2009 (Spike Jonze) PG, 100 min
Starring: Catherine Keener, Catherine O’Hara, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Max Records

Considering that the last time a beloved, slim, children's picture book was made into a Hollywood movie, we got the bloated joke-machine Shrek, it's remarkable that Spike Jonze has been allowed to make, well, a Spike Jonze movie. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation showed Jonze's surreal imagination, and he has used this to expand the 300-word original into an intense essay on childhood. Max, unruly, lonely and sensitive, escapes his mother (the wonderful Catherine Keener) and her reprimands into a raw fantasy world of monsters of Id and Ego, the beautiful, chaotic Wild Things. The expanded story catches Max on the cusp of understanding and abandoning his childhood, with grace and melancholy. Recommended for children over 8 but mostly for anyone who's ever wanted to fall asleep under a pile of huge, furry monsters.