Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (2009)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Jake .

  
  This was far better than I have would have expected, ever would have guessed, ever would have imagined. Perhaps part of what makes it great is that this comes from the some of the most intersting people of our time. Spike Jonze helms the piece, Catherine Keener makes a brief… More
  This was far better than I have would have expected, ever would have guessed, ever would have imagined. Perhaps part of what makes it great is that this comes from the some of the most intersting people of our time. Spike Jonze helms the piece, Catherine Keener makes a brief appearance, Karen O. and Carter Burwell contribute music: in other words, it features the crew from the Wild Things movie. To top it off, Maurice himself is fasinating. By the end of the film, I really felt like I understood. Plus, everything is coming from his own mouth. Unlike other pieces like this, other people are not talking about Sendak, like a eulogy. He speaks for himself. It's a celebration of his life and a celebration of life in general. I'll admit it, I was sobbing by the end, and probably not for entirely justifiable reasons. But, damn, it's beautiful. This grumpy cynic expands upon what made his life worth living and it is not his career or events that are remembered, but the people. What Sendak remembers are cherishes are his friends, his siblings, his lover, his pet. Life itself is not such a grand treat, but it's the people in our lives, the people we care about, the people that influence us, that make it worth living.