New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP's look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: Max Records is named king of the jungle, a fish turns into a girl courtesy of an animation master, and Paul Giamatti makes a huge mistake.

Pick of the Week

For people who are due for a wild rumpus: Where the Wild Things Are

In September 2009, New York Times Magazine's Saki Knafo penned a brilliant profile on Where the Wild Things Are's Spike Jonze, detailing how a music video director who got his break helming Charlie Kaufman movies like Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. became Maurice Sendak's pick to adapt his beloved 1963 children's book. It also chronicles the hoops Jonze and company jumped through and the many battles Jonze faced head on to ensure that his distinct vision of people parading around in giant monster getups – which cost Warner Bros. a reported $100 million – would be unleashed in theaters across the world. Prior to Knafo's article, I was already excited to see Where the Wild Things Are. The piece merely put me over the edge.

Personally, Where the Wild Things Are failed for me on opening weekend for two reasons: a) my expectations were sky high, and b) the film's wildly unique structure (and, well, "plot" – I swear it has one!) was so unexpected as to make me feel like I should be waiting for things that never came to fruition. Bottom line: Five months have passed since the last time I saw Wild Things. Now that I know what I'm in for, I have faith that a second viewing will prove to be a positive experience.

Wild Things did do a number of things right, however. Among them was having James Gandolfini voice monster Carol. The ex-Soprano has an exceptional ability to delight one minute, then frighten the next. A deserved shout out, as well, belongs to Max Records, who plays the cute kid in the furry bodysuit and crown. I can't imagine what it must have been like to act in a movie like this, where the only beings you have to bounce off of are giants with oversized heads. He handles the job like a champ.

Disc includes: Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must be More to Life featurette, HBO First Look: Where the Wild Things Are featurette, Plus: Series of Where the Wild Things Are Shorts by Lance Bangs





Ponyo

Around the halls of BOP, Hayao Miyazaki is a hallowed name. The creative genius at the head of the Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli has directed such classics as My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. His most recent film is a very loose adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Little Mermaid, where a little girl fish becomes determined to break free of the confines of her very strange father's home when she falls for a little boy. She becomes human and the two children become great pals. Problem is, Ponyo's transformation has caused a great disturbance in the seas, and a dangerous storm arises. Ponyo's father works to set things right with the world, for he is a keeper of the seas (of sorts).

Continued:       1       2