Don't get too greedy

by Ryland Walker Knight

I did my best to resist the evaluative while comparing how Where the Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr. Fox address their audiences. I don't know how well I succeeded on either of those fronts. I know I let my distaste for the Jonze picture creep in as much as my enthusiasm for the Anderson picture shines through what little I had to say. It's a pretty simple argument, really, that I might be able to boil down to: if you're going to go the sadness route, you ought to make me feel something besides annoyance at the tedium of hurt. I know that part of life all too well already. I enjoy Fox and other Wes Anderson pictures precisely because they're adventures, and comedies, and about exploring the world with some imagination and wit. But I'll have more to say about that at a not-much-later date for a different outlet. So, until then, read this and that and the other thing I threw together (threw up?) in The Notebook. If you want to read something smarter, and more cohesive, and maybe even more honest, read Sicinski's piece in Cinema-Scope. If I'd had the gumption, I'd've talked in public about how much of me I saw or didn't see and how that swayed me. But I'll save that for my face-to-face friends.