comment #1

erniesouchak says ...

As for me, I don't want to see "Where the Wild Things Are" because it looks like complete and utter shit.

Carroll Ballard makes the only really good movies about children.

comment #2

Carl Kolchak says ...

Get off of my lawn.....and stay off !!!!!

comment #3

drbob says ...

You are dead-on about E.T. I am actually sort of shocked at how badly that movie has aged for me.

comment #4

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

Speaking of films with kids going on life-changing journeys, TCM did a Chuck Jones tribute last nite and showed the little-seen Phantom Tollbooth, which I had never seen. And it sure wasn't any "lost masterpiece". It played like a feature-length ep of Schoolhouse Rock, only with songs that were nowhere near as clever. Luckily they showed some truly classic Daffy/Bugs/Elmer stuff too.

comment #5

Gordie Lachance says ...

Of all the things that are wrong with films today (like how narrow and dumb and shallow they are becoming) the way kids are portrayed is not even in the top 100.

We need more films like Over The Edge, where 'coming of age' means learning how full of shit all the adults are.

comment #6

Gordie Lachance says ...

Oh and Spielberg did try and make a 'grown up' kids movie back in 87. I recall it being one of the biggest bombs of his career.

comment #7

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

If you want to go back to the Victorian way of life that regard children as adults, there are plenty of places in the world where you can go and see that. in my father's village in northeastern India, there are small children who are much more mature, responsible and sensible than me (and I'm almost 27).

I love this post, Wells, you nailed it right. You pretty much summed up why I despise the U.S culture that coddle and infantilize children and teenagers. So many of them aren't prepared for the harsh reality when they turn 18 and suddenly they realize that the world isn't a playground anymore.

comment #8

topbroker says ...

Right on, Mr. Wells. I would pretty much endorse what you have written here, sentence for sentence. Have you read Joseph Epstein's wonderful essay about "kindergarchy" (rule by children) which appeared in the Weekly Standard a while back?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/161yutrk.asp

Among relatively recent films about children or teens, I do like October Sky because it places such an emphasis on education -- imagine, a film in which one of the emotional high points involves a mathematics book!

comment #9

Admiral82 says ...

Okay, seriously. I remember in 1999, walking out of the Phantom Menace and talking about how utterly awful Jake Lloyd was in that movie.

When I was younger I hated ET. The part where he drinks beer used to make me sick when I was younger. It was the burping. Anyway, never enjoyed that movie. Even as a child. My buddy bought it for me as a goof. I've never even picked it up off my shelf.

comment #10

Admiral82 says ...

Night of the Hunter is one of my all time favorites, btw.

comment #11

Circumvrent says ...

Jeff, without an ounce of sarcasm, I am telling you that you have to see Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop. It is completely antithetical to all of the films you've discussed in this piece, yet manages to be completely uplifting, grim, moving, and cathartic all at the same time. Also features a lead performance - from a first-time actor - that puts any other child performance you can think of to shame.

I'm also feel confident in saying that a Spike Jonze adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is the wrong target for this kind of vitriol. It'll probably be as far away from E.T. and the Boy with Green Hair as you can get.

comment #12

Scott Mendelson says ...

I certainly have no love for Jake Lloyd's work in Phantom Menace (it completely and utterly destroyed his career right as he was turning ten), but Charlie Kosmo is the best thing about Hook. Hell, he was the best, most natural child actor around for the 1.5 years he was in the industry.

comment #13

btwnproductions says ...

Teacher movies--the intersection of kids and adults--can be effective. THE CLASS is terrific.

The argument gets a little mixed-up. THE SIXTH SENSE and MY LIFE AS A DOG aren't traditional "studio pictures." Nor is the child's perspective PAN'S LABYRINTH, a recent favorite around here.

Numerous factors play a role in a child's development--but good parenting is a strong start. "Dull (i.e., obsessive), anarchic, shallow, uninteresting, overly self-regarding and for the most part unengaged in anything other than their own insipid, corporate-created distractions" parents tend to result in tend to be dull (i.e., obsessive), anarchic, shallow, uninteresting, overly self-regarding and for the most part unengaged in anything other than their own insipid, corporate-created distractions children.

comment #14

nakedmanatee says ...

King of the Hill, Cinema Paradisio

comment #15

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

Pather Panchali (the first film in The World of Apu trilogy), that was such a great movie.

comment #16

Phatang! says ...

Kid's are fascinating. Jeff's problem is that they're self-absorbed, and you have to be ego-less while spending time with young children (and, to an extent, older kids). And my guess is Jeff's ego can't take a back seat to anyone's. Which is fine. Just keep him away from my two year old!

The "corporate-created distractions" is a good point, however, buried in a load of ignorant nonsense. Licensed characters dominate children's play, from a very young age, and it not only limits their imagination but is VERY BORING to be around.

comment #17

actionman says ...

Where the Wild Things Are isn't going to be a "kids movie" in any traditional sense. You don't hire a guy like Spike Jonze to do ANYTHING REMOTELY traditional.

The pictures from this movie that have been released are staggering.

The movie is going to be hugely emotional for anyone who read this book over and over again as a child, as I did.

I am betting that this will be one of the best movies of 2009.

comment #18

Krazy Eyes says ...

I'm mostly in agreement with you but then along comes a film like LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and blows my theory out of the water. I think the bigger problem is that there are too many bad kid's movies.

comment #19

Brian says ...

I dunno. Most movies "about" kids and teenagers aren't really about kids and teenagers at all. They're about how studio executives see kids and teenagers, which is quite a different thing. And in the case of teenagers, they're also about 22-year-olds playing teenagers.

One of the reasons The Sixth Sense is so good is that it's actually about the kid. Same with Pan's Labyrinth, and Night of the Hunter, and The 400 Blows.

I guess what I'm saying is that movies about kids are just like any other movies - they're worthwhile if the filmmakers approach the material with genuine empathy and relative honesty. But for whatever reason, movies about kids tend to draw cynical, manipulative filmmakers at a high rate.

comment #20

byanyother says ...

Great, now we get the fanboy set on kids. This is YOUR problem, Wells, not the problem of kids. In fact, YOU are getting old. It's really as simple as that. You're the guy in the back of the room grumpy as hell telling the kids to shut the hell up. This is nothing new, nothing recession-related -- it's just a (sad) fact of life.

"They tend to be dull (i.e., obsessive), anarchic, shallow, uninteresting, overly self-regarding and for the most part unengaged in anything other than their own insipid, corporate-created distractions."

No, that's most of the assholes in Hollywood. Some of them are brats. Many of them are not. Where we go wrong is in our need to make magic their childhoods - I agree with that. A healthy imagination doesn't need a fake reality. But don't blame kids; blame corporations.

I don't know what kids you've been hanging around but I see nothing shallow in kids. I see complex little beings that most people don't want to understand - moreover, people like you tend to need kids to validate something in you: your success as a parent, whatever.

comment #21

messiahcomplexio says ...

What? You mean the court jester isn't doing that dance for me?
THEN OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

Emperor Wells has spoken!

comment #22

George Prager says ...

Kids are kids. The problem these days are parents who are terrified that their kids don't think they are the coolest parents on the planet, and baby boomer parents who buy 50 Cent CDs for their SUVs so they can impress their teenage offspring's friends.

If Spielberg made a remake of THE BOY WITH THE GREEN HAIR the climax of the movie would have the entire town waking up one morning with green hair.

comment #23

George Prager says ...

MOUCHETTE

comment #24

Jeremy Fassler says ...

I agree and disagree with Wells. Yes, he does sound a little cantankerous here. I love kids when they're used right. Kids need to be directed very well for them to come across. For example, I thought the two kids in Slumdog were the best people in the movie. I totally bought into their story (so much so that I never had an emotional connection to Dev Patel after that). And I would be crazy not to bring up Abby Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, who is brilliant, and has terrific instincts as an actor.

But these kids were directed in a way not to be sentimental, or cloying. Haley Joel Osment was terrific in The Sixth Sense for precisely that reason--and sank A.I. because of how badly directed he was. Odd, since Spielberg worked so well with Henry Thomas and Christian Bale. Kids can be a terrific asset, but only if they're used right. The rest of the time we get Where the Wild Things Are and A.I. I'm going to wait to pass final judgment until I see The Lovely Bones.

comment #25

Rich S. says ...

Thank the gods people don't have to live in the world according to Jeffrey Wells, were everything sucks and anything approaching magic is to be treated with contempt and sarcasm.

There are good kids movies and bad kids movies, just like any other kind of movie. I wonder why every opinion on the internet must now be definitive, simply for its shock value.

Right off the top of my head, I thought of Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I consider it largely unnecessary, but it has some interesting things to say, not the least of which is that Freddie Highmore's Charlie is the adult teaching lessons to Depp's perpetually adolescent Willy Wonka. Yet if Wells had his way, that baby would be thrown out with the bathwater.

The simple truth is that kids respond best to lessons cloaked in more fantastic elements. "Spoonful of sugar" and all that. They won't learn anything from a gritty crime film set in 70s New York City, the only type of film Jeffrey seems to respect.

comment #26

Mr. Muckle says ...

byanyother has an excellent take on this. After all, who made those "corporate-created distractions?" Friggin' adults! Wells is out of his damn mind, a guy raised by a drunk who now has a job and thinks he's successful, so every kid should also be raised by a drunk so they can get where he is.

It's not true that kids are narrow and grow up to be broadly interested (and interesting) if they're lucky. Adults are actually narrow and constricted, essentially through having learned to fear life and "failure." That fear is enforced on children by adults every single day. What might a human being turn out to be without parents trying to turn them into their demented ideas of what they "ought to be," entirely unrelated to what they actually are. Something other than the continuation of the present stupidity, perhaps.

This website and Mr. Wells schizoid obsessions trying to pass themselves off as broadminded, enlightened intelligence may have outlived their usefulness and tolerability. Cranks can be found everywhere, one need not go through the effort of pushing a button.

comment #27

bluefugue says ...

>A healthy imagination doesn't need a fake reality.

I may be misreading the general tenor of this thread, but it seems like Wells's argument against kid-centric movies, and some of the chorus agreeing with him, have segued over into a general disapproval of anything fantastical or unrealistic. I hope that's not the case, but if so, I'd like to chime in against that line of argument.

Fantasy is valuable to the nurturing of the imagination -- that of adults as well as children. There need be no conflict between an enriching, enlivening experience of fantasy, and a realistic acceptance of the hard truths of adult life. The best fantasy doesn't paper over the difficulties of life -- in fact, it exposes them, highlights them, clarifies them and makes them more vivid and primal. Fiction, film, literature, and art do not need to be naturalistic. They can be, but from Homer to Dante to Milton to Tolkien, there has been enormous value in the aesthetic development of the unreal, of strange phantasmagoria, distant nonexistent lands, and larger-than-life adventures. How sad a childhood it would be without the respite of such texts, I should think.

Ursula Le Guin has had some valuable things to say about this in her book "The Language of the Night."

If Wells isn't arguing against fantasy per se, just against infantile glorification of children & immature states of mind, then I apologize, and my response was perhaps unnecessary. But to respond to the sentence I quoted, in my opinion a "fake reality" can do wonders for the health of one's imagination. A thousand fake realities are even better. They stir the limits of the possible; they ferment the creative juices; they help one to maintain a deep and satisfying inner life.

comment #28

Howlingman says ...

I blame the parents. Now get off my lawn.

comment #29

arturobandini2 says ...

Mostly in agreement here, but deafbrown is right on to bring up Pather Panchali as a counter-example. Also, Ratcatcher is a powerfully adult movie about lost innocence (kid accidentally kills another kid, keeps it a secret). Hayley Mills was awesome in Tiger Bay. And 36 years later, Paper Moon is shaping up to be one of the ten best movies from the '70s. I'm not kidding; it is that Hollywood rarity -- a perfect movie.

As for E.T., I saw that on opening night when I was 18 and thought it was the biggest steaming pile of saccharine, manipulative horseshit I'd ever seen. I still do.

comment #30

KC says ...

The trailer is up here: http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2009/03/where_the_wild_things_are_trai.php

I fuckin' teared up, HATE ME NOW

comment #31

Tom Brazelton says ...

Wells may bristle at the Andy Rooney comparison, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts he wouldn't have written this anti-kids tirade if he didn't have "The Great Recession" as a scapegoat.

You're saying because of the dire financial situation we find ourselves in, it's time to suck it up and confront kids with the harsh reality of the world. But if we weren't under the influence of crushing economic times, are you saying that you still wouldn't feel the same???

Fess up to it, Wells. You're turning into a crank.

comment #32

HyppoM says ...

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Wells, you're murdering me. MURDERING me! Oh Jesus. My chest aches.

comment #33

solus says ...

i think that Catinca Untarus"performance "in The Fall was very renewing and life affirming.....The movie was so-so but it was worth it just to watch this amazing performance

comment #34

KC says ...

Yeah honestly, now that I've recovered from unexpected assault of childhood picture-book memory/corny indie rock emotion I have to agree, I don't know what the fuck Wells has been tripping on lately but it has been amazing to follow

comment #35

HyppoM says ...

I'm waiting for a follow-up piece about women and old people.

comment #36

BurmaShave says ...

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? PAN'S LABYRINTH? Fuck 'em. But TWILIGHT, now there is something you can believe in.

comment #37

MovieBob says ...

If life was a movie, there'd be an orphan in a basket outside Wells' door tommorrow morning. With special powers ;)

Jeff, there's nothing WRONG with being a cranky old man who doesn't like children. You don't need to blame yourself on the recession; however amusing I find it that such a devout fan of President Obama has a problem with childish-whimsy all of the sudden.

In any case, your sense of history is, well... I hate to be "that guy," but your just wrong in that regard. The popularity of kid-lit, fairy-stories and escapist entertainments of all kinds EXPLODED in the Depression, the 70s downturn, the Reagan recession... times like these have consistently made such material more popular, not less. In troubled times, the recreational portion of most people's minds retreat to safe-ground, often meaning simpler/younger days. It's why grown women still have stuffed animals, and grown men still obsess over sports (or MOVIES, ahem.)

Heck, there were always tons of movies starring and/or "about" children as well. Scads of serials, B-pictures and creature features had young (usually) boys as the main protagonists. Spielberg/Lucas didn't "infantilize" anything, it's just a further byproduct of their real ultimate legacy: Turning the B-genres into A-genres.

Furthermore, the Victorian age you describe only existed for social/public engagements. Children of that era - particularly among the upper class which is, really, what people are mostly reffering to when they talk about Victorian-era anything - were expected to behave "as adults" in social circumstance, but privately they were FORCED to live in seperate fantasy-worlds modern kids willingly inhabit... often confined to "nurseries" for most of the day until their teens (and women often longer) living day-to-day lives based mostly around fairy-stories, toys and make-believe.

In any case, can't wait for you to see this come out, be liked by you (with "see? Spike Jonze AGREES with me about _____!" justification), make money and then be retroactively hated by you five months later ;)

comment #38

Abbey Normal says ...

I'm with Wells. My perspective on this is almost certainly biased because I don't have children. But it sure seems to me like a lot of adults are afraid to actually be adults. We live in Peter Pan Nation, spending our adult lives idealizing youth, remembering it as a magical yesteryear full of wonder and heartfelt openness. It's crap.

Childhood is a time of profound selfishness, and so it follows that adults who idealize youth are often themselves wrapped up in their own little worlds, too obsessed with their own navel-gazing to actually be oriented around OTHER PEOPLE--the definition of adulthood.

Meanwhile, many people I know--and they have no shame about this--decide to have their own kids specifically to nurture this aspect of themselves. They view their children as manifestations of their own childhood, a way to live their own childhood again through the eyes of their kids. They go out to try and make the world safe for their kids, which has the inevitable effect of restricting the world of adults (whenever I hear someone say "think of the children!," I have to suppress a homicidal urge). The whole time they tell you about how responsible they are now that they're parents, while implying that you're somehow not a grownup because you don't have kids of your own. But who's really the grownup: the one actually living and enjoying life as an adult, or the one still trying to revisit their own childhood through their offspring?

Adulthood rocks.

comment #39

rr3333 says ...

Jeff will become a softy when he'll become a grandpa.

BTW: I bet this movie wont make a dime.

comment #40

actionman says ...

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/where-the-wild-things-are/trailer

There's the new link to the trailer.

LOOKS AMAZING.

comment #41

actionman says ...

And who the hell cares how much money the movie makes, other than the suits at WB? As long as the film is a great experience, that's all that matters.

comment #42

Rich S. says ...

Actionman, you keep saying that. But if movies like Watchmen and Where the Wild Things Are flop, we're likely not going to get any more of them.

I agree that a film's boxoffice is no determinant of its quality. But if you want the studios to take chances on films like this, you have to feed the beast.

comment #43

actionman says ...

I don't know how ANYONE could have thought that Watchmen was going to be a massive grosser. It's done exactly what it was always going to do.

Where the Wild Things Are will make good money simple because of the kid angle.

At the end of the day I just don't care how much money any given movie makes at the box office. I care whether or not the movie is any good or not.

comment #44

Mark says ...

There's a trick to doing a successful movie about a kid. You treat them as a constant, ala, Raymond in Rain Man. The change, which all movies seem to require, should only happen to the surrounding characters. If the change happens to the kid, then I just think who gives a fuck. This is why Searching For Bobby Fisher is the best kids movie ever.

comment #45

actionman says ...

Searching for Bobby Fisher is indeed a great film.

comment #46

MilkMan says ...

What I resent about films for kids is that the kids in the films are always cute, skinny and precocious. When I was six years old I was fat and ugly and very inarticulate, bordering on totally vacant. I also cried whenever someone raised their voice towards me. I don't think I have ever seen a kids film that accurately represents my experience as a child.

Too bad Spike Jonze does't make a movie about his childhood experience. But then again, it would pretty boring to sit and watch a little boy play with his enormous amalgamation of expensive toys for two hours.

comment #47

Gordon27 says ...

"I'm sure I'm forgetting a good kid-in-the-lead film that's been out over the last seven or eight years. "

Millions.

(Um, I mean, the movie 'Millions', not that you're forgetting millions of movies.)

comment #48

DavidF says ...

C'mon Milkman - what about Chunk and the rest of the Goonies! Wrong era?

I guess the actors were prettier but Joe Dante's Explorers was a good kids movie of that era and the kid in Time Bandits seemed a bit real too, if not fat. It's certainly freaky when his parents get toasted...

Anyway, dunno if it's the Arcade Fire or what but the trailer has me excited. He hasn't done film writing yet but Eggers is super-talented and, who knows, maybe Jonze IS making something reflective of his childhood experience.

I'm certainly not going to dismiss it because I hate watching films featuring a certain age group.

comment #49

Mark says ...

Remember the hammer to bird killing scene in Spotless Mind? Kaufman should do a whole movie about those kids.

Isn't Rushmore one of Jeffrey's favorite movies? How does Twilight get a mention over this one.

I probably would not want to see a movie about Milkman's childhood. Even if Todd Solondz directed it.

comment #50

MilkMan says ...

Chunk spoke in Borscht-Belt aphorisms. All the kids in every single Spielberg-affiliated movie have been as cute as a bag of golden retriever puppies opened on Christmas morning.

comment #51

actionman says ...

I used to watch Explorers every single day when I was a kid. I'd love to see it again sometime.

comment #52

MilkMan says ...

You're not the only one, Mark. No one wants to see a movie based on my childhood. That seems to be the consensus from those who could make it happen.

comment #53

Rod32303 says ...

Fuck the haters.

Loved ET back when it came out...love it now. Henry Thomas's performance still ranks as one of the best given by a child...ever.

And there are a lot of films that feature AFRICAN AMERICAN kids that rule. Ever seen Akeelah and the Bee? Half Nelson? Coffy? (kidding, but you know).

As a high school teacher, I see the value and am not quite as jaded or pissy, and I'm 45 years old.

Fuck the haters.

comment #54

George Prager says ...

"You're not the only one, Mark. No one wants to see a movie based on my childhood. That seems to be the consensus from those who could make it happen."

D.Z. says...

I liked it better when it was called Solarbabies.

comment #55

topbroker says ...

I think what Wells is driving at, and what Joseph Epstein is driving at in the article I linked to, is that the problem is not childhood per se, but the sentimentalization of childhood as a state in itself. You shouldn't have children to "have children"; you should have them to grow them into responsible and functional adults. Don't worry so much about what sort of childhood you're giving them; ask yourself instead, what kind of`adulthood am I giving them? With that question as a guide, any parent is less likely to go wrong.

Wells' linkage of the recession to the status of childhood is shrewd. The coming years will be the first time that many contemporary teens and tweens will regularly hear "No." Today's toddlers will grow up with "No." This is a good thing because, in case anyone hadn't noticed, the adult world is not a non-stop parade of "Yeses."

Wells is also right that, by and large, adults are more interesting than children -- which is not to say that children don't have their own interest. But again, their becoming adults is the entire point. Christopher Robin has to leave the forest, and despite most of us having a certain natural wistfulness about that, beyond the forest is definitely the place to be. We do our children a dis-service when we portray childhood as the only magical time: why then should they look forward to adulthood?

I am a teacher working mainly with high school juniors and seniors, whom I love in part because they are at the cusp of adulthood, which they want to understand. In my small way, I want to help them over that threshold. Despite everything you've heard, teens absolutely crave positive relationships with adults and guidance from adults. They don't like to admit it because of the pop cultural pressure not to, but that impulse is a very important one for them. The biological and intellectual imperative of childhood and teen-hood is to leave childhood and teen-hood behind; the best culture about and for children and teens honors that truth.

comment #56

Rod32303 says ...

Topbroker speaks the truth.

Truly.

Beautifully written.

Been teaching for 20 years now, and I am still inspired and amazed for the most part by young people. Every single day.

But some of being young IS sentimental...not every kid or every experience needs to be Tarrantinoized.

comment #57

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

I really liked Akeelah and the Bee as well, I thought that girl gave a great performance.

comment #58

D.Z. says ...

"Kids need to grow up and grim up and learn the skills and disciplines that will allow them to survive. So enough with the Spielberg-aping films that portray a child's world as a magical-fantastical kingdom in and of itself that adults might be able to learn something from."

I always thought they were aping Time Bandits, but without the effed-up ending.

"I loved E.T. when I first saw it 27 years ago, but the last time I watched (i.e., when the last loaded-with-extras bullshit DVD came out) I had a moderately hard time. There's no filmmaker who's more sentimental, manipulative and emotionally cloying than Steven Spielberg when it comes to under-age characters. His films are like McDonald's french fries; they tend to age very badly."

E.T. was to boomers what Cocoon was to the elderly. It had nothing to do with how kids really think and feel. That ended up being "My Neighbor Totoro".

"It's taken years to realize this, but I think my profound dislike of kid films initially came from the one-two punch of Spielberg's Hook ('91) and George Lucas's The Phantom Menace ('99). (Jake Lloyd's performance as Anakin Skywalker was surely one of the most agonizing ever delivered in motion picture history.)"

I could stand Lloyd. It's Osment who unnerved me. Lloyd's gotten a lot of flack, but I thought he and Neeson were the only ones who held that slapped-together piece of crap of a movie together. Osment just seemed
so unencumbered by all those dead bodies in the Sixth Sense that it was hard to believe his character would not have any friggin' emotional traumas from those images. I mean, I was scared shitless when I saw the friggin' Frank Miller Robocop as a kid. But he just comes off concerned and startled at best.

Though I actually stopped taking the genre seriously with Spy Kids and Harry Potter. Or maybe Hollywood just stopped taking kids seriously around '95 with that unholy trio of Casper, Jumanji, and Pocahontas. 'Course I can also blame Larry Clark, too, since he was full of it in the other direction.

"And that includes teenagers. I hate teenager movies unless they have characters who remind me of myself when I was 16 or 17, which is to say a kid with at least a semblance of a brain and a semi-developed vocabulary and actual curiosity about the world outside his/her immediate realm."

Check out Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky.

bob: "I am actually sort of shocked at how badly that movie has aged for me."

It's the same year that Dark Crystal came out, so what did you expect?

Anyway, the Jonze "Where the Wild Things Are" looks dumb for the opposite reasons Jeff hates the genre, which is that it has to explain why the kid is doing what he's doing. Oh, and the "things" should not be talking, dammit.

Gordie: "Oh and Spielberg did try and make a 'grown up' kids movie back in 87. I recall it being one of the biggest bombs of his career."

No one expected Batteries Not Included to be a hit. Oh, you mean that Christian Bale war movie. I'm guessing that bombed from the bitter taste left over from 1941. I don't think Always did well, either, for that same reason.

Deafbrown: "You pretty much summed up why I despise the U.S culture that coddle and infantilize children and teenagers. So many of them aren't prepared for the harsh reality when they turn 18 and suddenly they realize that the world isn't a playground anymore."

You're right. They should bring back the draft to toughen 'em up a bit.

Circum: "I'm also feel confident in saying that a Spike Jonze adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is the wrong target for this kind of vitriol. It'll probably be as far away from E.T. and the Boy with Green Hair as you can get."

It'll be for adults who can't accept that kids don't think the way they do.

Milkman: Goonies is actually what I blame the most for these types of films, since the characters are way too smart and organized; and that set the stage for all those other kiddie team flicks since. Meanwhile, Sandlot is "honored" with DTV sequels.

comment #59

D.Z. says ...

RE:"I'm guessing that bombed from the bitter taste left over from 1941."

Plus, "The Last Emperor" did it better.

comment #60

Gordon27 says ...

Oh, just shut the fuck up and die already, DZ.

comment #61

Gordon27 says ...

"They tend to be dull (i.e., obsessive), anarchic, shallow, uninteresting, overly self-regarding and for the most part unengaged in anything other than their own insipid, corporate-created distractions."

Jeff - how could any reasonable person write a sentence meaning it as a distinction between children and adults?

comment #62

MilkMan says ...

The Tarantinoization of Young Jessie

QT: Whaddya want, huh?
JESSIE: Chocolate milk.
QT: Okay. So, do you want me to make it? Right?
JESSIE: Out of the carton please.
QT: What the fuck. I mean, it's so much better when someone makes it for you, right? That way you can see the fudgy sandbar at the bottom of the glass and that's how you know that it's been, like handmade, you know?
JESSIE: I like it from the carton.
QT: That's fine, and that's how you'll get it, but I just want you to listen to me for a fucking second, okay, because I have this method for making the best glass of chocolate milk that you've ever had in your entire life. Do you want to hear what my method is, huh?
JESSIE: No. I want some chocolate milk, please.
QT: Because you said please I'm going to give you the short version. Hey, have you ever head the super rare extended version of Waiting on a Friend? Totally incredible, right? Sonny Rollins, see, he starts improvising, makes Miles look like fucking Dave Koz.
JESSIE: Chocolate Milk.
QT: The first thing I do, right, is I dole out two of the biggest motherfucking scoops of cocoa powder that you've ever seen in your life, right, and I drop them in at the bottom of the world's best chocolate milk glass, the one with Gil Gerard on it, and then I pour in just a senior squirt of milk, just a tiny little bit, just enough, right, see, to get the powder moist, and then I stir that shit up into the powder gets turned into a paste, and then after it's been turned into paste, right, I pour in some more milk, and keep stirring, and I do this over and over, right, okay, pouring in milk and stirring until Gil's face is filled with the creamiest, most chocolatiest milk you've ever tasted in your entire fucking, life, okay? Like you can't even tell where the power ends and the milk leaves off, right?
JESSIE: Please. I don't want you to make my chocolate milk. I just want it out of the carton.
QT: You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get you your chocolate milk, okay, that shit out of the carton, and then, when your mom gets home, I'm going to call up my buddy Mandingo, and I'm going to have him come over, and then I'm going to watch him fuck your mom in the ass. You ever see a nigger fuck your mom in the ass?
JESSIE: Whoa.
QT: Because that's what's going to happen. You ever see 100 Rifles?
JESSIE: No.
QT: You should.

comment #63

George Prager says ...

D.Z. says...

I liked The Temptation of Christ better when it was called Logan's Run.

comment #64

Mark says ...

I'd like to publish a coffee table book of Milkman's vignettes. Starts with Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson in a coffee shop. Ends with Joaquin and Ratner and the club.

comment #65

MilkMan says ...

Sounds good to me.

comment #66

Nate West says ...

//But by and large pre-1980s films stayed away from films in which kids played the lead(s), and we need to get back to that.//

And who was the top grossing American movie star at the height of the Great Depression?

Shirley Temple! "Grim up," Shirley.

comment #67

Gordon27 says ...

Nate - Mickey Rooney was also the #1 draw for a few of those Depression years ("wow! Spanning two decades!")

comment #68

George Prager says ...

E: The Last Temptation of Christ.

Swordfish did it better.

comment #69

scooterzz says ...

milk -- was that just a coincidental ref to '100 rifles' or are you aware tomorrow is it's 40th anniversary?

comment #70

Carl Kolchak says ...

I will forever more associate Jeff with the schoolmaster character in Pink Floyd's The Wall.

"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"
"You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!"

comment #71

raygo says ...

Watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas last week. I was devastated at the end. A movie about kids to end all discussions about movies about kids. And a great performance by Vera Farmiga.

comment #72

Dance Commander says ...

One of the worst things you've ever pounded out Wells. Sincerely. Absolutely awful. Spiteful, shortsighted, transcending bitter into something much more worse. You really are about three steps away from denouncing society as a failed species and moving to a log cabin in the woods to be alone with yourself. I hope you don't get devoured by a bear. It would probably gag on you. Any other genre of film aimed at a specific age that you plan to avoid due to the fact that you can't relate to them on a deep, spiritual and layered level? You're becoming what you hate Jeff, utterly predictable.

comment #73

nemo says ...

"I'm waiting for a follow-up piece about women and old people."

And dogs.

The Silence, by Ingmar Bergman.

comment #74

Cde. says ...

"Kids need to grow up and grim up and learn the skills and disciplines that will allow them to survive. So enough with the Spielberg-aping films that portray a child's world as a magical-fantastical kingdom in and of itself that adults might be able to learn something from."

Uh, you're going after the wrong film here, Jeff. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I'll just say that Spike Jonze seems to have a similar view to yourself, which is exactly the reason that the studio freaked out and got into the huge battle with him that lasted eighteen months. They wanted reassuring, obvious bullshit that celebrates childhood and he made a film about the necessity of facing reality. This film is not a thing like a Spielberg kids movie.

comment #75

Cde. says ...

A better way of putting all of that would be to say that Jonze wanted to make a film that was true to Maurice Sendak's feelings that, while children certainly have compassion, they are often unconsciously cruel or insensitive because of their lack of understanding of the world and those around them.

comment #76

mtgilchrist says ...

First of all, this post seems at least vaguely ironic given your apparent affection for Adventureland, which is nothing if not a coming of age story. Regardless, and certainly not directed exclusively at Jeff, I'd say that this kind of thinking (and its reinforcement) is precisely what screws kids up. Specifically, there's such a distinct lack of empathy in this kind of thinking, that kids needs to confront the harsh realities of the adult word at earlier and earlier ages, when what they really need is the sensitive and measured perspective of an adult to understand that world. It's this same lack of empathy, the complete denial of recognition that we were all once immature and hormonal and horny and crazy because of shit that doesn't matter at all that which is why legislature is passed to deny sex education, and why kids end up more messed up than ever. It's true that a lot of kids now are just plain awful, but it's because adults are disinterested in providing a sense of context or perspective on their problems, and worse yet, judgmental about the way that teenagers react to things. There are certainly a lot of bad coming of age films, but people will always need them in order to provide a sense of perspective, or at least the reassurance that other people deal with the same feelings they do. Adventureland isn't perfect, but I can totally identify with a kid who thinks he's "holding out" for sex even though he's really just inexperienced, and especially even though I know he;s just deluding himself. Oh, and Bridge to Terabithia is a great movie about kids, starring kids.

comment #77

byanyother says ...

This is probably a beaten bloody thread but what the hell.

"But it sure seems to me like a lot of adults are afraid to actually be adults. We live in Peter Pan Nation, spending our adult lives idealizing youth, remembering it as a magical yesteryear full of wonder and heartfelt openness. It's crap."

Everything you wrote in that comment was dead on. It does not, however, have anything to do with kids. It has to do with a culture invested in keeping adults selfish and pursuing their every desire because that is what drives our economy (and sickens the rest of the world). Wells' comment, though, was not insightful; it was mean and bitter. I realize he does this to drive up comments and traffic - it's a clever strategy so one must never take what he says too seriously - he very wisely knows how to drive conversation. That's probably why I find myself back here again and again. What he said was boneheaded but look at the discussion that's come out of it.

Anyway, when you say you agree with Wells think about what it is you're agreeing with; just because you don't have kids doesn't mean you should be hard-hearted (on the other hand, I was hard-hearted until I had one).

comment #78

bryce_david says ...

I refuse to watch any movie with kids in them. I've been basically "boycotting" them for decades (since ET, actually). It's guaranteed that nothing interesting really happens in movies where the lead is played by a kid. I don't boycott old classic movies with kids and I know there are some exceptions but with recent films, 9 out 10, it's true. They're "nothing" pictures. A complete waste of time.

comment #79

farik says ...

is this a fucking joke? you want the kids to be depressed? you want to beat them in the back of a fucking woodshed? you think this recession gives us the right to ruin our kids fantasies. it's just money, you fucking lunatic. i pity anyone that's got a dipshit like your for their father. and all you morons that agree with him can go to hell too.

comment #80

BrewsterMcGriff says ...

"...dull (i.e., obsessive), anarchic, shallow, uninteresting, overly self-regarding and for the most part unengaged in anything other than their own insipid, corporate-created distractions."

wow, wells. i don't think you ever described yourself more aptly.