Wednesday, September 30, 2009

826 Valencia Benefit screening of Where the Wild Things Are - San Francisco (and we met Catherine Keener!)

Well sweet holy crap tonight was frigggiiin' AMAAAAZIIIING.



Today was awesome and super busy at work, but just another day in the magical world of movies, and as usual I couldn't possibly ask for more. The day then got even more badass, cause from work I took off with Shelly and Matt and we went to the Sony Metreon in downtown San Francisco for the 826Valencia Benefit Screening of the new Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers masterful interpretation of Maurice Sendak's 1964 book, "Where the Wild Things Are"... and it was AWESOME.

The screening was to benefit 826Valencia's creative writing workshops, and it's really cool that they organized to show the movie early and to benefit such a worthy cause.

HOLY CRAP THE MOVIE WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The music was really interesting and indie-y, done by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It fit the emotion(s) of the movie really well. Max Records, the tiny star of the movie, was a perfect choice to play the character of Max. He hit the intricacies of complex emotion so incredibly well for such a young actor, and I can't imagine any other "child star" who could have even come close to his performance and powerful portrayal. BRILLIANT. Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze penned the screenplay, which went from Maurice Sendak's 334 (beautifully crafted) words into a complex story of their very own. It stayed true to the book, and at the same time ventured into a whole new realm and explored the emotions of the monsters in a really in-depth and powerful way.

I netflixed the "Work of Director Spike Jonze" DVD last week so I could catch up on my Spike-dom, and I noticed he seemed to use a lot of hand-held camera in his music videos and shorts, and filmed crazy action sequences really clearly and excitingly. That kind of slick filming style was definitely noticeable in the movie and fit the vibe super well.

I won't get into any details about the movie itself for fear of spoiling it for others who have yet to see the movie - suffice it to say, it was FANTASTIC. It was SO intense, tremendously silly and strange and absurd, and at the same time such an interesting and powerful journey... my only complaint? That it doesn't come out in theatres 'till October 16th and I have to wait until then to see it again. :)

Ok, so it gets even better.

At the end of the fantastic movie, there was a 20 or 30 min Q&A session with Spike Jonze, Max Records and Catherine Keener!!!!!!! They talked about the movie and answered some questions from the crowd and told some funny stories about making the movie and crazy things that happened on set, etc. Super awesome.

Ok, and now it gets even better.

After the show we were hanging out at the book table and Matt and Shelly bought a couple of books (Dave Egger's novel interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are, and Shelly bought that and an "Art of" book)...

...and then Catherine Keener just walked out of the theatre, walked right over to us, and said "Hi! Thanks for coming!" I started yapping casually, and said how great it was and how much I enjoyed it, and it took me a moment to realize I was talking to Catherine Keener!! Insane!! Shelly and Matt noticed and came over and we chatted for 5 minutes, it was AMAZING! She did a great job as the Mom in the movie, and she is such a great actress: Synecdoce, NY, 40 year Old with Steve Carrell, Being John Malkovich... she's been in a heck of a lot of great movies. Anyway she was super nice, and I got a stack of compliments from her!!! Haha, talk about make your day... man!! Amazing. I was wearing a "Where the Wild Things Are" shirt, and my Star Wars Ecko hoodie with "fur" in it (kinda looks like a Wild Things costume, so I was rockin' it). Also had my super bright shoes on and she commented on them: She said "Whoa! Those are coooool - who makes those?!" I told her they are Adidas and I'm the only person in America who would by them cause they are like wearing Skittles on your feet. :) Then she said, "I should get a pair!" I said, "Right on!" and she said, "Oh haha, not for me, for my son!" SO AWESOME!! She also "ruffled" the inside of my hooded sweatshirt and said, "Oh, isn't that cool!" and saw my Wild Things shirt and said "That's amazing, how long have you had that for?" I told her a while, and that I've loved the book for a long time and my parents read it to me a super long time ago and it was always one of my favorites. Then we chatted a little more and told her we loved the movie and she did a great job in it. AMAZING!!!!!!!!! It was really nice of her to come and talk to us outside the movie, and you could see all the actors were super tired as I'm sure they're running around a lot doing promotion and stuff for the movie (since it comes out in like 2 weeks)... really, really cool. After we said bye, I kept saying to Matt and Shelly... "Holy crap! We definitely just talked to Catherine Keener for like 5 minutes!" ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHH BEST DAY EVER!!

And that, my friends, is the conclusion of my exciting day. Matt and I ate a ton of junk food at the theater - now it's 11:28pm and all I ate for dinner was a huge popcorn, and a box of milk duds and reese's pieces. Oops. I keep claiming that I'm "still in the negative" for calories this week since I ingested 0 calories over Yom Kippur, but that was on Monday and now it's Wednesday, so I think that argument is starting to wear thin. Haha.

Let the wild rumpus begin!!!!!!!!!!

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