Judge Douglas' review of Into the Wild

[anemochore]

What many seem to miss is that Christopher McCandless' life was cut short by poor choices and misguided idealism. But in the end he sees this. Could the Judge, perhaps, be confusing, "Somehow I doubt that when McCandless was starving to death in freezing temperatures, he was smiling ecstatically and musing about what a glorious life he had lived," with McCandless realizing in these last moments, that whats been missing for him, is the connection he had made with others?

[jcankerhuxley]

I think Judge Douglas was spot on in this review. I differ from anemochore in that although McCandless' enthusiasm may have connected with others, his self-absorption in his being "anti-materialistic" prevented him from learning from the other people he met.

Although I saw this on an airplane (and those little seven inch scrren on a 777 are cool, you loose the broad scope of the film) I could feel Penn's smugness reek from this film. Con

[call]

I agree...this review was dead on.

I found the main problem to be that there was no opposing voice to the character's ideas or notions...just more of the same choir singing the same song. His sister's narration was a virtual mirror for his own ideas, Eddie Vedder's songs WERE a play-by-play commentary, and none of the people he encountered offered any counter-point to his notion of running off into the wild.

And without that bus he would have been dead in a week.

[Dan Mancini]

It's spot-on.

The best thing about Jon Krakauer's book is how deeply conflicted he is about McCandless's life and death. Like Krakauer, I found a romantic appeal in McCandless's desire to shuck off all the trappings of modern life, but I also found him foolishly idealistic and incredibly selfish. The wide-eyed stupidity of Penn's movie is kind of mind-boggling, really. Penn is well beyond the age where it's excusable to be taken in hook, line, and sinker by McCandless's flavor of self-destructive, adolescent idealism.

Right on on the music, too. I heard Vedder's soundtrack before I saw the movie and liked it well enough. It's horribly inartful and heavy-handed in the movie, though. Then again, much as I love Pearl Jam, Vedder's lyricals make him come across like a 5-year-old with a martyr complex. Good thing Stone Gossard and Mike McCready kick ass.