As I just posted over in the chatter forum of the off-board Mafia game a few of us are playing…
Just a quick recommendation of the film Into the Wild. Highly impressive cinema. Unforgettable and certainly Oscar-worthy from a variety of angles.
I’m am a bit surprised and disappointed that it is only showing in two Silicon Valley theaters. One in an trendy, upper-class San Jose night spot and shopping center (which is where I saw it last night, offering an extra twist of irony to my particular experience with the film), and another assumably “arthouse” cinema up in Mountain View.
Is it because of the moose-butchering scene?
Or are my tastes really so out of touch with what is “profitable” in the film industry, and the reason is really all about the benjamins?
Some films are initially released “In selected cities” before they open wide. Other than generating buzz, I don’t know what the science behind this release strategy is. But it is not uncommon.
He dies as he was found irl, laying in the abandoned bus, bundled in his sleeping bag, starved to death. Yes, his ignorance is very much illustrated, imho.
I have not read the book yet, but everything I’ve read about this adaptation has been very favorable as far as staying authentic to the book. Jon Krakauer consulted closely in the making of the film, and is prominently thanked in the closing credits.
I’m probably going to see it this week. I’m glad the reviews seem mostly positive-- “Into Thin Air” was a great book, but the movie version was absolutely terrible.
I forgot to mention in the OP that it is on the long side. I don’t think it was too long for the subject matter, but was a bit of a stretch (heh) for my bladder. I went to the 10:15pm showing and was only halfway through the drive home the next time I looked at the clock, at 1:23am.
Unless their site isn’t up to date, Empire Theatres (The big cinema chain in Canada) doesn’t plan on showing it at all. It’s a shame because I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I found out Eddie Vedder did the music. (His cover of Hard Sun is awesome, by the way)
Yeah. It was my first time going there, being new to the area. Parking SUCKED. I arrived with 10 minutes to spare for the 9:00pm showing, but could not find a parking spot in time. I ended up spending an hour (and entirely too much money) at the Borders so I could see the 10:15 instead. Now that I know what that part of town is like, I will have very different assumptions about spontaneously throwing on some shorts and a sweatshirt and catching a movie there.
Shopping at Gucci and drinking $15 martinis is very much not my scene, so I was kinda snarly (inwardly at least) as I moved through the Saturday night crowds. I felt eerily like a scene in the film where…
Chris is wandering the streets of some generic Southern California city after checking in to a shelter for the night. He watches people out for a night on the town, dressed up, eating dinner, drinking cocktails, and super-imposes himself into that foreign though expected scenario. Confronted with so much of what he despises, he immediately decides to retrieve his pack from the shelter and get back on the road.
Talk about resonating and identifying with a character.
Sean Penn also worked very closely with the family to make sure he was recreating Chris faithfully; there’s an article about the making of the film in Outside Magazine that can be read here, along with the original article that became the book and other good stuff.
Lemme see. We got a movie about some crazy bum who goes to Alaska to run with the grizzly bears then starves to death in an abandoned bus because he had no idea what he was doing and people are surprised, not that it got made at all, but that the movie-going publicoid isn’t getting a chance to see it at every mall megaplex across this great land? If they do someday get that chance, will we have a thread bemoaning that nobody is going to see it? I’m thinking, with his obsession to produce Great Cinematic Art That Nobody Sees, Sean Penn shares Chris McCandless’ disconnect from reality.
I read the original article and was hard-pressed to see how it could be stretched into a book. It was a sad story about Hippie Hubris, but nothing more.
And why the hell are we spoilering when anybody who read a newspaper or magazine in the past 15 years knows what happened?
I read it also, and that was my impression too. a columnist for our paper grew up in Alaska, and she had a column today saying how some of her friends who knew what they were doing died due to the unforgiving nature of the state, so she didn’t have a lot of sympathy for this clueless loser. I wonder if others from Alaska feel the same way.
I seem to be the only one that is surprised, and that surprise will go away if there is a pending wider release.
I used spoilers after someone else did to be polite.
Is it unfathomable that a compelling “Hippie Hubris” movie can be made?
Until right now, I have not referenced Sean Penn, and he nor Chris McCandless had much of anything to do with why I personally went to see the film. I went because it was getting really good reviews from what I’d read.
It was a good book, and if you believe Krakauer’s analysis of the situation, McCandless would have made it out but for one or two unfortunate mistakes. There has been some debate over whether there really was a mixup and if those seeds would have been fatal if consumed. Plus he was ready to return to civilization and things went awry right as he wanted to leave - he handicapped his situation so much and managed to live regardless, only to lose at the very end.
As for spoilering, not everyone read about this minor story. It’s not like we’re talking about the Titanic sinking or something.
It’s been a while since I read the book, but as I recall, Krakauer found that McCandless’ story resonated with him because of somewhat similar foolhardy risks he’d taken when he was younger.
Obviously this sort of story won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and it most likely won’t be a tremendous blockbuster, but there is an audience for it, as obviously quite a few people read the book. It doesn’t have to be something that will fill every megaplex in the country to be worth making, or worth seeing. Sheesh.
I think an awful lot of people either knew a McCandless or was to some degree a McCandless at some point in their lives. 99% of all people that do a solo wilderness thing, especially when young and not raised that way, will do some bone stupid things. Certainly I did. McCandless was very typical of this breed, was pretty successful, and then had a string of bad luck that ended in death.
Krakauer’s books tend to be interesting once but I have zero desire to re-read them.
You people are all a bit harsh, my reading of the book and viewing of an accompanying investigative report (forget the network?), left amny questions. Krakauers sense of drama tied up the story rather neatly (dubious).
His survival skills weren’t as dismissive as some claim. I think he could have gone on indefinitely. I think a parisitic infection got him, rather than the “posionous beans”. I don’t think it was as simple as as all of that.
I went to the 10:15pm showing and was only halfway through the drive home the next time I looked at the clock, at 1:23am.