Hopeful is the word, all right. I've been doubtful, mainly because I think Jim Carrey as Horton is egregiously wrong casting. But the recent ads do look good, especially the scenes in Whoville.
I hear this morning that the "Life at conception" people are ... not protesting, but Acting Up at showings, echoing the "A person's a person no matter how small" line to support their own views, and handing out "tickets" to that effect.
Which is, apparently, fairly quietly infuriating the Good Doctor's widow.
Not to mention being idiotic. A fully formed person is a person, maybe. The Whos got civ. As opposed to being a few cells that have nine months to grow into a person. Oy.
Argh. I heard about that on NPR this morning. Nothing like a good dose of blinding rage to take you from "walking dead" to "wide awake" in two seconds flat. (It's probably nothing compared to what Dr. Seuss's widow is going through, though. Someone taking the words of your dead husband and twisting them to their own nefarious purposes has got to sting.)
Horton Hears A Who also argues, rather successfully I think, AGAINST the concept of a single all-powerful G-O-D who created everything and rules over all the smallest details with an iron fist. Horton is BIG compared to Whoville, but that's all. He can barely stop them from meeting a terrible end - it takes the Whos, acting upon THEMSELVES, to stop that.
More importantly, the bloody POINT is that the "crazy people" of society who dare to think differently and take philosophy to the next level of understanding are NOT AUTOMATICALLY WRONG, and that the status quo usually IS!
I'm very skeptical about this movie. On the one hand, it's produced by the folks behind "Ice Age," one of my favorite animated films (I actually saw it three times in the theater -- and I rarely go to the theater that many times in a whole year).
On the other hand, it's very clear from the clips and previews that in translation, Horton has lost his most important qualities - his sheer, dense innocence, his simplicity.
The little exchange between Horton and a mouse featured in the TV ads points this up very clearly - Horton as Seuss imagined him would not cynically berate a little fellow for having a positive self-image. In Seuss's story, Horton is the underdog. The other characters think he's deluded to think that there's life on that little speck of dust.
I'm afraid this is going to be yet another Seuss adaptation that takes a short, perfect, sweet little story and stretches it to an hour and a half by inserting 70 minutes of clever quips, pop culture references, useless subplots, and just enough stunning visuals to keep you from demanding your money back.
My best guess: about as good as the Grinch movie (not that that's saying much), better than Cat in the Hat (not that _that's_ saying much. I'd rather have a root canal without anesthesia and a molten pig-iron enema while a rabid shih-tzu gnaws on my testicles than sit through 5 more minutes of Mike Myers as The Cat).
Making it animated is certainly a step in the right direction - if nothing else, the visuals look spot-on and if you like you can probably shut your ears from the references and just stare in admiration.
But the references still hinder Geisel's muse.
Okay, open letter to Hollywood - here's what I propose for the next big-screen Seuss adaptation: an entire feature film where ALL the dialogue is in Seussian rhyme. Let's face it, you can't adapt Seuss without preserving SOME of the rhyme schemes, and switching from rhyming to not rhyming to back again is just kind of weird (why suddenly break into rhyming in the middle of rhymeless dialogue?) To me, it just doesn't feel like SEUSS if it doesn't rhyme. Sure it'd be a challenge, but I know a great many rhymers extraordinaire who'd be up to it - and maybe you could have long stretches of the film with NO dialogue at all, just fun cartoonish action.
The first story I recommend to adapt with this method? "The Lorax." Green is getting sexier by the minute, people. You better cash in before the planet is SAVED already and we don't have to worry anymore :P
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Which is, apparently, fairly quietly infuriating the Good Doctor's widow.
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More importantly, the bloody POINT is that the "crazy people" of society who dare to think differently and take philosophy to the next level of understanding are NOT AUTOMATICALLY WRONG, and that the status quo usually IS!
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On the other hand, it's very clear from the clips and previews that in translation, Horton has lost his most important qualities - his sheer, dense innocence, his simplicity.
The little exchange between Horton and a mouse featured in the TV ads points this up very clearly - Horton as Seuss imagined him would not cynically berate a little fellow for having a positive self-image. In Seuss's story, Horton is the underdog. The other characters think he's deluded to think that there's life on that little speck of dust.
I'm afraid this is going to be yet another Seuss adaptation that takes a short, perfect, sweet little story and stretches it to an hour and a half by inserting 70 minutes of clever quips, pop culture references, useless subplots, and just enough stunning visuals to keep you from demanding your money back.
My best guess: about as good as the Grinch movie (not that that's saying much), better than Cat in the Hat (not that _that's_ saying much. I'd rather have a root canal without anesthesia and a molten pig-iron enema while a rabid shih-tzu gnaws on my testicles than sit through 5 more minutes of Mike Myers as The Cat).
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But the references still hinder Geisel's muse.
Okay, open letter to Hollywood - here's what I propose for the next big-screen Seuss adaptation: an entire feature film where ALL the dialogue is in Seussian rhyme. Let's face it, you can't adapt Seuss without preserving SOME of the rhyme schemes, and switching from rhyming to not rhyming to back again is just kind of weird (why suddenly break into rhyming in the middle of rhymeless dialogue?) To me, it just doesn't feel like SEUSS if it doesn't rhyme. Sure it'd be a challenge, but I know a great many rhymers extraordinaire who'd be up to it - and maybe you could have long stretches of the film with NO dialogue at all, just fun cartoonish action.
The first story I recommend to adapt with this method? "The Lorax." Green is getting sexier by the minute, people. You better cash in before the planet is SAVED already and we don't have to worry anymore :P
Get back to me.
Sincerely,
The Internet.