You know the story, right? WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is in serious trouble, or at least the vision director Spike Jonze had is, anyway. Well, today Forest Whitaker is speaking out about the film’s quality. Whitaker, of course, plays the head creature in the film, Ira, who “puts the holes in trees”, and today he says he took his kids to see a screening of the film that has been deemed too dark and scary for children. There’s no word yet, as to whether he burns their feet with Bunsen flames just to make sure that noise about extreme heat and pain isn’t bullshit either, but reports are pending.
Whitaker talks a lot of sense and says a lot of good things, such as the following: “I’m going to call Spike and find out what’s going on,” he promised. “The thing is, it’s one thing to read [scary stuff] in a book, but when you see an itty-bitty kid running alongside a 10-foot-giant on the side of a cliff, it gets intense. But that’s the point, because we’re representing the things inside of the kid. They represent his struggles, either him being too angry or being confused, or not feeling like he belongs. They’re a gargantuan extension of the way he’s feeling inside.”
It’s certainly noble, Whitaker standing up for the film, and totally refreshing to see an actor recognize the need to do that. My fear though, is that even though the guy is kind of a big deal, and has a gold statue to back that up, battling a studio may still be a bridge too far. Make sure you read the rest of the interview HERE, he says some good shit.
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