Somebody could ask Hollywood the same question. Fall movie season is usually the time when the studios haul out their dark dramas for awards consideration, but this year's batch seems especially bleak. The themes they touch upon include incest, murder, AIDS, cancer, abuse, layoffs, and lots of unexpected, tragic deaths (and we're not even counting the dead vampires in the Twilight sequel). This probably isn't just coincidental. This fall's slate was written at the end of the Bush administration, when most of Hollywood—at least the predominantly liberal part—was under a cloud of gloom. Now, we're all feeling gloomy; the economy is in tatters, and the unemployment rate continues to soar. Does anybody really want to go to the movies this year to feel even more depressed?

Last week, Ramin Setoodeh and I had the honor of interviewing Maurice Sendak, Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers at Mr. Sendak’s house in Connecticut. It was the only time the creative team behind Where the Wild Things Are would be getting together to speak to the press. This morning, Newsweek posted the magazine version of our exclusive conversation, which you can read here. We think it’s the definitive WtWTA interview.

Instead of reblogging portions of the official transcript, however, we thought we'd do something different on Pop Vox: share some of the stuff that we couldn’t squeeze into print. To find out what death, danger and Discovery Channel documentaries have to do with kiddie lit, read on…

NEWSWEEK: Why write about death in a children’s story?
Sendak: Well, it’s a great subject. There’s a lot of charm to it. I remember when we did Hansel and Gretel, the opera. All of the kids are out in the open, unprotected from the weather, and so we had one of the little girls die. And the opera people and everybody was: “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s Hansel and Gretel.” But I said: “Hansel and Gretel is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father. What the hell are you talking about? Of course there’s going to be somebody dead in it.” After the show, the kids came backstage and they wanted the autograph of the dead girl. [laughter] Like, I was just like chopped liver, they walked right past me. “Where’s the dead girl?”

There’s something in that, though—danger and rebellion are the things that are thrilling to you when you’re a kid.
Sendak: Kids are barbaric. They really have to be. They don’t know what it is to be polite or nice. There is a toughness to being a child. Childhood is a very tough time. I always had a deep respect for children and how they solve complex problems by themselves.

How did this translate when you sat down to write and illustrate Wild Things?
Sendak: Well, Max and his mother - it’s not that good a relationship. But it’s really what a lot of relationships are like between children and parents. A lot of yelling and losing of one’s temper and throwing of things, and then you’re sorry you did it. I’ve always been interested in how children maneuver and figure out how to live. 
Jonze: And how do they? 
Sendak: Cleverness, shrewdness, fantasy, and just plain strength. They want to survive. The kids in Hansel and Gretel¬ she is the heroine, she saves her brother’s life. Little girl saving a little boy’s life - when do children have to confront such terrible ordeals? But they do! They do. 

What was it like to see the Wild Things embodied onscreen with the voices of James Gandolfini and Forest Whitaker? Did it clash with the image of them you’d kept with you all these years?
Sendak: Yes, but at the same time, I fell in love with the new versions. They were gentler, they were kinder. Underneath, of course, they were capable of the same terrible things. One of them puts Max in her mouth. There always is the possibility that something might go wrong, and you’ll get eaten. And you don’t know what it is that might go wrong. What you’ll say or what you’ll do that will provoke a Wild Thing to eat you. I love watching animal movies on television. One of the only things I like. And they always say, don’t do this and don’t do that, don’t run away and don’t turn your back and don’t lie flat. I love that. It’s from my childhood. How do you prevent dying? How do you prevent being eaten or mauled by a monster? I still worry about it. 
Jonze: When we went to shoot the movie, we actually watched nature documentaries, and wanted to feel like we were watching animals-
Sendak: Good.
Jonze: -and that’s part of the reason we shot it out on location. We wanted it to be not on soundstages and not with greenscreen, but in real places. The camera doesn’t know where these creatures are going to go. What’s motivating them is unpredictable, unknowable, and the cameraman is just there, trying to document these wild animals, from the point of view of Max, who knows just as little as we do of what they’re going to do. 
Sendak: Yes, he doesn’t know what’s to come next. I mean, that’s gotta be scary for a kid, but it’s also gotta be what a kid likes most. It’s that enticement of what might or might not happen.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP...

Photo: Matt Carr─Getty Images

(Editor: Last month we ran a much shorter version of our chat with the comedian. Here is the longer version.)

In what they describe as "probably the last time [they]'ll be together," the five surviving actors who played Munchkins in 1939's Wizard of Oz—celebrating its 70th anniversary this year—reveal set secrets and reflect on their roles in the Oscar-nominated film. Learn why Toto banked more cash than the Munchkins, how Judy Garland handed out gratis candy on the set, and more in this installment of 7 Things. Click the player to view!

by Joshua Alston

Of all the confounding behaviors that human beings engage in, perhaps none is more irritating—or more common—than hypocrisy. It’s fascinating when someone condemns behavior while engaging in it himself, which is what makes David Letterman’s relatively mundane sex scandal more intriguing than it has a right to be. He mercilessly joked about the illicit affairs of others while having just those sorts of affairs himself. To expose such a disconnect is oddly fun, and the more sanctimonious the person, the more rewarding the exposure.

This is what makes the documentary Outrage, which airs Monday and re-airs Thursday on HBO—on the eve of a gay-rights march in Washington, D.C.—such a guilty pleasure.

Haven't you heard? Zombies are the new vampires. First it was the hit book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a Jane Austen-George Romero mash-up. Last month it was Jennifer's Body. Today, there's Zombieland. Zombiemania premieres on Starz next week, reviving all the old zombie classics (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and more). Apparently there's even a self-help book for zombies on the way, dispensing "advice and etiquette for the living dead."  Zombies zombies zombies.

Except, no.

He's still got it. The upcoming movie Michael Jackson's This Is It, due out a full month from now, has blown past several sellout benchmarks, outpacing Harry Potter and Twilight in sold-out shows, according to a rep for MovieTickets.com. It's also walloping the Hannah Montana concert movie, per Fandango. Each site reports hundreds upon hundreds of sold-out shows—over 700 showings of the film are already sold out.

Pop Vox has the answers to five panicky questions you have right now:

When can I see it? Not until Oct. 28—which is what makes these sellouts so unprecedented. Most movies don't sell out 500-plus theaters until the last week before they're released (if ever). On MovieTickets, This Is It hit 100 sellouts on the first day it went on sale (Monday), and throttled up to 500 by Wednesday. "The ticketing trend shows no signs of abating," Rick Butler, Fandango's chief operating officer, said in an e-mail from the site.

How long is it out? Just for two weeks—a limited platform that's helping to account for some of the presale mass hysteria, the site analysts say. It's also being marketed as the biggest music event of the year. After initially slotting the "special, limited, two-week, worldwide engagement" for an Oct. 30 opening—a conventional Friday release—Sony moved the film to a Wednesday-night release, something typically reserved for huge blockbusters. Which, inarguably, This Is It is shaping up to be.

What the heck is this movie—a concert or a documentary? It's both. Parts of it are a 3D concert movie, showing clips from rehearsals for the 50-date tour that Jackson was set to start over the summer. And the rest is a kind of eulogizing documentary, with footage culled from more than 100 hours of film that AEG Live sold to Sony Pictures. (Those 100 hours were filmed during concert rehearsals throughout the spring and early summer.) 

Who's directing it? Kenny Ortega, the same man who brought you the High School Musicals and who was, at the time of Jackson's death, overseeing his tour. "As we began assembling the footage for the motion picture, we realized we captured something extraordinary, unique and very special," he said in August. "It's a very private, exclusive look into a creative genius's world."

Michael is big, but will he beat Miley? As her alter ego Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus holds the record for best-performing concert movie. Her Best of Both Worlds 3D movie earned $31.1 million, with a per-theater average of more than $45,000. And yet, to date, This Is It is outpacing Best of Both Worlds in presales quite significantly. Brace for an upset (or would it be the expected outcome?).

by Jennie Yabroff

When, in Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov dreams of throwing his arms around a horse that has been beaten to death by its master, his reaction to the violence indicates his morality. One hundred fifty years later, there is still no more effective yardstick of a character’s humanity than his or her treatment of animals. When one character kills another human being, the possibility of his redemption is debatable. But if a character kills an animal, all bets are off. We know Glenn Close is a little wacko even before she boils Michael Douglas’s daughter’s bunny in Fatal Attraction, but once the rabbit hits the pot, justice demands Close not live to see the final credits.

The Stepfather—Oct. 16, 2009

(Editor: This is part of a recurring series in which we dish on new trailers—then solicit your feedback. Tell us if you'll see the movie below in the comments.)

THE LOOK: This remake of an ’80 horror flick starring Terry O’Quinn (which, truthfully, isn’t too bad by ’80s horror standards) has gotten a reboot, with Dylan Walsh as the pathological patriarch, and a radiant Sela Ward as the doomed single mother. Penn Badgley of Gossip Girl steps in as the suspicious son, which is perfect for him since his day job is all about the strains of a blended family.

THE FEEL: The trailer has the of a generously budgeted Lifetime movie, and you can tell that its final sequence of “exciting” quick cuts all take place within the same 10 minutes of the movie. Still, the titular character is more psychologically fascinating than most suspense/horror baddies, and the plot appears to hew closely to the original film.

GRIPES: Because of the plot structure, this is a trailer that can’t help but spill all the beans ahead of time. It’s not a tease, it’s a full reveal. The only reason to watch the movie is to fill in the fine details and check out Sela Ward. Seriously, she looks great at 53.

Photo, Brian Ach / WireImage-Getty Images

by Jennie Yabroff

The opening scene of the 1980 movie Fame begins with an aspiring actor delivering a confessional monologue. A gangly, pale kid with pouffy red hair who is struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality and obsessed with his mother, he admits that he always worries people won't like him when he goes to a party.  The fear doesn't seem entirely unfounded. As an actor, he's quite promising. As a person, he's a bit of a mess.

We sat down for a 7 Things with an old Pop Vox pal this week, Wolverine and Australia star Hugh Jackman. First order of business: congratulating him on the big Emmy win for his Oscars writing team. He demurred, and in turn congratulated this year's Emmy and Tony host, Neil Patrick Harris, for possibly being the best host ever. Click the player to view!

(If you missed the opening Oscar montage for which Jackman's writers won—or just want to relive the magic—click below to view.)