Spike Spends Saturday With Kanye West.

You should never feel completely satisfied. You should always feel like you could do something greater...

Spike Jonze overload tonight. Just found an old series of videos from VBS of Spike interviewing Kanye during the coloring session for the Hype Williams-helmed "Can't Tell Me Nothing". It's an interesting look at Yeezy's thoughts regarding his process, his expectations of himself, the relationship between fan and artist and how that changes with success, his arrogance as overcompensation for his fears, etc. Highly recommended for people that love Kanye. Even more highly recommended for the people that hate Kanye.

P.S. If you thought the dude was cocky before, this won't change that belief. At least it's not an interview of Lil Wayne.

Drop.

As you watch the video you will start to see weird stuff happening...

Plenty of people remember Pharcyde's video for "Drop". You know, the one where dudes are rhyming forwards but moving backwards? The one with the cameo by the Beastie Boys? The one directed by Spike Jonze before he became a hipster household name?

I'm a big fan of seeing other peoples' creative processes, so finding Spike's original video treatment for the video at the Delicious Vinyl site was a goldmine for me. As you can see, it's an exercise of sheer simplicity and clear vision. It's amazing to see how something so bare-bones ended up with so much life and detail. It's like Spike was the Woody Allen of music video: he delivered what he promised on-time and on-budget.

Check out the video below. For extra geekiness, click here for the video unreversed (re-reversed?) to see how the shots looked as they were filmed. Looks like fun.

"where the wild things are" update.

Big update regarding Spike Jonze's film adaptation of the classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are", which Kim posted about here.

The last time we've heard about the film was that it was in deep trouble, with rumors flying about Spike Jonze getting fired for having too many dark and disturbing moments in what is, ostensibly, a children's film. Whoever was contemplating that decision obviously hasn't seen "The Neverending Story"; Rockbiter was one scary dude.

A few month's later, LA Times' Patrick Goldstein gets the official word from Warner Brothers, the studio making the film.

"We've given him more money and, even more importantly, more time for him to work on the film," Horn said. "We'd like to find a common ground that represents Spike's vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge on our hands. But I wouldn't call it a problem, simply a challenge. No one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a very special piece of material and we're just trying to get it right."

Good (but not great) news indeed for supporters of directorial vision, creative freedom, and, I dunno, a good product. We here at Whisper are big fans of Jonze and of the source material, so we hope that the version that eventually comes out gels the way it should.

Where The Wild Things Are Movie

I love this children's book and I love Spike Jonze. Put them together and you get this.



Click Here to see the screentest clip on FilmDrunk.