So, to the most recent movie I’ve watched. I had the pleasure of viewing Christopher Nolan‘s debut feature film, Following. This dark, black and white, claustrophobic film noir is a tale of deception, betrayal, and non-linear story structure. Thankfully enough, a lot of those characteristics have yet to leave Nolan’s toolbox.

The film is one of the no-budget indies that managed to be pretty good regardless. The film was made on weekends with only $6,000 dollars raised over the course of that year for the film. Nolan just enlisted the support of a bunch of his friends from his schooldays and it took them a year to shoot the whole film. The stories of what they had to do to get everything filmed in the commentary is pretty interesting.

Which brings me to easily my two favorite parts of the film: the lighting and the camera. Almost every shot uses natural lighting and a handheld camera, which works really well considering the film is in black & white. It really added a feel of reality to the film, despite not seeing natural colors. However, the relationship and care for realistic feelings is immediately contrasted by easily my favorite element of the film: non-linear story structure.

The film is not told in chronological order. This constantly keeps us guessing and introduces key details at odd times. Eventually, we are able to piece everything together not only because one person in the film, the cop, reveals the truth in an awesome way, but because of the clever writing.

Both the realistic filming techniques and the unrealistic writing clash and help drive the suspense and engagement of the film. From the moment you realize these things, whether consciously or unconsciously, you’re hooked. The mystery is engaging. The crime is engaging. The thrill is engaging. Despite only being a little over an hour long, the film tells this neatly complex story involving three characters, with only one knowing what’s actually going on. As far as con films go, this one truly is a good one.

I highly recommend anyone who is a fan of noir or has liked any of Nolan’s other works (The Dark Knight, Memento, to name a couple).

But I wanna know your words on this picture.

• Have you seen this movie, and if so, did you like it?
• How do you feel about non-linear writing? Does the departure from chronological storytelling distract you or annoy you, or does it actually heighten the movie experience for you at times?
• Do you think movies like this act as proof that you can make a great film regardless of how much money you have?

On the subject of the last question, I have to say that this film is an incredible inspiration for me. My writer/director debut (short film, though it mind end up as a mini-feature) will benefit greatly from the hope and courage that this film has given me. We only have about 350 dollars for the budget at the moment, but all of us involved are committed to making it work. Watching other no-budget movies are a huge inspiration for beginning independent filmmakers like myself.

I shall review more in the future, but until then, try not to read this.

My initial thoughts on this movie were good. It had Kevin Spacey (of whom I’m a decent fan), and an ensemble style line-up, not of huge names, but with the way the movie is set up, I knew that there had to be some strong acting to make an ensemble piece work, considering the overall positive reviews. However, the movie took a while to get interesting. It makes complete sense, in the style of the film itself, and the way it introduced the characters. While I was experiencing the introduction, it was a little hard. I found I couldn’t really care much about the characters, the story was progressing slowly, and overall I was beginning to think that I wasn’t going to enjoy this film after all. In retrospect, the beginning of the film makes complete sense and definitely fits the way the characters are and interact. Everyone has this common link, Kevin Spacey’s character, but few actually know each other. So it seems like there’s just so many different stories going on at once, it’s a bit, as I said, hard to watch.

When Kevin Spacey’s character begins to interview his clients, it starts to pick up. We’re introduced to a Hollywood agent, played by Dallas Roberts, who has some severe OCD. As we all know, this kind of thing is a mixture of funny and sad. At first, I found it hilarious. I was just looking for something to like at that point, but as the character told his shrink more about himself, I began to heavily sympathize with the character. The same sort of effect is played out by Robin Williams’ character. Normally, I find him hilarious. That’s who he is to me, a really funny guy. So naturally, I found him funny in the movie… for a bit. Then he revealed that once again he is capable of serious acting and really pulled some emotional punches.

And that’s the mood of the movie. Sympathy. Sadness. With bits and pieces of humor. It’s a striking commentary from then on out about showbiz. None of the celebrities are happy, and not even their therapist is happy. Even the people wanting to enter the business are not happy.

Now, to talk about a specific scene, the intervention. I’ve seen many intervention scenes. They’re boring to me, now. They usually don’t have any meaning, unless the film has already made me care significantly about the characters. However, this film has a very powerful intervention scene. It starts out sort of cliche, but Kevin Spacey nails the acting. He plays his depressed character really well. I tip my hat to the writing as well. Both the acting and the writing sell this character as someone who’s deeply troubled. No one at the intervention even knew the real reason why his character is so depressed. The reveal is as shocking to the other characters as it was to me. It almost brought me to tears. I think the scene happened about fifteen minutes into the movie. So after an intro that seemed to take forever, he interviews an interesting client, then comes home to this very powerful intervention scene.

The film does nothing but good storytelling past that point. All of those stories I told you about slowly pile on top of each other as all of the characters become masterfully intertwined and connected, some through Kevin Spacey’s character, and some not, despite everyone knowing Kevin Spacey’s character. It’s all very dark, very dim, very depressing, but it works. In the end, things are better, but not better in the sense that everyone has gotten past their problems, just that they’ve finally begun to work on them, and they now have opportunities to make themselves better.

A short review, but I’m tired and have been working on the script for Film Club’s short film this semester, updating the about me section of this blog, and writing and preparing a speech for Monday. You know, plus watching this movie and then reviewing it took a bit of my time as well.

So I end quickly, but as always, I want to know your words on this picture.

• I know this is an independent flick that many of you have probably not seen, but if you have, how did you feel about it?
• Do you appreciate films that have a harsh view of life, especially life that is supposed to be above average (celebs and their doctors)?
• And finally, on the subject of ensemble pieces, do you like them, or do you prefer films with fewer main characters and more supporting characters?

I definitely enjoyed this movie, and since you can watch it instantly on Netflix, those of you who are members, I strongly recommend setting off some time to watch it at some point.

Just so you know, there won’t be a new review tomorrow, but instead a video recap of the last week. You can find my YouTube channel I made for this blog here. And always remember, your answers to these questions could possibly end up in one of those videos, so make sure to leave your responses in the comment section below this post!

I don’t think I’ll do this often, but I want to begin with my recommendation on seeing the film. The word on this picture is…

Go see this film as soon as possible. It’s nothing short of amazing.

All of that aside, this is one of the greatest films I’ve seen in a while, and I’ve been watching some great ones. I’m not going to go in a huge list of all the great films I’ve been watching since I became a film student and have grown to appreciate the art on a much higher level, so I hope you can understand how important it is when I say this film is better than everything I’ve seen through all of my artsy film classes thus far. Now, of course, I have a huge bias, because I love crime dramas. I mean, Godfather, Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Sin City, No Country for Old Men, and Reservoir Dogs would all likely be on a top 20 list if I were to be so inclined as to make one. Point being, I love films about crime, and this one is easily one of the best. Now, the reason I refuse to make any top-10 or top-20 or top-50 lists is because I can’t choose between them. So instead I have collections. “Ten films I love” and that sort of thing. So I’m not going to compare it to all of the films I just listed, but I feel no hesitation in stating that this movie is definitely an amazing movie that should be more widely watched.

So, moving on. You might be asking yourself, “Hey, Lefty. Why do you love this movie so much after just seeing it today?” Well, you’re in luck, because I’m going to tell you why. The minimalist approach. Case closed. Now, it isn’t pure minimalist, but it does include many tendencies of film minimalism that help its incredible feeling of realism and intensity. Let us begin with the opening scene. The screen is a room, and it seems empty as the credits roll. Eventually, you realize, with a puff of smoke, that there’s a person lying on a bed in the room. It really uses this incredibly simple image to instill this immediate feeling of loneliness and isolation, but such is the way of a lone samurai in a world where such codes are no longer followed.

Much of the beginning of the movie is completely without dialogue, but it so suits the character of Jef Costello, a man of very few words. Every word he ever says is one with weight and importance, never uttering meaningless phrases. This is hard to do in the days of the talking pictures, wherein acting is usually a lot more subtle when it comes to body language and facial expressions as opposed to the stereotypical silent era style acting. He definitely carries the film, despite his lack of extensive dialogue, something we absolutely must have these days. I mean, think of Tarantino, since I mentioned two of his films earlier. He’s often praised for his well written dialogue that just carries the movie and works very much like what we imagine these crime fantasies we all have to play out. However, Le Samouraï is not about playing out a crime fantasy, or glorifying the world of crime, or highly stylizing the story world. This movie, as I said, has a lot of minimalist elements.

That being said, the story world does feel empty. Costello’s room is bland and completely uninteresting, with almost no decoration to speak of. The scenes in his apartment are livened up by his pet bird, which he seems to care for a lot. It’s his one connection to life as you or I might know it. An assassin for hire without anything but a bird to lose. However, it turns out the later on, the bird has a physical and tangible benefit, warning him about the bug that the cops put in his room.

And that’s why I love this minimalist approach to the story. It only shows what is necessary to convey the idea. And it works, given the isolation Costello lives in. Every single thing you see definitely has a wealth of meaning behind it. I love the deception at work constantly. A small detail means so much with this style of approach, it can be quite daunting to truly analyze the film.

I’ll skip over a lot to keep this review a bit more manageable (going to try to stay underneath 1,000 words, for ease of reading), and discuss the ending. See, a bit of internet research led me to a lot of debate over the ending of the film. I read it that his final contract told him to kill the woman who saved him, and since he follows a Bushido-like code, he couldn’t possibly do that. However, he was also bound by his contract. The only thing left to do was to die in the line of duty. Well, or commit seppuku, but I much prefer the dedication to both contract and saving the life of his savior that Jean-Pierre Melville wrote.

But I want to know some of your words about this picture.

• Have you seen this classic, and if so, what do you think about it? If not, go watch it and answer this question properly.
• What is your interpretation of the ending of the film?
• Do you appreciate a minimalist-style approach to filmmaking, and why?
• And finally, do you think that a more minimalist style should be used a bit more often in more modern popular films?

Tomorrow’s review will most likely be the film Shrink (2009) directed by Jonas Pate and starring Kevin Spacey. A fairly recent film (July 29, 2009) that’s available for instant watching on Netflix. Until then, my faithful seven readers, I beg of you to try not to read this.

I’m breaking up the flow of this paragraph while revising my post to point out that I only buy into the false left-right dichotomy for the sake of simplicity, so take the generalizations of beliefs (conservatives, liberals, etc.) as just that. A very loose and very broad category wherein many different philosophical structures exist. Remember this, as I’m sure I’ll watch more political movies, be they narratives or documentaries. I cannot stress this point enough, really, as I do loathe the false dichotomy we’ve come up with.

At least in my experience here at home with my conservative step-dad and semi-conservative mom and fairly conservative surroundings (I do live in the Bible Belt, after all), Ralph Nader was never really a positive figure. He’s always sort of been treated as this left-wing lunatic fringe crazy big government buffoon that didn’t deserve to be treated with anything resembling respect. However, after watching the documentary (which I watched in bits and pieces over several days, so I’ve had some time to do some independent research on top of the documentary), I actually really like the guy and what he stands for. He has a bit of bombast to him, but I think that’s perfectly fine. This is where I might be losing half of my seven readers here, by going “Yay, Ralph Nader,” but as the documentary points out, even if you disagree with him, there are a lot of modern things that we take for granted that he got into policy.

Mandatory seat belts, airbags, cleaner air, food safety, lead protections when you’re x-rayed at a dentist office, warnings on drugs, nutrition labels on food, crash testing for automobiles, labeling on cigarettes about nicotine and the health problems associated with cigarettes, labeling on tires about their tread ware and safety, the right to know if you’re exposed to any chemicals while on a job, so on and so forth. Point being: there are a lot of things involved in our day to day lives that Ralph Nader helped bring into existence. And all of the things I’ve listed are things I’m fairly grateful for. I like reduced chance of death in automobiles, for instance.

So far as content goes, it’s a biographical film. It covers the man’s life and legacy, and since he’s not dead yet, his potential future. You watch and listen as friends, relatives, and the man himself tell you about his childhood and his experiences when growing up. His dad greatly inspired some sort of political discussion near every day. He’d tell the Nader children to go out and come up with solutions to a problem. They’d come back, later that day, and they’d discuss their results. Or when Ralph would learn something at school, his dad would ask him about learning to reason and think as opposed to learning nonessential facts.

And the film goes through the rest of his life, spending most of the time on his political advocacy and runs for president. Initially, he and his group just stayed in Washington D.C. and supported things in the capital, but eventually they (Nader’s Raiders) went out across the country. This began to give Nader the public spotlight at times. He was out there, and he was trying to make a difference.

And then we have his runs for the president. Highly controversial, to say the least, depending on how much one buys into the defeatism of the two-party system. Though, considering the wealth of knowledge on this case in many other locations here on the internet and in libraries, I won’t go much further into his biographical details.

The film itself is well made. It’s a documentary, but it doesn’t lose interest. It’s not as dry as some other biographical documentaries or academic ones. It provides mostly facts and opinions by people, but I guess Ralph Nader is just a pretty interesting fellow on his own account. The entire movie flows logically and smoothly, and you’re never left wondering, “Why the hell are we covering this right after that?” There’s nothing particularly striking, though I do have to say that I’m really appreciative of the lack of an overall narrator. There is no one voice telling the story. The most prominent voice is, of course, Ralph Nader himself, but this prominence doesn’t come from him constantly narrating his own life. It flows from one friend to a relative to another friend to even an enemy back to a friend to Nader himself to the first friend, so on and so forth.

I don’t know exactly why, but I find that to be pretty effective in telling the story and keeping it interesting. It’s just like a week ago when I watched the documentary Jesus Camp, which also doesn’t feature any overall narrator, I can’t help but love not having that narrator when it’s possible to avoid it. Now, it depends on your approach to the subject matter, your budget, and your subject matter itself. However, I find this non-narrator approach to be very successful in keeping my attention. It really gives the feeling that a lot of people are coming together to provide the necessary information, rather than one person telling you information and occasionally going to other people for clarification and reaffirmation and for the sake of credibility. This doesn’t mean I hate that approach, just that this non-narrator style is particularly effective not only at relaying information, but more specifically, keeping me interested. There’s nothing more I hate than a boring documentary.

Because truthfully, I love to learn new things. This is why I like watching good documentaries. I get to learn new factual things while learning more from studying the filmmaking itself. You can learn a lot of things from narratives, too, don’t get me wrong. There’s definitely a lot to be learned through the discourse and meaning of a film that transcends factual knowledge. That’s one of the main reasons why my favorite movies are the ones they are (possible listing or direct mentioning of that later).

So, what are your words on this picture?

• Do you know much about Ralph Nader, and if so, how do you feel about him and why?
• Which do you prefer, a single-narrator approach, or a non-narrator/multi-narrator approach to documentaries?

Considering I’ll be seeing a new movie via Film Club today, I’ll probably review The Great Debaters much later in the day. This particular review is supposed to be for Thursday, but I fell asleep early and forgot to do it, so you, my faithful seven readers, get this an hour late. My apologies.

Also, for future reference, I’ll probably just review a bunch of movies on here, attempting to go fairly in-depth into them. It’s much less of a review in the sense of pure recommendations for seeing it or not seeing it, but more like a foundation for a discussion. I look into the movie, utilize my knowledge that I’m obtaining in school, and try and provide some thoughts about the movie. What better way to help me learn about film than by watching? I’ll do my best to see one new movie a day (though there might be days wherein I haven’t the free time, so I’ll make up for it somehow), and try even harder to go see a new one in theaters at least once a week.

Alright. You should know the context of me re-watching this movie. I saw it early in high school, I believe. I can’t remember exactly when, but that’s not important. Basically, I couldn’t really appreciate the rich and deep themes of the film. It was a well told story to me, and that was it. It really sucked to be Don Cheadle’s character. That was my initial impression of the film. However, now that I’ve attended some college and started to emerge from the bonds of adolescence, I’m more able to appreciate this film for what it is: a great commentary on imperialism and war.

See, some people might say that this movie demonizes the Hutu and sympathizes with the Tutsi. I would agree, to an extent, but it does so because of the nature of the main character. There’s no doubting that the Hutu could and would be pretty vicious and downright evil at times. Now, just because the Hutu are portrayed as evil doesn’t mean that the Tutsi are automatically good. Sure, they end up being a huge help in the end, but they are indeed involved in the war. In my humble opinion, if you’re involved in a war, regardless of the arguable necessity of it at times, there is some evil in you. You’re taking part in the killing of other humans, something I think most people would agree is a bad thing. It can make sense, like if your country is being invaded, but that doesn’t automatically negate the negativity of killing other people. This movie definitely demonizes the Hutu more, considering it portrays them as the main bad guy, and they’re the majority being incredibly discriminatory toward the minority.

But ultimately, I think it’s just stating that regardless of the reason, war is bad. Killing people is bad. Being mean is bad. Being nice is good. Not killing is good. So on and so forth.

If you think about it, however, the movie really shows how imperialism screwed up Rwanda. The Belgians create this false division in the Rwandan society, and everything goes through extra hell when they leave. They’re the true bad guys in this movie.

Anyway, these sorts of historical themes are things I can appreciate now. Moving on to another huge theme in the movie: the U.N.

People have told me, “Lefty, the moral of this movie is that the U.N. is freakin’ worthless,” usually with more colorful language. However, my argument is that the U.N. isn’t necessarily worthless, just that it needs the support of its members, like any group. You have the peacekeepers, who are far too outnumbered to even think about keeping the peace. Member nations of the U.N. are unwilling to support the U.N. and by extension, support Rwanda. It’s as the cameraman said, they’ll hear the news, think it’s terrible, then go right back to eating their dinners.

On the subject of the movie itself, it’s well made. Good acting on all fronts (of course we can expect that from Don Cheadle, really). It really is an acting movie. It’s not as if the cinematography, editing, etc. weren’t good, it’s just that the acting and writing really steals the show. It’s definitely a must see, but be prepared to cry. I did so multiple times. But I want to know what you think. How do you feel about the film? Do you agree or disagree with me, and why? I’d love to hear your input in the comments section below.

This won’t be a trend, I promise, I’ll go into more technical aspects of movies when I find one where it’s really worth doing so. I mean, Where the Wild Things Are looked and felt great, but everyone was already raving about that. Just looking at the trailer makes you realize that’s the case. It’s the story that’s completely stolen the show in both reviews so far, and I apologize for those of you with an interest in it.

Also, I’ll try and do my reviews a bit closer to when I actually see the movie as to capture more of that immediate reaction to them.

Moving on.

This morning, I went to catch a matinee showing of Where the Wild Things Are. It felt weird being there, seeing as I was one of two people not there because of children. There was one other guy who was there by himself, presumably because he just wants to watch the latest release for a slightly more reasonable price. Eight dollars is much more preferable to ten-fifty. Anyway, it was definitely weird. I mean, all these kids come in and I’m just sucking on my dollar jawbreaker that I can’t even finish by the end of the film (best dollar candy ever). You might be thinking, “Lefty. That must have sucked. A bunch of small children in a room with scary monsters on the screen?” You’d be thinking wrong. These children were actually well behaved. You might now be thinking, “Holy crap on a cracker, Lefty. That’s pretty crazy.” At which point you are finally thinking correctly. They were annoying little <insert a variety of colorful words here> during the previews and all the nonsense before the previews, but the moment the first logo came up with Max’s hand-drawings on them, they shut up and watched the movie in peace. I think only one child screamed loud enough for me to hear once.

Screaming brings me to my next point. This film was a bit more frightening than I thought it would be. I mean, this definitely isn’t a thriller, but it really doesn’t toy around with the fact that this movie is about an angry kid prone to violence and scary monsters. There really are some moments that are quite frightening. Nothing that haunts you after you leave, but if you get caught up in the emotion of what’s going on, it can catch you off guard for a few moments.

Teetering constantly between several different emotions, this film really shows how emotions can really be tied together so easily and quickly, especially when inside the mind of a preadolescent boy who has yet to learn how to properly control those emotions. How often does fun equal violence for us? I mean, our entertainment often includes violence, be it film, television, sports, and about all of the childhood physical games (tag is all about beating each other up, after all).

Now, don’t get me wrong. The movie is not too violent, it’s not too dark, it’s none of that. Considering the fact that it’s a children’s movie, it actually isn’t all that intense. While we adults might find monsters destroying houses, threatening to eat children, and crashing your boat on the edge of a rocky cliff face and nearly drowning terrifying endeavors, a child is likely to find them thrilling and enjoyable. They’re probably some of the best minds capable of viewing things like movies, since the illusion is sold to them easier than it is to us. A child does not get caught up on realism or irrelevant questions of why and how come. A child buys into the story and follows it, allowing the story to dictate how he feels. It’s from that perspective that I attempted to watch this film.

I had an incredibly active imagination as a kid, and I still like to think that my imagination is still that way. This is why I love the movies so much. I can suspend my disbelief enough to get emotionally involved in a clearly fake series of events and cry in a room with a hundred other people in there. Granted, this showing was so early that there were only about fifteen to twenty other people, but I still shed a tear at the end. I understood the story; I understood the complexities it presented. I’m one of those people who others tell me “never grow up, Branden.”

Anyway, enough about me, more about the movie. I still think the introduction to the entire movie is one of the best aspects of the film. It so creatively sets up the emotion for the story. I mean, if I were to look at a kid and he told me his sister didn’t want to play with him anymore, I would just tell him to play with someone else (as much as I like to fancy myself the keeper of at least a little bit of that childlike perspective, I’m still ultimately a cold, unimaginative adult). However, the way Max feels about his sister not wanting to play with him anymore is downright depressing. My eyes were watery almost from the get go. If you don’t feel that kind of emotion in the beginning, you need to take a lesson from the Grinch and let your heart grow a few sizes.

Max, losing his mother’s time, his sister’s time, and even the sun’s time, violently reacts to this realization. The fun of childhood is ending, and Max isn’t going to let go without at least attempting to hold on. Sure, this makes him seem like a bit of a brat, and I can understand why some people might dislike his behavior. Hell, I sympathized with him greatly and I still disapproved of his behavior. This doesn’t make it any less powerful, however. The hero should have flaws, and this hero has flaws that literally almost everyone who sees this movie should be able to relate to.

When he initially meets the Wild Things, they’re arguing about something. Max immediately intervenes, seeing his own external conflicts with him and the world portrayed by these monsters. The monsters react by wanting to eat him, because what child doesn’t think the monsters want to eat him or her? However, by stubbornly stating his list of broad, imagined powers, he is able to convince them to make them their king. They so easily buy into his lies, because they’re nothing more than extensions of Max’s inner and outer conflicts and emotions. Throughout the entire film, I couldn’t shake a feeling that Max was just interacting with himself: a monster that no one pays attention to, a monster that is constantly a downer, a monster that is completely silent, a monster that goes along with pretty much everything, a monster that shares a resemblance his Max’s sister, a monster that is quite intelligent, and a monster that is pretty much just like the Max we come to know and hopefully love, despite being an obnoxious brat.

The movie has plenty of twists and turns, constantly jumping from point to point in the way a boy’s mind would work. It all makes sense if you let it, but if you try to nitpick and constantly ask why Max changed his mind or why the monsters changed a bit, you’re actually trying to psychoanalyze the film and the character instead of trying to figure out the story. Simply put, the story is more of a study of childhood, especially male childhood. Violence, overdone action, giant forts, you name it. A boy wants that stuff. And this boy, as I’ve said, is too young to control any of that and filter it out and make sense of it all. We adults look at it and should appreciate the in-depth psychological angle this film brings. When the story finally ends (don’t worry, no specific spoilers), I didn’t hate Max like I probably should have. I understood who he was too much to dislike him. In fact, I loved him. He’s an obnoxious, horrible little child, but I didn’t hate him. I was just glad he was finally safe.

Have I even mentioned the incredible filmmaking from near every angle? No, but that’s been fairly universal in the bits of reviews I’ve read. Everyone loves the way it looks and is shot, and everyone thinks all of the technical aspects are done marvelously. Reading a few reviews, and then even more so after actually seeing it, I knew a lot of people just wouldn’t get the story. That’s why I’ve spent so much time on it. It’s an absolutely wonderful story presented in visually stunning and profound ways.

However, without the mastery of presentation, the story would probably not mean so much. Since it really seems like a real world, it’s so easy to accept the characters as real and get past that pesky disbelief and doubt we all put a little too much emphasis on in movies. We move past all of it, stunned by the presentation and taken in by the story. The presentation is noticeable and incredibly well done, but never is it distracting. It’s always perfect. Every scene seems naturalistic and fantastical all at the same time. This movie really does show how to combine intricate fantasy worlds and realistic design in order to sell the illusion of reality so spectacularly. The believability of it all is on par, if not better than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I originally thought would’ve have been incredibly hard to beat on terms of realistic presentation. Props to Jim Henson suits and CGI face animators. The fact that the monsters have normal voices really helps, a lesson learned from movies like Monsters, Inc., but definitely taken to the next level. I’m going to hate it when monsters have unnatural voices from now on, thanks to this movie. There’s so much more to them this way.

As I finish up my review for Where the Wild Things Are, I fall more in love with the movie. Now that I’ve had a chance to sit down and analyze how I felt about the movie, I’ve gotta say that it’s a pretty awesome movie that has had more of an impact on me than I originally thought.

I’m not going to use an arbitrary rating system, but I can tell you how strongly or not I recommend seeing this movie.

The word on this picture is: GO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW! I DEMAND IT OF YOU!