With the Yuletide season bearing down on us cinemas the world over have turned their attention to the family movie –which on the face of it is not such a bad thing. That said, the highlight of this years seasonal offerings has to be, Where The Wild Things Are. Based on Maurice Sendak’s landmark book of the same name, this cracking turn is directed by Spike Jonze, stars Max Records as Max and is he first film that I’ve seen that actually respects how children are, takes the concept of childhood seriously and is grubby, messy, chaotic and just a little bit sad. Nevertheless, as a whole the picture makes one yearn to be a child again. Of course the Jewish slacker humour (almost de rigueur for all kids flicks now) is intact but unlike some other films it is not patronizing and not peppered with in jokes. And after just ten minutes the Wild Things (oversized furry beasts) cease to be in any way scary and, magnificently rendered by James Gandolfini, Chris Cooper and Forrest Whitaker (who plays a Ira the el typico intellectual Jewish Wild thing) are entirely endearing. A quite beautiful film in every way, with a fine soundtrack by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s (“I was inspired by Cat Stevens soundtrack for Harold and Maude.” she told me) I cannot recommend it enough.
And while I enjoyed the above, another Christmas perennial, the latest in the Potts franchise, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince left me as cold as a pint of last years piccalilli. But then again it doesn’t seem to matter how uncommonly hopeless any of the Harry Potter’s are, most kids (and some VERY odd grown ups) seem to flock to them whatever. But for the record this is one shite-overblown waste of money.
An ever kicking cool shaking uber motivating no nonsense cracker for the big boys in the house, Quentin Tarantino’s, Inglourious Basterds, is the dogs. His biggest hit since, Pulp Fiction, it has grossed some £300 million worldwide and is now set to double that with the DVD release. Starring Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine a blood thirsty good ol’ boy with a ‘little [American] Indian’ in him who is sent, almost Dirty Dozen style, with his gang of Jewish American psychopathic avengers to go forth and hunt down and torture and scalp and murder as many of the Nazi scum as he can find, it is a blast. “The German will be sickened by us and the German will talk about us and the German will fear us,” he says. A marvelously enjoyable film with no real cohesive centre, it is basically QT riffing, referencing classic movies, tipping his hat here, with a wink there, throwing in a bit of spaghetti western inflection and rejoicing in his glorious dialogue. A rollicking yarn full of bad intention, I liked this film a lot.
Where The Wild Things Are is on general release form 11th December.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Inglourious Basterds are available to rent or but on DVD now.
