Why?  It is the one question I thought the most while watching the weirdly mesmerizing and somewhat off-putting emotional exploration that is the 2009 film WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.  As most kids of my generation, I can recall holding that oddly shaped hardcover book.  The illustrations almost seems to shuffle in your eye with a natural twitch.  The movie version did not replicate that twitch, but it did very successfully bring the monsters to life with amazing puppetry and only the necessary CGI.

I could not remember any details from the book I read no doubt 25+ years ago.  I had heard that the movie version was definitely not for kids.  That is a very accurate statement.  This movie is very dark, perhaps one of the most casually dark movies I’ve ever seen.

Max is a boy of type known well on the silver screen–no father figure, ignored by a sibling, mother too busy to care enough regardless of how willing she may or may not be to actually care.  The boy reacts emotionally and violently.  From this a trip deep into childhood imagination springs.

Max sails into a world of true monsters, the bass echoing in the movie theater, as they smashed things or walked, tangibly indicated their power to the audience.  They are not above threats of devouring Max.  Yet they are not fierce, but rather, just wild.  Like Max they have burgeoning adult feelings wrapped in child’s minds.

The monsters are sad, depressed, and lonely.  Seven, apparently, is not enough.  They make Max their king to bring happiness into their existences.

As I mentioned in the introduction, I was constantly thinking “why” during the movie.  Why are the monsters in need of such cheering up?  They seem to have no enemies or hardships.  Two of them are paired up and in love.  Only one monster is seemingly neglected.  Another monster is, however, the victim of unrequited love.  Maybe some answers to these why’s get answered, but never overtly.

KW is wryling developed as the character of greatest emotional appeal to the audience.  She is the one I find myself being able to identify with.  Yet this movie is not straight forward.  Her new best friends threw me entirely for a loop.

This is a movie that is just off kilter in a very artistic way.  I guess that is the director, Spike Jonze’s, trademark.

As soon as I came home I ordered the hardcover version of the book from Amazon.

I should maybe now order the soundtrack, it was fresh, appropriate, and kept me the emotional flow of the movie lingering throughout the credits.

A good 12+ years ago, I really wanted to move to Montana.  I cannot recall what entirely spurred this ambition, but what I can remember is that it was at least partially if not entirely motivated by a Pearl Jam concert being there.  Perhaps from this one event I concocted, as my mind is wont to do, an elaborate fantasy of living there and how it would be great.  Then I learned that Montana was a haven for militia and my Big Sky Country dreams vanished.  Tonight watching A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, those old Montana memories were stirred for the first time in a long time.

RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT is one of those movies that makes city life seem like a ludicrous choice when one could spend golden afternoons just listening to a river.  What a life it was for two young boys growing up in the early 20th century.

For the most part, the story of a Montana family with a minister father and two boys with everything going for them seems really simple and I found myself asking, why is a movie being made of this besides to show how naturally beautiful Montana is?

The middle of the movie introduces a character from California for no purpose I could detect, other than putting on screen the most ridiculous sunburn ever.

Brad Pitt is the youngest brother who seems content with Montana life, and even states when offered a ticket out, “I’m never leaving Montana.”  Then why does he yearn for a very city-like nightlife full of vice?  No explanation is given.  He loves fly fishing, and perhaps loves his job as a reporter.  It is hard to understand why he would choose a social path that would destroy that.

Then there is absolutely the most spark-free, chemistry-free romance in Hollywood history.  There is no reason in the world why Pitt’s older brother would fancy the girl he does, and none is given.  We do not see her do anything charming or attractive besides having blonde hair and a few decent dance moves.

However, no doubt Robert Redford directed a movie that was intended to be watched, not thought.

The movie opens with a mother telling reporters that her young daughter is missing.  Viewer sympathy for her does not last long.

Sorting through the mystery of finding the lost girl shows us the very bottom of society.  I do not know how I failed to come to this conclusion before, but GONE BABY GONE at the least showed me that drugs are to blame for most of the poverty and crime in the U.S.  Combine that with easy access to guns that are plentiful, and that makes large swaths of both major and minor cities anarchy and grime.

Of course the attempt to find the missing girl is not a straight line, and the third act begins pouring on the plot reveals and twists.  I think the story went one twist to many and would have been a much more powerful movie with it ending the story at the bottom of a quarry.  Instead Ben Affleck (co-write/director) chooses to give the main character a final, near impossible, moral decision to make.

The National Parks America's Best Idea by Ken Burns

I agree with Ken Burns.  The title of his latest documentary is THE NATIONAL PARKS:  AMERICA’S BEST IDEA.  To put it simply, this documentary is mesmerizingly interesting.  In so many categories is this documentary fascinating:  history, photography, environment, politics, poetry.  This is the best film of 2009 I have seen–by far.

This documentary was like living through the birth of the national park system.  The history revealed by Ken Burns is some that I had never heard of before.  Learning how FDR established many organizations for employing out of work men during the Depression by commissioning them to begin work on already in the works national park infrastructure sounded like a stroke of genius and the definition of a win-win situation.  I now have great respect for FDR.

I learned of other historical figures that devoted their lives to insuring the establishment of various national parks, having to battle against loggers and other big businesses that wanted to strip the land of its honor.

This early history was told with mostly black and white photos that showed the men working on building the parks’ infrastructure, but also some video too.  The photos had power but of course were not of the quality of photographs we see today.  Then all of a sudden unannounced there was a striking black and white image shown.  I knew it must have been an Ansel Adams image.  I learned that the power of his photography influenced FDR himself.  Adams was tasked with photographing all national parks, which he did, save for Everglades National Park.  I now have all the respect in the world for Adams.  He was good with words too, very poetic in his photograph descriptions.

I was surprised how large a role Japanese played in the documentary.  A Japanese couple called Mt. Rainier “Holy Mountain.”  Their story was very touching.  I laughed when I saw that Japanese obasan hikers dressed the same 100 years ago as they do today!  I mean exactly the same.

The sense of American heritage I had watching THE NATIONAL PARKS was very significant.  I felt proud of the natural wonders my country has.  I felt even prouder of the efforts to make them untouchable to business even at the height of America’s financial trouble.  This gives the U.S. authority now to influence developing countries to not destroy their natural heritage for profit, no matter how much they may need the money.

THE NATIONAL PARKS also made me think how too disconnected from “great nature” society is.  No one likes technology better than I do, but my love for nature has always been first and foremost, and whenever I had the chance, I sought out great nature, like in the deep jungles of Borneo.  All this technology now just creates another hurdle for people to get into deep nature themselves.

THE NATIONAL PARKS is a powerful cinematic experience that will teach you American history, show you the important role photography played in the history of national parks, and most of all, make you want to leave it all behind to head out with your backpack into the vastness of the great nature in America’s national parks.