YO BRO IT’S ME LITTY

Last night I went to see the movie Into The Wild. I thoroughly enjoyed the book by Jon Krakauer when I first read it in college. It actually was assigned reading for an English class and it led to this essay (In a blog post back in March, I claimed it to be my best piece of writing ever). I reread this essay every few years as a way to gauge how much I have changed as a person.

If you want more information on the film you can read the reviews on rotten tomatoes or watch the preview below. One of my friends enjoyed it to the point of sending out an email to friends urging them to go see it. I would be happy to forward that on to you (if it’s cool with him).

As for my review, I enjoyed the film. I thought it gave some life and beauty both to the book and to my essay. Emilie Hirsch injects his character with life and idealism, the people he meets on his journey are straight out of a Kerouac novel, and the Eddie Vedder soundtrack is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t come close to replicating the thought-provoking and intimacy with the characters that Krakaur provides in his book. The people I saw the movie with thought there were holes in the plot and had a more difficult time relating to McCandless than myself. That seems to happen often when a book (especially one that is based on themes over plot) is condensed into a flim. So I would recommend that you read the book before seeing the movie.

My friend Adam works for Paramount Vantage Films in LA. They are a specialty film division within Paramount that released Into The Wild and they generally focuse on movies that develop themes and send an impactful message to its audience. Adam is a passionate dude, and although we don’t talk much, he usually lets me know when a new film that he is working on is about to released. He told me about Into The Wild and I sent him my essay. He gave it a read and the forwarded it on to Sean Penn’s assistant. Sean Penn’s assistant passed it on to Sean Penn and Krakauer. I have no idea if they actually read it but it’s pretty cool to think they did!