Jonzen Hard

In the name of transparency, I'll say that I'm a big fantasy adventure fan. From The Princess Bride to it's ugly step daughter StarDust, from 1971 Spielberg to 1993 Spielberg, from The Sorcerer's Stone to The Deathly Hallows 2, I love em all. But like all of us, I love some more than others. The Princess Bride might very well be my favorite movie.. it's close, and yet watching the TPB trailer makes me feel for Fred Savage... "do we have to grandpa."
That being said, if Spike Jonez's Where the Wild Things Are is half the movie TPB is, it'll be wonderful. We'll have to wait for Ebert and A.O. to tell us if that's the case, but in the mean time the trailer is out and it's fantastic.



I know, but what makes it so great?
1. The music, Arcade Fire's "Wake up", is spot on for the feel, hope, the transition from youth to not-quite-youth, and the wild unknown, I liked this song before, but Spike's music background couldn't have hurt in the selection process.
2. I don't know anything about the movie that I didn't know from the beautiful Maurice Sendak book which comes in at only ten sentences long. Obama recently read it at the White House Easter Egg roll and even he couldn't drag it out more than 5 minutes, so you know that giving away to much could have been an easy trap to fall into. With such revered source material, they might have treated WTWTA like Titanic, the old you-know-the-ending-but-here's-the-story ploy. Instead, Spike, and the creators of the trailer, chose to keep some secrets. They treat us like we've never seen this world before, which is great because if the movie is done well then we never have.

For the stunning visual flashes and touching emotional tones that make up this tornado of a trailer you can thank the people at The Ant Farm. They've done so many of my favorite trailers down on the Farm and though they were robbed of a Golden Trailer for best in show, by Star Trek, they did walk away with a Trailer for Best Music.
So here's my first award... for the best trailer ever for a Spike Jonez film based on a favorite childhood story, the first ever Tasty award goes to...drumroll... The Ant Farm. Thank you guys for reminding me what it was to be a kid without treating me like one.