Where The Emo Things Are?

[JuanBolio]

I haven't seen or read anything to indicate that the film adapatation with be "emo" or depressing in any way. If anything I've read that the wild things will be just that - wild. Capable of being loving one moment and scary/threatening the next. I've heard reports that initial test screenings scared kids. Sounds like my kind of movie.

 

[blockaderunner]

I guess everyone's drank the Spike Jonez Kool-Aid.

Guess I'll stick with the Peter Shickele narrated piece. If anything, the music is way better than Karen O.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

More and more, I see the term "emo" used to deride or ridicule perfectly normal displays of human emotions or works of art trying to deal with the way people express their emotions. I don't get it. Is it an anglo-saxon thing?

 

[David cgc]

Well, it used to mean something, specifically, young people who tended to wear dark clothes and whine about how depressing everything is despite their not-really-that-bad personal situations, but who didn't have the haughty arrogance and misanthropy to be proper goths.

Then people who were uncomfortable with people reacting with temporary unhappiness to unhappy things started labeling everything that wasn't all smiles as "emo." Because apparently it's empty, unjustified whining if you're pissy for a few weeks about, I don't know, being widowed or locked in a box and tortured or something. Frankly, I don't get how all angst became unjustified wangst simply by definition, but there you go.

 

[Hunter X]

Using "emo" to describe things you don't like has jumped the shark so bad, it's caused the phrase "jump the shark" to unjump the shark and become relevant again.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Using "emo" to describe things you don't like has jumped the shark so bad, it's caused the phrase "jump the shark" to unjump the shark and become relevant again.

Not only that, but it betrays an irrational unease with emotional expression that I find disturbing.

 

[Talosian]

I think folks are using the word emo here when they really mean "hipster". This is definitely Where The Hipster Things Are. You can almost see Max grabbing a PBR and donning non-prescription funky eyeglasses.

 

[ToddKent]

I am going to reserve judgment on this till I see the film.

Do you reserve judgment on all movies until you see them? If so you must be spending a hell of a lot of money to see every single movie that gets released.

Or maybe he just doesn't pass judgment on movies he hasn't seen.

 

[Kaijima]

I think folks are using the word emo here when they really mean "hipster". This is definitely Where The Hipster Things Are. You can almost see Max grabbing a PBR and donning non-prescription funky eyeglasses.

I'm sorry but the hipster meme is tired as hell now as well.

Just like with "emo" and any displays of emotion that aren't happiness or rugged tough perseverance, "hipster" gets thrown on to anything that actually has the balls to display some genuine artistic merit and take it seriously.

The further irony here is that this is all being said by people who haven't seen the movie, and that /actual/ hipsters would not be saying these things about such movies. Real hipsters would be the ones sneering at the attempt to take anything seriously as more than transitory kitsch with a dull sense of detatched irony!

Virtually everyone I've seen who still has some clear eyes and isn't trying to scan the world around them in an effort to label everything they possibly can in a derisive manner like something out of the opening of Fight Club has been blown away by the sincerity just in the trailer scenes. Also, people who have taken their children to advance screenings have generally said their kids actually got it, it wasn't "too artsty" or hipster or whatever, or haughty.

Also, for the peanut gallery, there's nothing wrong with Arcade Fire just because they're not your favorite band name to toss out to show you keep it real.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I loved it as a child, and what I still love about it is the simplicity of the story, how it manages to create so much with so few words. Although the art work certainly helps with that, and it's the designs that have really endured the most for me.

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

I am going to reserve judgment on this till I see the film.

Do you reserve judgment on all movies until you see them? If so you must be spending a hell of a lot of money to see every single movie that gets released.

Or maybe he just doesn't pass judgment on movies he hasn't seen.

Well, thanks for restating exactly what he/she said, but my point still stands. Unless you're seeing every movie that gets released, you are passing judgment on movies before seeing them. You're watching a trailer or an ad or reading a review and then deciding whether it's worth paying money to see.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I've never heard of the booklet, but I saw the movie trailer and I think it's awesome.

 

[Smiley]

Everybody makes judgments of that nature on every product. The quoted sentence from Meredith is a promise not to issue an opinion on the work's merits or faults until she is qualified to have one by seeing the movie.

In my case, Where the Wild Things Are is not a book that I like very much, and I think that I would not get very much out of the movie. That is a judgment, and it may be wrong, but it is different from stating that the movie is horrible without having seen it.

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

In my case, Where the Wild Things Are is not a book that I like very much, and I think that I would not get very much out of the movie. That is a judgment, and it may be wrong, but it is different from stating that the movie is horrible without having seen it.

I don't see anybody in this thread saying the movie is horrible. If you re-read the OP, he said the movie "seem morose, melancholy, and depressing", and wonders if the movie will be "emo" (note the question mark in the thread title, which indicates it's not a statement of opinion). I assume he's saying these things based on trailers and ads and Jonze's track record.

Of course no one can definitively say they enjoy a movie without seeing it. This is so obvious that there's no need to even state it. The only reason anyone ever says "I reserve judgment until I see it" is to give the impression that they're the enlightened sort who will never, ever prejudge anything based on their personal tastes.

 

[blockaderunner]

Here's a little blowback:

The Stranger

AICN

Guess If I were born in 1991 or '81 instead of '71 I might have considered seeing this movie. Man, I'm not even 40 and I'm already talking in fogeyisms.

 

[John Picard]

I guess everyone's drank the Spike Jonez Kool-Aid.

Guess I'll stick with the Peter Shickele narrated piece. If anything, the music is way better than Karen O.

You mean they have "drunk the Spike Jones Kool-Aid".

I loved that story when I was a kid and will be taking my 14-year old to see it.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

In my case, Where the Wild Things Are is not a book that I like very much, and I think that I would not get very much out of the movie. That is a judgment, and it may be wrong, but it is different from stating that the movie is horrible without having seen it.

I don't see anybody in this thread saying the movie is horrible. If you re-read the OP, he said the movie "seem morose, melancholy, and depressing", and wonders if the movie will be "emo" (note the question mark in the thread title, which indicates it's not a statement of opinion). I assume he's saying these things based on trailers and ads and Jonze's track record.

Of course no one can definitively say they enjoy a movie without seeing it. This is so obvious that there's no need to even state it. The only reason anyone ever says "I reserve judgment until I see it" is to give the impression that they're the enlightened sort who will never, ever prejudge anything based on their personal tastes.

However, saying everyone's been drinking the Kool-Aid seems rather judgmental.

 

[blockaderunner]

I guess everyone's drank the Spike Jonez Kool-Aid.

Guess I'll stick with the Peter Shickele narrated piece. If anything, the music is way better than Karen O.

You mean they have "drunk the Spike Jones Kool-Aid".

I loved that story when I was a kid and will be taking my 14-year old to see it.

Thanks Kreuger. I guess that was pretty "drunk" of me.

 

[John Picard]

I guess everyone's drank the Spike Jonez Kool-Aid.

Guess I'll stick with the Peter Shickele narrated piece. If anything, the music is way better than Karen O.

You mean they have "drunk the Spike Jones Kool-Aid".

I loved that story when I was a kid and will be taking my 14-year old to see it.

Thanks Kreuger. I guess that was pretty "drunk" of me.

Drink, drank, drunk.

We drink, we drank, we have drunk.

 

[blockaderunner]

^^And some of us are drunk.