Wild things max

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

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IMDbPro

• 20092009
• PGPG
• 1h 41m

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

106K

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AdventureDramaFamily

Yearning for escape and adventure, a young boy runs away from home and sails to an island filled with creatures that take him in as their king.Yearning for escape and adventure, a young boy runs away from home and sails to an island filled with creatures that take him in as their king.Yearning for escape and adventure, a young boy runs away from home and sails to an island filled with creatures that take him in as their king.

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

106K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

• Director
  • Spike Jonze
• Writers
  • Spike Jonze(screenplay)
  • Dave Eggers(screenplay)
  • Maurice Sendak(book)
• Stars
  • Max Records
  • Catherine O'Hara(voice)
  • Forest Whitaker(voice)

• Director
  • Spike Jonze
• Writers
  • Spike Jonze(screenplay)
  • Dave Eggers(screenplay)
  • Maurice Sendak(book)
• Stars
  • Max Records
  • Catherine O'Hara(voice)
  • Forest Whitaker(voice)

• 459User reviews
• 346Critic reviews
• 71Metascore

• Awards
  • 7 wins & 54 nominations

Videos19

Trailer 2:33

Watch Where the Wild Things Are -- Trailer #2

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Watch Where the Wild Things Are: Trailer #1

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Clip 1:21

Watch Where The Wild Things Are: What's Your Story

Clip 1:24

Watch Where The Wild Things Are: You Know The Sun Is Going To Die?

Clip 1:33

Watch Where The Wild Things Are: This Is Our Family

Clip 1:33

Watch Where The Wild Things Are: I Like How You Destroy Stuff

Clip 1:31

Watch Where The Wild Things Are: Dirt Clod Fight

Photos112

Top cast

Max Records

Catherine O'Hara

• Judith
• (voice)

Forest Whitaker

• Ira
• (voice)

Pepita Emmerichs

• Claire

Max Pfeifer

• Claire's Friend

Madeleine Greaves

• Claire's Friend

Joshua Jay

• Claire's Friend

Ryan Corr

• Claire's Friend

Catherine Keener

Steve Mouzakis

• Teacher

Mark Ruffalo

• The Boyfriend

James Gandolfini

• Carol
• (voice)

Vincent Crowley

• Carol Suit Performer

Paul Dano

• Alexander
• (voice)

Sonny Gerasimowicz

• Alexander Suit Performer

Nick Farnell

• Judith Suit Performer

Sam Longley

• Ira Suit Performer

Michael Berry Jr.

• The Bull
• (voice)

• Director
  • Spike Jonze
• Writers
  • Spike Jonze(screenplay)
  • Dave Eggers(screenplay)
  • Maurice Sendak(book)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Storyline

Did you know

• Quotes

  Douglas: Will you keep out all the sadness?

  Max: I have a sadness shield that keeps out all the sadness, and it's big enough for all of us.

User reviews459

Featured review

10/

10

a child's kingdom

It's taken Spike Jonze a while to write, film, edit and (after some wrestling with Warner brothers over the final cut) release his adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. One who greatly admires filmmakers will wait especially for a filmmaker who takes his time in creating something after years of speculation. Now, the filmmaker who first came on the scene with Being John Malkovich, once again gives me a one-word response with this third film of his: Wow. Hot damn. That's two more. This is, simply, a classic work of film-making, but also on a particular subject that so few filmmakers even attempt to make let alone get right, which is what it's like to really be a child. Films that come to mind like this could also include the 400 Blows, Fanny and Alexander, (arguably) Tideland and E. T. Now here's another, and one that is directed with an original eye and an inspiration of texture and feeling, a look like out of our own wanted childhood playgrounds. Or some kind of playground.

If you don't know the story by Sendak- and to be fair it's only several pages long and its story was *loosely* used for this film- is about Max, who, not entirely pleased with his life in the real world ventures into the world of the 'Wild Things', a place where he can be king (or rather makes himself one) and tries to create a paradise with his fellow creatures. This is the main bit of what the story is "about", but how it's about it is a whole other matter. It's a movie children can see and hopefully adore, but it's more than that. What it's going for is childhood itself, what makes up a young guy who has little experience in the real world and can only really see things through imagination and in a prism of what the 'real world' represents.

We see Max in class, for example, learning about how the sun works in relation to Earth. It's a truthful but pessimistic lecture (considering to elementary school kids no less) about how one day the sun will die, and so will all life. This is carried with Max when he ventures into the world of the Wild Things, and when he mentions this to Carol there's a perplexed response to this. "It's so small," Carol says of the Sun, and while it doesn't bother him at the moment it later comes back as a bit of real inner turmoil that Carol can barely contemplate. Or anyone else for that matter. Can one really be expected as a child to understand the full scope of the sun dying out and life as everyone knows it ending? It may be billions of years away, but to a little boy it could be just around the corner.

That, by the way, is one of the brilliant things about the movie - all of Max's collected experience, and who he is as a person, and what he can see and understand around him in his family and surroundings, is represented in the bunch of Wild Things. All of Max, indeed, is split among all of them: Carol, KW, Douglas, Ira, Alexander, and a particular 'quiet' Wild Thing that barely says a word, they're all Max, and yet because of their split pieces they're never fully whole either. This makes it easy, perhaps, for Max to be crowned as their king (hey, he did lead vikings after all!), and to lead Carol's dream of a fortress for them all where "everything you would want to happen would happen." There's magical moments experienced among them, and all of the Wild Things, thanks to the Jim Henson creature shop work, are all in front of us and live and breathe as real things in this set of 'wild' locations (woods, desert, beach, rocky coast). As soon as you can open up yourself to these being real beings, not just animatronics, the whole emotional core of the film opens up as well.

But oh, it's also such an unusually, beautifully realized film. From its vivid and in-the-moment use of hand-held cinematography (and, sometimes, the stillness of looking at the creatures and Max in the backdrops), to the songs from Karen O. that are always supportive of the scenes (never the obtrusive kinds in other kids movies), to the complex relationships between all of the characters that one can see reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, it's a piece of pop-art that lets the viewer in. Its welcoming, refreshing and kind of staggering to see someone who knows the way children think, and how we don't have to be a mixed-up little boy to identify and see ourselves in Max (and, also, how we can't fully identify with things as a child like divorce, re: Carol and KW's 'friendship'). Where the Wild Things Are works as spectacle and comedy, and as the best Jim Henson movie the man never made, so it works for children. But for adults, because it's really about *us*, it can work wonders for us too.

Let the wild rumpus start!

helpful•228

116

• Quinoa1984
• Oct 16, 2009

• Is "Where the Wild Things Are" based on a book?

• Is this movie animated?

• How closely does the movie follow the book?

Details

• Release date
  • October 16, 2009 (United States)
• Countries of origin
  • Germany
  • United States
  • Australia
• Official sites
  • Official Facebook
  • Warner Bros. (France)
• Language
  • English
• Also known as
  • More Rice
• Filming locations
  • Flinders, Victoria, Australia
• Production companies
  • Warner Bros.
  • Legendary Entertainment
  • Village Roadshow Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Box office

• Budget
  • $100,000,000 (estimated)
• Gross US & Canada
  • $77,233,467
• Opening weekend US & Canada
  • $32,695,407
  • Oct 18, 2009
• Gross worldwide
  • $100,140,916

Technical specs

• Runtime

  1 hour 41 minutes

• Color
• Sound mix
  • Dolby Digital
  • SDDS
  • DTS
• Aspect ratio
  • 2. 39 : 1

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Where the Wild Things Are

2009, Kids & family/Fantasy, 1h 41m

What to know

Some may find its dark tone and slender narrative off-putting, but Spike Jonze's heartfelt adaptation of the classic children's book is as beautiful as it is uncompromising. Read critic reviews

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Movie Info

Feeling misunderstood at home and at school, mischievous Max (Max Records) escapes to the land of the Wild Things, majestic -- and sometimes fierce -- creatures. They allow Max to become their leader, and he promises to create a kingdom where everyone will be happy. However, Max soon finds that being king is not easy and that, even being with the Wild Things, there is something missing.

Cast & Crew

Catherine Keener

Mom

Max Records

Max

Mark Ruffalo

Boyfriend

James Gandolfini

Carol Voice

Lauren Ambrose

KW Voice

Chris Cooper

Douglas Voice

Catherine O'Hara

Judith Voice

Forest Whitaker

Ira Voice

Paul Dano

Alexander Voice

Spike Jonze

Director

Spike Jonze

Screenwriter

Dave Eggers

Screenwriter

Tom Hanks

Producer

Gary Goetzman

Producer

Maurice Sendak

Producer

John B. Carls

Producer

Vincent Landay

Producer

Thomas Tull

Executive Producer

Jon Jashni

Executive Producer

Bruce Berman

Executive Producer

Lance Acord

Cinematographer

K. K. Barrett

Production Design

Eric Zumbrunnen

Film Editing

Casey Storm

Costume Design

Karen O

Original Music

Carter Burwell

Original Music

News & Interviews for

View All

All Critics (268) | Top Critics (75) | Fresh (195) | Rotten (73)

View All Critic Reviews (268)

Audience Reviews for

• Apr 14, 2014

  There's always a certain amount of trepidation when a filmmaker gets their hands on a book that you loved as a child. Even if we overlook the general risk that the whole project may become a cynical Hollywood cash-grab, the director's vision may be so different to your childhood imaginings that it ends up tarnishing the original experience, perhaps permanently. We find ourselves in precisely this predicament with Where The Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak's 1963 book has become a classic in children's literature, beloved for generations and in various stages of development hell since the early-1980s. Spike Jonze is a director with a glowing reputation, but a seven-year gap between features isn't immediately reassuring. Fortunately, the results are very good, and while the film is by no means perfect, it remains a touching and compelling work. There has been a fair amount of debate as to whether Where The Wild Things Are can be called a children's film. Certainly its marketing didn't position it as such: its trailers played more on the indie cred of Jonze, highlighting the soundtrack work by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and using a re-recorded version of Arcade Fire's big hit 'Wake Up', which doesn't appear in the film. This is a touchy subject given that Sendak's book has become so iconic: surely any successful adaptation must be considered a children's film? Additionally, I've railed against many so-called children's films which are blatantly not for children - films like Ratatouille and much of Dreamworks' output, which are films aimed at an adult audience disguised as children's animations. But what becomes quickly apparent is that Jonze didn't want to make a typical children's film - not by a long shot. Instead, Jonze wanted to make a film about what it felt like to be a child - a film not just for children in a demographic sense, but about children in a behavioural sense. He wanted to capture the burgeoning, pre-pubescent energy of Max, exploring how his rage and frustration manifests itself as the Wild Things and how he comes to grow in realising how hard is it to govern one's personified rage. Certainly there's nothing about the film that could be called cutesy or sanitised, which comes as a relief given Disney's involvement in the early stages of development. The next issue that any adaptation would have to confront is the story. Where The Wild Things Are is barely 10 sentences long, and sure enough there isn't a great deal of plot in the film. In a more extravagant fantasy vehicle, such as the ongoing Hobbit trilogy, the paucity of story would either be stretched out with ancillary material or serve as a jumping-off point to take things in a new direction. But again, Jonze does it differently: he completely acknowledges the limits of the source novel, delivering a film which is more about mood than story. The visual tone of Where The Wild Things Are is one of whistful melancholy, into which the great pockets of childish energy can invade. The colour palette is rooted in earthy, wooden browns, pale yellows and the greys of faded stuffed toys, giving the world of the Wild Things an instant feeling of age and mystery. Lance Acord, who has worked with Jonze since Being John Malkovich, emphasises the scale of the Wild Things and their isolation; they tower over Max in the close-ups, but otherwise the landscape towers over them. In creating this whistful tone, Jonze succeeds in both rooting the angst of Max and conveying the way in which time passes for a child of his age. Young children do not have the same grasp of efficient narrative storytelling that we embrace as adults; in their fantasies they often feel like they've been away for years, even if they can't describe everything they did in that time. Jonze beautifully captures the feeling present in the book that Max's adventure is like a half-remembered dream - and, as a bonus, works around the fact that not very much happens. The film also deserves credit for the realisation of the Wild Things. Having toyed with various CG options between the early-1980s and mid-2000s, the creatures were eventually brought to life through the Jim Henson Workshop. Despite being partially created with animatronics, they have none of the creakiness or jerky movements that we associate with this form of puppeteering. And while some CGI was involved to sync up the dialogue with the characters' lip movements, they still have an amazing and distinctive physicality, without which the film would simply be a failure. This brings us on naturally to the cast, who are generally very good. James Gandolfini is the stand-out among the voice actors, bringing a lot of anger to the part of Carol but also conveying the age of the Wild Things. Catherine Keener doesn't get a great deal of screen time, but she does convey the sense of frustration that sets the story in motion. As for the lead, Max Roberts takes a little while to bed into the role, but his performances is naturalistic enough to be convincing in the end. The other great success of Where The Wild Things Are is its subtlety. The book has often been interpreted as a Freudian text, in which the Wild Things are different manifestations of Max's anger. The lazy thing to do in these circumstances would have been to divide up Max's personality traits and deal them out to the Wild Things, so that each one would represent something at the expense of proper characterisation. Instead, Jonze leaves it open to us to decide the different Wild Things' significance, letting us be as imaginative as Max is. There are a couple of small problems with Where The Wild Things Are. In spite of consciously addressing the lack of plot and the choice of pacing, the film still feels slow or baggy in places. For everything that I've talked about, and all the successes in Jonze's approach, there remains a nagging feeling that more could have been done with the characters, which would in turn have justified the cinematic scale. Another smaller problem is the sound mixing. While the musical soundtrack fits pretty well with the action on screen, at times it is difficult to discern what the Wild Things are saying, particularly during their first encounter with Max. This becomes less of a problem as the film goes on and the acting becomes more boisterous, but it prevents us from getting in the zone with the characters sooner, which may put younger viewers off. Where The Wild Things Are is a very interesting achievement which will go down as one of the most intriguing and original children's adaptations in recent memory. While not everything about the story or its execution is entirely satisfying, Jonze deserves a lot of credit for capturing the mood and tone of Sendak's story, and for his realisation of the titular creatures. Whether as a playful exploration of a child's imagination or a complex Freudian journey, it is something that remain with you for a very long time.

  Daniel M Super Reviewer

• Aug 12, 2013

  "Wild thing, you make my heart sing, you make everything good!" I'm sorry, I just had to do that, and now that I have, I'm kind of nervous, because as if it's not dangerous enough for a little boy to be hanging out with a bunch of giant monsters, that song makes it sound like these lovable monster really do find the kid lovable as well, if you know what I mean. .. parents who were hoping that they had found some kind of children's entertainment nowadays that doesn't need some kind of mature innuendo to be enjoyed by the parents. Well, either a reference to "Wild Thing" in the context of this film makes me think of that, or that cool performance of "Wild Thing" that Jimi Hendrix did at Monterey Pop, and how this film's lead Max character could have landed on Elvis Island with the intention of bringing Hendrix back to the back which believes him to be dead. Looks like the kid got lost and ended up in Obscurity Junction, from which he has apparently pried Spike Jonze, as well as Lauren Ambrose and Catherine O'Hara, who hadn't been doing much for a while by 2009. Speaking of performers whose careers were kind of losing momentum by 2009, the makers of this film should have also picked up Jon Voight during their run through the Obscurity Junction, because, seriously, how cool would it have been to have Voight in a film about "Wild Thing", a song written by his brother, Chip Taylor (Man, Jon Voight probably isn't too popular in the family, because if he has a relative who makes it big in the entertainment industry, her or she has just got to get a different name)? Oh, woops, speaking of overactive imaginations, with all of my rambling on about "Wild Thing", I appear to have convinced myself that this film is about that song, and it doesn't help that this film is based on another property of the '60s that I'm surprised is marketable to today's kids. Some would say that this film's hardly making its budget back reflects youngsters' lack of interest in this property nowadays, but first off, I'd like to see you pull $100 million out of your pocket if it's such a disappointingly low gross revenue, and secondly, probably the reason why this film wasn't as revisited by families as the filmmakers were hoping is because it, as decent as it is, isn't as interesting as it perhaps could have been, and for several reasons. Chances are, one of your biggest fears when walking into this film is conventionalism, and as sure as sunshine, the film is rather formulaic, hitting more than a few familiar beats until ending up on a predictable path, like plenty of other family films of this type, and that's fine I guess, because you shouldn't be asking too much out of a family film, yet the laziness within the originality department would be much easier to ignore if it wasn't for a somewhat adult tone. The film seems to be mostly aimed at adult who are nostalgic for the wonderment of youth, and it's almost a nitpick to criticize this film for not being as kiddy as it could have been, but the limited focus in demographic targeting creates a kind of uneven tone which juggles dark tones which are bound to be unappealing to kids, as well as overly light tones that aren't exactly going to excite grown-ups, yet still isn't grown up enough to build all that strong of a story. The film does a pretty decent job of expanding upon Maurice Sendak's classic family fairy tale, and there's more potential than you might think for a rewarding, maybe even strong family flick here, but not exactly an abundance, because there's still a distinctly kiddy type of thinness within this subject matter's weight which softens the ground upon which the foundation that is this film is built, leaving the film to run the pretty real risk of collapsing into underwhelmingness under the weight of natural shortcomings, emphasized by issues within this execution of this improvable subject matter. The film clocks in at a little over 100 minutes, and by no means is that very long, but for a story this limited in kick, that's more time than this film needs, and it often goes achieved through overlong stretches of filler which slow down momentum, particularly when joined by, of all things, atmospheric dry spells, which are hardly all that severe, but still stand. The film certainly doesn't get to be as slow as something like Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich", and is more often than not reasonably entertaining, with genuinely fun moments, but those moments in which atmospheric kick dip leave you to meditate upon how kind of overblown this film is, because even with all of the heart which comes close to making a rewarding film, this effort could have been stronger, and perhaps would have been were it not for a palpable sense of ambition's emphasizing the areas in which the final product does not fulfill its potential. The film is endearing, and so considerably so that charm alone stands a chance of dragging the final product from the depths of mere decency and into unexpected rewarding heights, but alas, Jonze's heart ends up coming back to haunt him by reflecting the areas in which he fails to do what he set out to do, resulting in an emphasis on natural shortcomings that, when intensified by tonal and pacing problems, holds the final product back from genuinely rewarding. Still, the film comes close enough to really compel, being flawed and all, but ultimately quite enjoyable, even as far as musicality is concerned, at least to a certain extent. Much of the film's color is driven by its soundtrack, which would be great I guess if much of the music wasn't handled by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or rather, the No No Nos, resulting in pretty upbeat indie musical sensibilities whose lyrical touches are typically cheesy, with some questionably overstylized vocal interpretations, and whose underscore also gets to be a bit too fluffy for its own good, maybe even a touch bland, but not so much so that you can't appreciate the musical compositions behind this film, whose tenderly quirky tastes prove to be generally successful in adding to the effectiveness of this film's tonal color. The music often helps in giving you a sense of wonderment, and the location tastes also add to the kick of this fantasy flick, which works to avoid artificial and chroma key sets for the sake of celebrating dynamic and rich landscapes, into which you're bound to be drawn by tastefully grand cinematography by Lance Acord. The musical aspects are decent and all, but on a visual level, the film is kind of remarkable, and no matter how much the shortcomings in story undercut the potential color of this film, rather majestic visuals do justice a story deserving of a sense of wonderment. No matter how much this interpretation builds on Maurice Sendak's classic story of only 338 words, there's only so much to say here, but Sendak did that in a colorful fashion which can be expanded into a pretty engaging narrative, something that this film doesn't offer as much of as it probably should, but not from a lack of trying, as Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers turn in a clever script whose expansions often get to be a bit too carried away, but generally do a fine job of adding to the color of this mythology, as well as depths of its subject matter, thanks to well-rounded characterization and sharp filler. The script isn't too terribly strong, as it is unable to save the final product from a collapse into relative underwhelmingness under the weight of shortcomings within this story's concept and written execution, but it is ultimately commendable for its wit and heart, brought to life by direction by Jonze which is also flawed, but has a certain tender tone which soaks up subtle entertainment value and dramatic weight, and whose compellingness goes arguably topped by colorful portrayals of colorful characters. First off, I would like to say that the effects of the monsters, or, if you will, "Wild Things", are pretty outstanding, seamlessly combining practical and digital effects in order to bring the non-human characters to relatively convincing life, but not alone, as James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara and Paul Dano all deliver on thoroughly colorful voice performances which capture the memorable, if occasionally obnoxious depths of the "Wild Things" who represent a child's imaginative interpretation of people and relationships, while young leading man Max Records also delivers in capturing the wonderment and layers of a boy looking to escape reality through his own overactive and sometimes somewhat dark imagination. There's more subtlety to this family fantasy flick's thematic depth than you might think, and such brightness further reflects a hefty deal of potential which is ultimately betrayed by the film's shortcomings and near-desperate ambition to be more than what it is, but not so much so that the final product isn't brought to the brink of rewarding by color and heart which go a long way, even if they don't go far enough carry the film as far as it could have and perhaps should have gone. When the fantasy has faded, you're left with the harsh reality that conventionalism, tonal uncertainty, atmospheric slow spells, dragging and a sense of overambition emphasize the natural shortcomings of a promising story enough to drive the final product just short of rewarding, but not so short that colorful score work, grand locations, - celebrated beautifully by immersive cinematography - exceptional effects and a colorful story, done justice by clever writing, heartfelt direction and across-the-board strong performances, aren't able to make Spike Jonze's interpretation of "Where the Wild Things Are" adequately entertaining, sometimes compelling and ultimately quite enjoyable for kids and adults, if rather held back. 2.75/5 - Decent

  Super Reviewer

• May 01, 2013

  Where the Wild Things Are is a movie that is to be admired more than actually liked. It has many grown-up viewpoints about life, but is often in need of a sense of fun. It is too serious, and not quite as wondrous as it could've been. Overall Rating: 53

  Super Reviewer

• Nov 18, 2012

  Often moody and somber, Spike Jonze's 'Where the Wild Things Are' is strangely an emotionally hefty film. The pathos created is unexpected, but captures the tone of the film well. I've never seen a film so vividly encompass the emotional roller coaster we call childhood. A great soundtrack and amazing imagery definitely work in the movie's favor. A solid film, but it ends on a note that really isn't too upbeat, which is surprising for a film about a children's book. Jonze has definitely captured the soul of childhood, but the real question is whether or not he can capture his audience.

  Super Reviewer

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VZGLYAD / Wild horde and sanitary ware :: Author Maxim Sokolov

Often the speeches that the Apostle Peter makes about the Apostle Paul serve to characterize not so much Paul as Peter. Psychologists call this projection. Many denunciations of the Russian army, produced by Kiev, can serve as a fair example of such a projection. For example, the widely developed theme of toilet bowls that became a victim of the Russian military - which became known to the whole world.

It would be a little more plausible (although not too) if the Russian barbarians were charged with plumbing vandalism, that is, crushing toilet bowls. For which a hammer is enough, at the disposal of the motorized part, of course, available. Hit once, that's the whole thing. And it is possible without a hammer and even without a conscious evil will.

In 1990, a domestic journalist, then carried away by the miners' strike movement, drank at home with a member of the Vorkuta strike committee. They drank a lot, and the striker was powerfully built. Deciding to visit the bathroom, he lost his balance there and knocked over the toilet in the fall. Drunk what does not happen.

As for the deliberate vandalism that the brothers and their sympathizers talk about, there are some doubts. The picture of how, having repulsed after the battle, the zagarbnik first of all seeks to crush and crush the toilet bowls, it seems somewhat deliberate. Another thing is looting. Entering a Ukrainian hut, a Russian soldier sees an unknown miracle of plumbing - a toilet with a flush. Driven by a natural impulse “I, Van, I want the same”, he takes the toilet bowl for himself as a military trophy. As Vysotsky sang,

"Trophy Japan,
Trophy Germany,
The country of Limonia has arrived,
Solid Suitcase."

Now there will be a trophy Ukraine. At least there are at least some historical analogies. A myriad of Weltmeister accordions were indeed imported into the USSR by victorious warriors. Although the analogy is still lame. The accordion is an autonomous thing. I took him from the battle, brought him home, and if you know how, play. It does not require any associated infrastructure. The same applies to pieces of cloth, books, tapestries, dishes, etc.

While the toilet is not like that. Firstly, in order to correctly dismantle it, you need skill, and not every toilet bowl can be dismantled: what if it is tightly cemented into the floor? Again, it must be cleaned and laundered. A shitty trophy loses a lot of value. Secondly, when a soldier on his way home with a victory plays the accordion, he looks brave. This is not what a warrior with a trophy toilet looks like.

Third, and most importantly, the toilet, taken per se, is not functional enough. For it to fully work, you need a flush tank connected to the water supply and you need a sewer system into which all unclean things will be washed off. In the absence of such an infrastructure, it remains only to pray for a faience product brought from a long trip, although it will look rather wild. This probably explains the fact that in trophy fever 1945, the requisition of toilet bowls was not observed.

Although, indeed, a flush toilet for a considerable part of the personnel (and not only for ordinary soldiers) was then an outlandish foreign innovation. A lot of the soldiers were from the peasants, and the then collective farm village knew only the conveniences in the yard. The same applied to the regional centers in the outback. And even to the regional centers. Without prior instruction, not everyone understood how to properly use plumbing equipment.

However, the civilization of Europe at that time should not be exaggerated either. Back in the early 1960s a quarter of Parisian households had conveniences in the yard. And such terms as backlash-closet and powder-closet, found in manuals on manor construction, are clearly of German origin. That is, recently even in Germany, the flush toilet was not in the public domain.

However, be that as it may in the relatively recent past with the latrines of Europe, the successes of toilet construction in the years of the first five-year plans were clearly insufficient (it was planned to produce 280 thousand products per year, which is not enough for the USSR; and what were the real production figures, not very understandable) gave the office of Dr. Goebbels a good story on the topic of Russian barbarians. It would fit in with plots of violence perpetrated by the Red Army hordes, etc.

For unclear reasons (most likely, the Reich Ministry of Propaganda in 1945 was no longer up to the toilets) the plot did not go into action, at best remaining at the design level. However, it turned out according to the words of the poet:

“Work! Invisibly, miraculously
Work, like sowing, will sprout.
A life-giving stream will pour;
Printed thought will echo
In the depths of countless minds.

The hypothetical work of unknown Berlin creatives, three quarters of a century later, powerfully and fruitfully responded in the European saga about the wild horde and bright toilet bowls.

All films of the classic Mad Max trilogy - an overview of all parts of the Mad Max franchise

May 15, 2015 I haven't seen a single Mad Max movie, but the fourth part of the iconic franchise sparked my interest, so I gave myself an old trilogy marathon to learn more about Max and tell you everything you need to know about the famous trilogy before going to the movies on " Road of Rage. "

Spoiler: nothing. In the sense that you can go to a session without even knowing the existence of the old films, this will not prevent you from enjoying the new chapter and understanding the plot. But if you read the article or decide to watch all three films, it will certainly allow you to get even more pleasure from watching the new film by George Miller.

I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called “Max.” To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time… when the world was powered by the black fuel… and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now… swept away.

The Mad Max trilogy turned 30 years old, the first film was released 36 years ago, in 1979, the second in 1981, and the last in 1985.

When you watch all three of these films in a row, the first thing that catches your eye is how different they are from each other - in tone, in genre orientation, but at the same time they strangely represent an absolutely merged trilogy, revealing from a new side in each chapter.

Despite all the outward madness of these stories, the caricature of crazy villains and the frenzy of the action, this is a very believable world. You believe in him, you sympathize with the characters, and tense moments make you really worry about the characters who die one after another.

Mad Max is a nickname, in fact, from the opposite. Mel Gibson's character looks like the only reasonable and cold-blooded person in a crazy world.

Because Miller is a great storyteller. He is not always good with the dynamics of the narrative, but he knows how to present simple or, conversely, wild things in such a way that they do not cause dissonance.

All three films are perceived not as a crazy attraction with two-dimensional characters, not as a sequence of action scenes, but above all as a coherent and interesting story, where every explosion and every death has its own drama.

For example, when the settler base explodes in the second part, it's not just a beautiful work of pyrotechnics, it's a sign of the determination of people who burn all the bridges. There is no way back. That is why this one explosion gives more emotions than all the badabooms in the films of Michael Bay.

There are a number of recurring elements in the trilogy that become hallmarks of the series:

• Lots of beautiful, creative, insane cars whose weird body kits like spikes and barbed wire even turn out to be functional.
• Bare-legged women in sexy rags
• People tied to or clinging to the hoods of cars until they are smeared on other cars.
• Bandit costumes with a strong BDSM and homoerotic flavor
• A bare-ass villain avenging his lover, who was blown off half his skull with a boomerang by a small but very wild boy (here are the children against the propaganda of homosexuality)
• People with collars on leashes
• Long chase on an empty straight highway in the middle of a deserted desert
• Rapes
• Shown in great detail, terrible accidents, falls, murders and other unpleasant injuries to the human body
• Four-fifths of all the positive characters that you had time to feel something for, dying a terrible painful death. Even a dog.
• Tina her mother Turner in a chain mail dress

Mad Max 1979

1979 It's been two years since Lucas rocked the world with the first Star Wars movie. In distant Australia, whose cinematography is practically unknown to the world, a strange film is being released dedicated to the revenge of a police officer for the death of loved ones. A month before Ridley Scott's first Alien, 5 years before The Terminator, and 16 years before Waterworld, the movies inspired by Mad Max.

Cinematographers James Wann and Leigh Whannel are two years old. In 24 years, they will create another famous Australian franchise - "Saw", where at the very beginning they will quote the scene with sawing off the chained ankle that so impressed them in "Mad Max".

The atmosphere of the first tape was more like a western with its small towns in the middle of the endless plains, lonely heroes, sheriffs and gangs of wild rabble doing whatever they want.

Early in his career, Miller worked as a doctor in a hospital in Sydney, where he saw many injuries sustained in car accidents, which he then meticulously transferred to the screen.

During the 1973 oil crisis, Miller watched how fiercely Australians defended their right to fill the tank - they were not stopped by either huge lines at gas stations or the price. Those who cut the line were beaten. Then the future director realized that nothing would drown out this desire of mankind to remain mobile, to keep their transport alive.

The sleeve of the jacket is still in place, there are no braces on the leg, the eye is intact, there is no gray hair in the temples. Yes, and Mel Gibson himself is so young that it is difficult to recognize him.

The first film about Max was only a conditional dystopia - the Australia of the future in Mad Max was very conditionally different from the world we are used to.

The world was running out of oil, which aggravated relations between countries, chaos and anarchy engulfed cities, but it was still far from complete apocalyptic. The police, albeit modified, still tried to protect law and order, and gangs of brazen bikers, killing and raping people right and left, can be imagined as existing in our world.

The atmosphere of the first film was more like a western, with its small towns in the middle of endless plains, lonely heroes, sheriffs and gangs of wild rabble doing whatever they want.

Real freaked out bikers from a local gang acted as crazy bikers. They paid them in beer, because there was no money.

The plot of the tape is a typical story of a tragedy that gives birth to a hero and his terrible revenge. But, despite the banality of the plot, Miller managed to create a truly powerful parable about resisting evil.

What is curious about it is how atypically the hero is presented – to put it mildly, he does not look like a hero at all. In the first half of the film, we almost never see him on the screen at all, and in the second he behaves at first not at all like a hero.

Gus

Spoilers: A biker gang breaks into the city where Max is a police officer and kills several people. Max's partner, Gus, is eager to end them, but as a result, the gang cracks down on the policeman, sending him to the hospital horribly disfigured in an accident. It would seem that it was at this moment that Max should have come to the fore, obsessed with revenge, and justify the presence of his name in the title, but that was not the case.

After hearing about the attack on his partner and visiting him in the hospital, Mad Max... quits the police force and leaves with his wife and child away from the city. Only when a vengeful gang overtakes them and kills his family, Max takes the path of revenge and cracks down on the bikers.

I especially remember the feeling of doom when a baby dies, and the wife remains mutilated in the hospital, as Gus used to be. Yes, Max punished the killers, but all this is no longer important, you will not return your wife and child, and Max himself has changed forever, turning into an empty shell.

End of spoilers

Mad Max is a nickname, in fact, from the opposite. Mel Gibson's character looks like the only reasonable and cold-blooded person in a crazy world. Frostbite bikers and even fellow cops are much hotter and crazier than our hero, and the people he meets most often resemble harmless nuts.

I don't know if Miller laid this point, but the first tape does not look like a fantasy about the sweetness of revenge, but rather like a parable about its futility. This is a film about a decisive mistake.

You can RUN, but you can't HIDE!

Gus decides to destroy the evil at all costs and gets burned, quite literally. Max decides to stay away from the conflict, but loses his family as a result. If he had gone up against the gang with Gus, his family would still be alive. The accomplished revenge clearly does not bring him satisfaction or peace.

She sucks nitro… with Phase 4 heads! 600 horsepower through the wheels! She's meanness set to music and the bitch is born to run!

Curious facts:

• "Mad Max" became popular because of his car stunts, which are really well thought out, filmed and presented in a story. There are plenty of unexpected, wild moments that provide a completely unfamiliar pleasure.

• These stunts were not just filmed "live", but for the most part without any legal permissions and safety standards. In the role of crazy bikers were real frostbitten bikers from a local gang. They paid them in beer, because there was no money.

• It was also convenient because the thugs were in trouble with the law and would not complain about injuries during filming, of which there were many: broken legs, fingers, noses, and so on.

• Since there was no filming permit and the actors were walking on a knife edge in stunts and could be severely injured, real Australian police chased the police cars from the movie to shut down the production. To hide from the police, Miller posted sentinels around the filming site and washed off when a patrol appeared.

• The second and most memorable car of Max's Pursuit Special (also a Ford Falcon XB like the rest of the police cars, but a special edition) after the rental went to auction where NO ONE BUYED it. And all this despite the film's wild success at the box office.

• The ratio of the budget (300 thousand dollars) to the fees (more than 100 million worldwide) set and held the Guinness record for a long time.

• After the failure of the first auction, the car was given to the mechanic of the film. Then Miller bought it back for a sequel, after which it was stupidly dumped in a landfill since no one bought it in a re-auction (crying at these lines is normal, bro).

• As a result, the car was restored and bought for the Star Machine Museum in England. After the museum was closed, the car went to another - already American - museum in Miami.

• Falcon special edition hood air scoop - showy, didn't work.

Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, 1981

The second film is the most widely known and is considered the best of the trilogy. In America, the first film was not released at all, and therefore the sequel was released under the name "Warrior of the Road", deciding not to confuse the audience with the number two in the title, hinting at the first part, which no one had ever seen.

It is here that we see a truly changed world: crazy machines made of shit and sticks, hung with all sorts of devices, people in rags and mohawk bandits in strange leather suits.

Gasoline has become the main resource that is hunted for, there are no weapons and cartridges left - the survivors shoot from bows and crossbows, and Max threatens the whole half of the film with a sawed-off shotgun, which, as it turns out later, has no cartridges.

That's why the moment in which the main villain takes aim at Max's truck is staged with such pomp: shots are a rarity in this world.

The plot is not much more complicated this time. A group of survivors have built a base around one of the remaining oil pumps, they are attacked by bandits, trying to take away both the tower and the extracted fuel. Max offers his services: he will bring them a truck capable of dragging a tank of fuel so that the settlers can break out of the cordon, and they will pay him with gasoline.

Spoilers: After delivering the truck, Max decides to leave despite the settlers' pleas to stay and help them escape. The thugs attack Max's car, causing his beautiful Falcon to explode along with all the fuel he has obtained, the dog is shot down, and Max himself barely survives.

The helicopter pilot brings him back to the base, and Max agrees to still help the settlers break through. What follows is a fine highway action scene and a relatively happy ending.

Once again, Miller reproaches his hero. Max again decided not to interfere, left people in trouble, taking care only of himself - for which he paid the price, once again losing everything. Some life teaches nothing.

In contrast, a half-crazed helicopter pilot who seems to have been a sly, lone psychopath forgives Max for holding him in chains, saves his life several times, and stays with the settlers despite originally planning to escape.

End of spoilers

No! It's my snake, I trained it, I'm going to eat it! I got a recipe for snake. Delicious. Fricassee of reptile. You are what you eat.

Curious Facts:

• Despite being one of the most "automotive" franchises ever made, it's filmed by real fans of anything that eats gas (and it's well felt in the attention to detail, close-ups, licking cars and motorcycles), there are no chases that we are used to: turns, overtaking, and so on.
• There are from two to a couple of dozen cars going at great speed along a straight highway, and the fighters who jump from one to another, shoot and ram each other. There is nothing close to a typical tense film chase here. It's not about overtaking, speed and driver talent, as usual, everything is decided here by slightly different sets of skills.
• The plot of the second picture is reminiscent of Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" not by chance - Miller was inspired by this particular story.
• Some of the actors played different characters in the trilogy, which is no less confusing than the similar appearance of Mad Dog in Raid 2 (it turned out to be a new character by the same actor).
• Bruce Spence, who played a helicopter pilot in the second part, plays a different pilot in the third.
• The main villain of the second film does not take off his mask, but we can see that he has burns on his head. Because of this, the suspicion creeps in that this is Gus, Max's partner from the first film, who was badly burned in an accident.
• According to the original script, it really should have been him, but then the creators decided that no one really saw the first film anyway, and the surprise would confuse everyone, so they made the hero an independent villain. Although he still has the same gun as Gus and police cars in the gang.
• All this same-character/new-character confusion has led me to the crazy idea that the Empress of Furious Charlize Theron in the new movie is actually Max's wife, crippled by the bandits in the first movie. After all, when we see her body in the hospital after the accident, she is still alive, and it looks like she has no arm. But even if it didn’t seem to me, the wife’s right hand is missing, and Furiosa’s left hand, so these are most likely my fantasies.

Mad Max: Under Thunderdome, 1985

Despite the fact that "weird" and even "morbidly strange", which perfectly conveys the word weird - an epithet applicable to the entire Max trilogy, this strangeness grows with each film, acquiring new layers.

In terms of mood, this movie is the closest thing to a hilarious Indiana Jones and Water World, which will be filmed 10 years later, drawing on Max's experience.

The third chapter of the Road Warrior story is strange primarily because of its tone - uncompromising violence gives way to glimpses of comedy, causing fans to brand the film as more childish. The second oddity is the complexity of the plot, which has not been observed in the franchise before.

This is because Thunderdome combines two films - an originally planned film about post-apocalyptic children in the style of "Lord of the Flies" and, in fact, the Mad Max adventure in Bartertown.

Max's hardcore fans don't really like the third film, because in it Miller risks joking and shows the beginnings of a new civilization, which somewhat deprives Max's world of the atmosphere of wild prairies, where only mobile groups of bandits exist.

In terms of mood, this movie comes closest to the hilarious Indiana Jones and Introductory World, which will be filmed 10 years later, drawing on Max's experience.

And yet, I really liked this movie. Miller continued the evolution of both Max himself and the world around him. The fans, it seemed to me, were simply obsessed with some of their favorite features of the second part and did not want any development, going beyond what had already been shown.

Still in all, every night we does the tell, so that we 'member who we was and where we came from… but most of all we 'members the man that finds us, him that came the salvage. And we lights the city, not just for him, but for all of them that are still out there.

At the beginning of Under Thunderdome, we meet Max as an old man. Since the events of the second film, the oil crisis has escalated into a nuclear war, all major cities lie in radioactive ruins.

Max, traveling in a car pulled by a team of camels, has his transport taken away and pursues the car thief to Bartertown, the stronghold of a new civilization.

**Spoilers:**In the city, Max meets its ruler (already mentioned Tina Turner) and accepts her order to kill one thug, whom she needs to kill quietly and by proxy. Max fights him in the arena under the same steel dome from the name, but refuses to finish him off, for which the ruler sends him to the desert to die.

Half-dead, he is found in the desert by the leader of an isolated tribe consisting almost entirely of children and living in an oasis in the middle of the desert.

The tribe mistakes Max for the predicted savior of Walker, who will lead them to the cities of the future. Max tries to explain that he is not a Walker, not the chosen one, and, as usual, refuses to help the children get out of the oasis, proving that they cannot find a better place.

In the end, he still helps the children, but again, for this, one of them has to die. The squad sneaks into Bartertown and implements a complex plan with unclear goals. At the end, the tribe manages to move to the city and settle down in the ruins of skyscrapers.

End of spoilers

The tribe, speaking their own dialect of twisted English, like in Cloud Atlas, turned out really great, and the ending summed up the whole trilogy perfectly.

As a result , it's hard to say which of the three films I liked the most. At different points in time, the answer to this question can be either the first film, or the second or third. Each of them stands out with something different and brings new interesting elements to the world of Mad Max.

My name is Max, my world is fire and blood.

If you have a desire to watch the trilogy, go for it. She looks much lighter than I thought. If the first film goes really hard, switch to the second - it is shot much smoother and more dynamic.

Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015

The film was released yesterday and I have already enjoyed it. Miller has unequivocally created something that raises the bar of action quality to previously unimaginable heights, there can only be one verdict - you must go to the cinema for this. Iconic films like these are not to be missed. More details - in the review, which will be on the site by the evening.

Everybody has gone out of their mind. You're not the only one Max.

Curious facts:

• According to the chronology of Max's universe, the events of Fury Road take place between the first and second parts. At least it looks like a logical assumption. Miller himself says that the films are connected more in spirit than in some clear chronology.

• A fourth film was supposed to be made in 2003 starring Gibson, but was put on hold due to the Iraq War, as Namibia, where it was eventually filmed, was originally scheduled as the filming location.

• Miller considered releasing the fourth chapter of Max's story as a full-length 3D anime.

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