Hollywood’izing “Horton Hears a Who”

Here’s the problem facing any Hollywood production team charged with turning a Dr. Seuss story into a full-length celluloid feature.

How do you even think of messing with what is already a great tale?

Think about it.

Theodore Geisel, the good doctor S himself, is universally recognized as one of the most gifted children’s storytellers of the 20th century (if not in all of world history). His ability to string together clever and accessible rhymes, combined with his unique and wacky illustrations, have made his beloved books a favorite of children across the world for decades.

So how do you go about improve Seuss (or even translating Seuss) for the silver screen, without falling flat on your face?

The challenge facing a Seuss-focused directorial team is the opposite of one facing, say, a J.K. Rowling “Harry Potter” directorial group. In the latter, directors have to figure out how to shoehorn the first 150 pages of a Potter novel into the first 10 minutes of the film: like director Chris Columbus working desperately to sandwich the entire story of the “Quidditch World Cup” into a lightning-quick montage (See “Goblet of Fire” on film).

With Geisel, writers and directors have to essential invent an entire other story as a cache for the Seuss-ian tale – going head to head with Dr. Seuss, in a way, while trying to be as inventive as he was.

Not an enviable task.

Those who have seen director Ron Howard’s adaptation of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” (featuring the gifted Jim Carrey as the ghoulish green guy himself) know what I am talking about. Trying to stitch together the Seuss-ian script with some other larger story to contextualize it ain’t easy – and anyone who has made it through Howard’s “Grinch” – my kids watched it six times this past holiday before we issued a gentle but firm moratorium - know what I am talking about.

So how does “Horton” measure up?

Even with the latest and greatest in Pixar-driven animation, and the vocal work of the likes of Jim Carrey, Steve “Over the Hedge” Carell, and Carol Burnett, the problem remains glaringly apparent.

How to tell the story?

In Seuss’ tale, the story is all about Horton – that trustworthy if somewhat punchy pachadyrm whose compassion, tenacity and essential humanity (for an elephant) rise to the fore when he discovers an entire world – Whoville – existing on a small dust mote.
“A person’s a person – no matter how small.”

Remember?

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant.
An elephant is faithful, one hundred percent.”

(Which, as my good wife pointed out, is actually from “Horton Hatches An Egg.”)

But I digress.

In the movie version, all of this focus on Horton gets lost, trampled by the speed of digital animation, a script that bends over backwards to try and create a larger story where one may not exist, and a whole menagerie of other equally-as-interesting jungle animals – purple chimpanzees, an epistemologically-challenged ornery kangaroo (go Carol Burnett), and an entire cast of Whos (the Mayor, his young Goth son JoJo, and a mysterious “old man in a bathtub.”)

Will the kids like it?

The film is a visual spectacle, for sure, and the climactic scene featuring Horton versus the monkeys is a nail-biter. And the use of REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” as the climactic song – well, let’s just say I wasn’t expecting that twist.

And, as my daughter Anneka pointed out when asked about the meaning of the film: “The lesson I learned was that small people like JoJo could still do amazing things – he really was capable in the end.”

Can’t argue with that.

But as someone who grew up on Seuss, I’d vote for the book every time.

Come see for yourselves.

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Valley Players Double Shot:
Two Powerful Women, One Great Evening of Music

By Rob Williams

I know I always get a little excited when acoustic musicians show up in Mad River.

But let me just say, for the record, given this week-end’s line-up…

Our very own “Valley Players” Acoustic Showcase Series maestro Bruce Jones has outdone himself.

This Saturday night’s stellar double shot – Anais Mitchell opening for Catie Curtis - is yet another indication of how fabulous our local Valley music scene is, thanks to Jones’ hustle and hard work on the booking front.

“Valley Reporter” readers may remember previous columns in which I have sung the praises of Anais Mitchell, one of the national acoustic music scene’s up-and-comers. A longtime Vermonter who has worked with “Viperhouse” legend Michael Chorney, Mitchell’s newest CD, “The Brightness,” is now being promoted by Ani DiFranco’s “Righteous Babe” label, and with good reason. Mitchell’s compelling song-writing, her stripped-down guitar work, and her gorgeous voice – by turns ethereal, poignant, and haunting – makes her a must-see, and the Valley Players’ intimate space is one of the best venues I can think of to drink in her music.

I first met Catie Curtis, Saturday night’s main act, at the Telluride Folks Festival in 1992, and have been a big fan of her songwriting ever since. She won the emerging songwriters’ contest at Telluride that year – no easy feat, given the prodigious number of talented songwriters working these days - with a moving song called “My Dad’s Yard,” and twenty years later, I can still call that beautiful tune to mind.

And that is Catie’s great genius – her knack for spinning deceptively simple tunes, hooky without being predictable or cheesy. Her lyrics have a way of easing their way into your brain, traveling along with you like new friends, becoming a part of your emotional landscape – in the neatest of ways.

Her new CD – “Long Night Moon” – is classic Catie. Simple tunes, sophisticated lyrics, gorgeous vocalizing – in a clear and wonderfully unpretentious manner. And she’s an incredibly sweet and kind person, to boot.

Don’t miss this wonderful acoustic “double shot” opportunity on Saturday night. Tickets go on sale at 6:30. The show starts at 7:30.

And thanks, once again, to Bruce Jones and all of the local sponsors that power Valley acoustic music. We are lucky to be able to imbibe such talent here.

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“Bruce Juice”: A “Magic” Night In Montreal

True confessions.

I haven’t been to a rock and roll show in twenty years.

I mean a real rock and roll show – the kind of pulse-pounding adrenaline-charged experience that finds you in the midst of thousands of amped-up fans swaying to that primal 4/4 rhythm, chanting lyrics or nonsense words – “na na na na” – at the top of their (our!) lungs.

Anyone who has ever been to a real rock concert knows.

The mid-eighties was my decade for arena concerts – “Dire Straits” on their last US tour for “Brothers in Arms” (Play “Romeo and Juliet,” Mark! I remember yelling at the stage, along with the drunk biker guy next to me) and U2, Bono and the boys, giving it up for 50,000 screaming fans at Giants Stadium – stand out as highlights.

And then, driven by reasons I still can’t quite fathom – high ticket prices? Responsibilities of work and family? - I stopped going to the big shows.

Until two weeks back, when my neighbor Phil Huffman e-mailed me saying – Montreal? Springsteen? The Bell Center?

I couldn’t say no.

In my travels, Bruce Springsteen’s live shows are the stuff of legend – I had a roommate in college who worshipped “the Boss” (yes, he was from New Jersey) and would routinely crank “Rosalita,” “Thunder Road” and other now-classics at odd hours, belting out the lyrics for everyone in the quad to hear. And I soon understood that, like all great musicians with staying power (his first big album, “Greetings from Asbury Park” arrived in 1971), Bruce has a huge following – fans routinely compare notes on shows and do whatever it takes to get to a Springsteen event.

So it was that I found myself driving north on a Sunday afternoon in early Marc, sick as a dog with the “crud” everyone else in the Valley had but not caring, in my friend Phil’s salt-splattered Prius, fully equipped for a forty-something road trip to the Boss. (At least we’d keep our carbon footprint traveling to the show low.) Phil was sick, too, but when the Boss comes to Montreal, you have no option but to go, so with his new CD “Magic” cranking away, we headed north.

At the border crossing, the guard asked us the usual questions – where are you going? How long will you stay? Are you carrying any alcohol or tobacco products?

We chortled to ourselves – looking around the car at our bag of Ricola all-natural HoneyLemon throat lozenges, laced with Echinacea, and our steaming thermos of herbal tea – joking about how times have changed for us as concert thrill-seekers, and made Montreal by 4:45. With 2 choice floor tickets, we were gunning for bracelets for the coveted “pit” directly in front of the main stage, but missed the cut-off literally by seconds. Resigned to a bottle of wine and a light dinner in a warm and crowded nearby pub, we found ourselves well-fed and on the Bell Center floor by 6:45.

Bruce and his eight person E Street Band arrived on stage promptly at 8:25, and true to legend, gave themselves over to the crowd for the next 2 ½ hours. They kicked it off with “Night,” a classic off of the 1975 “Born To Run” record that put Bruce on the map. A sick Phil went nuts , it being his all-time favorite opening tune (did I mention Phil has seen Bruce in concert maybe twenty times?) – and then ripped into the pop-tinged rocker “Radio Nowhere,” the haunting first track from his new “Magic” record. From there, the show soared.
How to capture an evening with the Boss?

Having never seen him before, I was astounded at how much energy he put out. At the tender age of fifty-something, he set the place on fire. Switching from guitar to harmonica to guitar and back again, he wailed, yelped, crooned and sung his way through new tunes and old classics with the confidence of a veteran rocker still in his prime. He managed to fit into his set a full eight of the eleven tunes on his new project, including haunting stripped-down versions of “Devil’s Arcade” and “Magic,” and rip-sawed through “Last To Die,” while performing more playful versions of “Livin’ In The Future” (with just a few brief words about “winds of change” blowing in America) and, as his first encore number, “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” (and I swear this tune, strangely, felt like an homage to the “Beach Boys”).

And, as always, Bruce’s classics carried the evening, including an anthemic “Thunder Road,” a subdued “Jungleland,” a harp-driven bluesy version of “Reason to Believe,” and the rollicking crowd-pleaser “Dancing In the Dark.” The most inspirational moment of the evening for me, though, proved a transcendent performance of his post-9/11 tune “The Rising,” from the album of the same name, a song that pays tribute to the fallen heroes of that fateful day.

At once energized and exhausted by show’s end, Phil and I left the Bell Center and spend an hour in the Sheraton bar reflecting on Bruce’s performance, Phil sharing stories from previous shows he’d seen over the years. As a musician myself, I continually marvel at music’s power to weave together the disparate threads of our lives, as well as marking major milestones along the way. And I give thanks for musicians like Bruce Springsteen, who write about what they love and believe in, and pour themselves into their performances, night after night, album after album, year after year, helping to give all of us a “reason to believe.”

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