Where the Wild Things Are

Since I started reading the Hollywood trades online every morning a few months ago, I've come across several things that have made me smile. Nothing, however, has come close to being this good.

This one had slipped by me completely until now, but apparently music-video maestro Spike Jonze is working on an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," due some time in 2007. For someone who longs for the days when children's movies weren't exercises in flatulence, this can only be good news.

Sendak's perfectly told and illustrated story is the ultimate children's fantasy: summed up, our hero, Max, after getting in a fight with his mother, runs away from home to the forest "Where the Wild Things Are," ultimately being crowned their leader.

Now comes word that a group including Benicio Del Toro, Forest Whitaker and Michelle Williams has been recruited to provide the voices of the main characters.

Spike would seem to have just the perfectly skewed view of the world to pull this all off, which will apparently use live-action puppetry as well as computer-generated animation. Add in the final tidbit that McSweeney's Quarterly Concern editor Dave Eggers has been recruited to help with the script, and you can give this one my guarantee that there is no way it can suck.

We need more news like this. After all, this site is called Reel Fanatic, not Reel Curmudgeon, although I know it's sometimes hard to tell.

Lucky bastards

Well, I don't really think the fine folks at Comingsoon.net are bastards, or lucky for that matter, but they are very good at what they do.

This morning they have an exclusive interview with "Ghost World" creator and comic book genius Daniel Clowes. It touches on Clowes' reunion with director Terry Zwigoff for the upcoming "Art School Confidential," of course, but also runs through much of Clowes' comic book work. It's a great interview, so do yourself a favor and read it here.