Where the Wild Things Are and Other Maurice Sendak Stories (Scholastic Video Collection) Review

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(More customer reviews)Please disregard the negative review given by a previous owner here. This is a thoroughly-enjoyable DVD for children & adults alike. I've had no technical problems with the disc, and it is a wonderful musical/animation experience for young children.
Maurice Sendak certainly has a unique writing style, and while I've seen people criticize his work for showing a bratty side of children, I can't say I agree. I like the fact that Sendak shows the children in his stories as little people with ranging emotions, not as little puppy dogs waiting for a treat or a pat on the head. The characters in his stories show anger, brattiness, sadness, and disobedience as well as happiness and playfulness, like all real children do. It's a refreshing change from the rampant political-correctness that pervades society today.
On to the contents. The first chapter of the disc is, of course, " Where the Wild Things Are ", an all-time classic children's story, and the favorite of many children that grew up in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. I love Sendak's style of animation, which isn't full and overblown. Max is a tempermental little fellow that most children will be able to identify with. The Wild Things are both fascinating and repellant ( like many older relatives, which Sendak expounds further on in the extras feature ), and we all had a far-away place tucked into the back of our minds as children, where we could escape to when the parents came down on us. It's a wonderful tale, but the highlight is the muscial score & narration by Peter Schickele (who also is given the same duties for 'Night Kitchen'). The music sounds like it was made where the wild things are, and Schickele narrates with infectious enthusiasm, bringing life to the words, sounding as if he's telling his favorite story as well.
Chapter Two features 4 musical vignettes taken from the chidren's film 'Really Rosie'. The music was composed and performed by Carole King, and is fantasic. "Alligators All Around" is the best of the bunch, a joyous romp through the alphabet. 'Pierre', 'One Was Johnny', and 'Chicken Soup with Rice' are also fun little tunes the kiddies will enjoy.
The last chapter is 'In the Night Kitchen', an offbeat little story that strays from the norm. The tales centers around Mickey, who we eventually find out is responsible for delivering the milk which makes the morning cake.....it's a fun story, and you'll find your kids imitating the sounds of Mickey the Pilot's plane before you know it! Once again, Schickele brings a fitting score and enthusiastic narration.
If you have children, buy this disc. They'll love the animation, the music, and the wonderful narration. You won't be disappointed.

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**All stories written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak**WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Music and narration by Peter Schickele): When Max is sent to bed without supper, he sails off to a world inhabited by weird creatures. He becomes the king of all wild things--until he misses his real home.THE NUTSHELL KIDS (From The Nutshell Library): These charming poems set to music sing and dance through the alphabet, good manners, numbers, and the months of the year. Stories include Alligators All Around, Pierre, One Was Johnny, and Chicken Soup With Rice.IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN (Narrated by Peter Schickele): Mickey is awakened by noises in the night. Who’s in the night kitchen making all the clatter?DVD Features: Getting to Know Maurice Sendak; Spanish version of Where The Wild Things Are; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

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Where the Wild Things Are (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)It's a funny thing: adults have no problem loading films with whizzing bullets, raging flames and bellowing anger and slap a PG rating on it, but the moment the protagonist is a child they back off and claim "Whoa - this is too intense and scary!".
Nuts.
The claims that this film is a little intense are true - it IS intense because it's much more honest and real than any other films for children available in the last thirty years. By 'for children' I mean ALL children, any age.
Those who can't recall what it was like to be a kid aren't going to get it. They will be those who don't recall what it was like to be frightened, who don't recall how it feels to be second best to those they love most, who never had to carve out a slice of reality (or unreality) for themselves to make sense of the incomprehensible.
The world portrayed in the film is the real world where individuals live their own lives, sometimes at the expense of the feelings of those immediately around them, especially family. This may be the source of the films undeserved reputation as "scary" - while it is certainly no ghetto, "Max" the child protoganist lives in a realistically portrayed lower income neighborhood and his familial troubles are ones all too many children are accustomed to. He responds to these cares in ways that are well documented in child psychology. If this setting is considered by some as too scary for children then we have only ourselves to blame. This is how the real world is - it is not an Eighties family sit-com.
My nephew (5) and neice (9) are currently going through their parents divorce. Without spelling out the obvious overmuch, it was with a little trepidation that my Brother and I took them to see this yesterday. They're pretty resilient kids and they internalise more than they let on, acting out infrequently but we still weren't sure. They handled it fine and they "got it".
It seems to me modern American parents have bee brainwashed into believing that only a saccahrine sunny diet is suitable for youngsters - is this perhaps signs of guilt for the dangerous mess we've made of the world, that we must protect them at all turns, from life and living itself?
I've got news for you: the world has always been a scary place to kids, whether it was Indian attacks, Great Depressions, A-bombs or terrorists the world continues to turn and there's always a new bogey-man to shield our kids from. But to never let a hint of reality through is unhealthy.
For a hundred generations children have been told fairytales about death and loss and danger (sex and responsibility, too). Only relatively recently has the PC craze in American culture turned on this traditional method of exposing kids to reality. How many people in my generation (I'm 41) saw Gene Wilder in "The Little Prince" in the Seventies?
The film's lesson as it is given implies that immense things may crash around you, some of which may have been set in motion by yourself and you must cope as well as you can. Not everything is perfect and never will be; to expect such perfection is immature and unreasonable. And yet sincere contrition, empathy and love will help your world turn, turn it away from the dark scary things. Perhaps this also is a source of the negative impression of this film: the film accepts that the world is a dangerous, sometimes callous and frightening place. This is not a significant truism in the realm of modern juvenile entertainment where nine year olds easily defeat ninjas and aliens and are always smarter than those silly adults, yet it is difficult to deny. It's utilization by Spike Jonze is counter-revolutionary for the better.
A previous reviewer missed the point when they said that "Max" abandons his friends, the monsters, at the films end and what kind of lesson is that?
The monsters are not his friends - they are part of him, they are the facets of his own personality allowed to run amok.
When Max leaves the monster island at the end it is because he's a little wiser and more in control. He doesn't feel the need to act out and run wild.
He has seen firsthand that acts that are inherently violent, regardless of playful intent, have real and negative consequences, but he needed to see them in this fairytale place to understand his own responsibilty.
Only then is he ready to come home and be civil with the people who love him.
And yet, he loves the monsters and howls for them because they all are a part of him or of the systems that dictate the form of his life. They are his Id run wild and free as he would like to be, yet not wild with malice (destructive as they are) and thus worthy of mourning. They help save him from those self-destructive aspects in himself like the monster "Carol" because he isn't meant to live "Where the Wild Things Are". He grows more than most adults will in a lifetime by coming to terms with these violent emotional 'monsters'. He has seen them and he has seen them in himself. He will never be free of them but he knows what is important - his love for his family.
The dialogue in the film is fascinating and a key to the whole. It is kid talk. A mystery to adults, it has it's own logic and rules like "Faerie" or "Wonderland". One must navigate carefully to avoid catastrophe as Max discovers. I think my neice understood it better than I did, even if the metaphor escaped her. And so it is within ourselves if we might regard our own inner workings as "monsters" - the wrong inflection or phrasing, even when addressing ourselves, sets off whole chains of sometimes violent emotion.
In the end, my neice and nephew left the theatre understanding that with someone to love you and someone to love everything is alright - you may go away to confront your own demons and fears for a time but the ones you care for and that care for you will be there waiting, no matter what age you are.
And that makes the world and this film alright.
PS - A brief mention of the soundtrack is in order: it too is outstanding. It has what I can only describe as a 1970s 'feel' too it - it is a little wild, unpolished, honest, hairy, chirpy and sweet all at once.
The first thing I thought of on listening as the film progressed were the children's album by Marlo Thomas "Free To Be You and Me" and the end/closing titles song as a childrens version of Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" with all it's enthusiastic happy hoots and howls. It had me as choked up as I haven't been in a long time over a movie.
Thanks, Maurice, Karen, Spike et al.

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"Let the wild rumpus start!" Nine-year-old Max runs away from home and sails across the sea to become king of the land Where the Wild Things Are. King Max rules a wondrous realm of gigantic fuzzy monsters--but being king may not be as carefree as it looks! Filmmaker Spike Jonze directs a magical, visually astonishing film version of Maurice Sendak's celebrated children's classic, starring an amazing cast of screen veterans and featuring young Max Records in a fierce and sensitive performance as Max. Explore the joyous, complicated and wildly imaginative wild rumpus of the time and place we call childhood.

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