It’s a decision that’s on my mind constantly lately, which is only outweighed by how severely I fucked up in high school. But that’s a story that’s already been told and remedied. The remedy is just a slow fix that I’m still feeling the effects of. And with that, I’ve linked to the future. I have to finish this semester out. Then we’ll see where I proceed.
In the world of music, the blink 182 concerts have spurred a renewed urge with some friends to play blink 182 until our ears bleed, so hopefully we’ll begin that soon. I’ll be playing a Mark Hoppus signature bass for it, so that won’t be too shabby. It’ll get me through the winter, at the very least, along with some help from a new Motion City Soundtrack album. As for getting through the rest of this night? Halloween & Halloween 2. It’s that time of the year again.
Trick or treat friends.