Monday, October 19, 2009

Here There Be Wild Things

One more Wild Things post and then I'll move on to other topics, I promise.

Something I forgot to mention (I was reminded by a friend on Facebook) is that the source material for the movie included more than just the Caldecott Award winning picture book. It also included the story Max at Sea by the masterful Dave Eggers, which he has since turned into a novel (which I cannot recommend because I haven't read it... yet). Eggers is credited as cowriter for the screenplay.

Of course, Mssr. Eggers is almost absurdly talented: not only has he contributed to The Onion, he co-founded McSweeney's and has won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer.  

You can read Max at Sea here at the New Yorker (click).

As is his habit, Eggers is astoundingly brilliant in the guise of a pre-adolescent boy. If you haven't read Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius you don't know what I'm talking about, but you should and then you would. It's no wonder previous attempts at the movie failed, they didn't have Eggers on staff. Every movie should be so lucky.

Also also... yesterday, I mentioned that Lasseter took a stab at a cartoon of Where the Wild Things Are. It's on YouTube (linked below). Lasseter, of course, went on to Pixar where he probably produced or directed every movie the company ever made that you actually liked.

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Pages to Type is a blog about books, writing and literary culture (with the occasional digression into coffee and the care and feeding of giant robots).