To start with, this isn't going to be a review of Where the Wild Things Are, per se; rather it's intended as a discussion of the film for those who've already seen it. As such it could contain spoilers, and in any case I'd caution you against seeing it with the baggage of preconceived notions. (Then again, if you've ever read the book, you already have preconceived notions about this film, most of which will prove to be quite wrong.)
That said, I will offer up this one statement as a review: I don't really believe this is a film for kids. (There are qualifiers to be attached, but I can't get into them until after I've discussed it, below.)
Briefly, if you have a five-year-old who loves the book, avoid taking him or her to the movie until you've seen it yourself. The kid will possibly be bored, possibly spooked, and you might come out of it feeling any range of emotions from disappointed to bewildered to disturbed to just plain wrung out.
I did like the film, quite a lot; but I don't really think it's suitable for young kids, that's all. And if you're an adult who loved the book as a child, be aware that this movie is not a simple retelling of the book. The movie is for adults who loved the book as kids, but who are now grown up, and who know what that means.
So. Discussion and possible spoilers follow.
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Just up to my into.
Thought I'd pause for a moment to ruminate, though, on the nature of what works and doesn't in the lens.
Now I can't take a studio shot to save my life. This is not often true. Many, and I mean many, photographers are just brilliant at portrait pics. Well, I've never really tried it; I don't have the portraiture background and I don't have the controlled umbrellas and flash lighting that you need to make it all work.
Besides, it's all so … stiff. Posed. So it's not my thing.
I think that's probably all right. My time lensing, after all, has yielded results such as this and this. I seem to have a knack for grabbing subjects, putting them in ambient space, and saying, now stand like this … think happy thoughts … done.
(Actually it's more often like see it, grab it before the subject knows it's happening. Reflexes, I guess.)
Relevance is the latest round from this kid. I've known him a couple years, and he's a senior in HS now, and his mom asked me to do my thing for one more go-round. (He has plans to basically escape, as fast and as far as he can, when he turns eighteen. Good for him.)
I shot 157 frames. This was a good one.
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You could spend umpteen skillion hours dealing with Adobe, or you could give this a shot.
I have all the system requirements in place. Mac OSX.4.11 or later. Plenty of RAM. Dual core fast box, even if it's not Intel, but the Motorola chipset.
So when I try to run the Flash CS4 installer, it just hangs. I get a blank window saying "Installer Alert", but no controls, no message, nothing.
What to do?
Well, after 30 minutes listening to on-hold music from Adobe's tech support, and another fifteen minutes telling the rep I will not create a new user account just for CS4, and will absolutely not format my hard drive for their damn asinine vector animation engine, I found out what it was, sort of.
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