Review by Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle. Seen from a distance, 1966 is a neither-fish-nor-foul era. In 1965, there were no drugs, black-and-white film, and the end of the old. In 1967, there were LSD, psychedelic colors and the birth of the new. So what was 1966? Yet, people who were there often say that '66 was the best time, the height of that decade's fun. And now Pirate Radio has arrived, evoking 1966 as the life pinnacle for a group of DJs on a boat, broadcasting rock 'n' roll to the United Kingdom. If you want to know years in advance what old-age nostalgia is going to look like for Baby Boomers, look no further than Pirate Radio, in which the sun always shines, the music is great and the sex is available, guilt-free and glorious. This might sound like a sentimental recipe, but Richard Curtis, who wrote and directed, keeps the spirit fresh and anarchic. At one point, the American DJ, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, observes that it's a terrible thing to realize you're living the best days of your life — to know that as you're living them. And with that, we realize what Curtis has achieved in Pirate Radio.

For all its irreverence and caustic humor, this movie is about the recipe for happiness — how sometimes it can all come together: friends, community, excitement and faith in the future. Apparently in England at that time, rock 'n' roll could only be played for about an hour a day on the radio. And so pirate stations proliferated, broadcasting from offshore to an audience of 25 million people daily. Sustained by advertising, these stations were serious business, and Pirate Radio depicts one such station, in which a crew and a slate of DJs live together on a big boat, hanging out and playing music all day. Life on the boat is seen through the eyes of young Carl (Tom Sturridge), who is sent by his free-living mother to live there for a few months. Carl is a virgin, which gives the DJs a problem to be solved, in between playing the music of 1966 — and a little from 1969. (Maybe Curtis thought no one would notice the difference.) Yet if Pirate Radio plays a little fast and loose with the music chronology, at least it has the era's look down to a science. Almost every guy on the boat has a haircut something like John Lennon's on the back cover of Revolver (1966). Even more delightful, when Carl is finally fixed up with a girl (Talulah Riley), she is a dead ringer for the actress Anna Karina. This is casting on a sophisticated anthropological and socio-historical level, folks, because if there was one woman on the planet who embodied the style and the fantasy of that particular year, it was Karina. A few years earlier, it might have been Jackie Kennedy. In 1967, it was probably Marianne Faithfull. But in 1966, if you're an 18-year-old guy and a dead ringer for Anna Karina comes walking through the door, you're the happiest (and most nervous) kid on the planet.

Curtis, who has written a string of superior movies, including Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, does something quite clever with the story. Essentially, he structures the scenes of life on the boat as a series of disparate incidents. Yet he gives the action the illusion of narrative and a feeling of urgency by cutting to the mainland every few minutes to show how the government is planning to shut the station down. Kenneth Branagh, with his accustomed brio, plays a stuffy English type that he perhaps remembers from his early childhood — a miserably uptight, slicked down suit who hates rock 'n' roll and would be happy to see the pirates dead. He's the villain of the piece, but such is the movie's good nature that we can't dislike him. He is, after all, about to get swept away by history.

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Review by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. Forget every sugary kid-stuff cliché Hollywood shoves at you. The defiantly untamed Where the Wild Things Are is a raw and exuberant mind-meld between Maurice Sendak, 81, the Caldecott Medal winner who wrote and illustrated the classic 1963 book, and Spike Jonze, 39, the Oscar-nominated director (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) who honors the explosive feelings of childhood by creating a visual and emotional tour de force. The movie barrels out at you like a nine-year-old boy filled to bursting with joys, fears and furies he can't articulate. The boy is Max, played by Max Records, 12, in a vibrantly alive performance that is surely a high-water mark for child actors. Max is in a dark place called home, where his divorced mother (the ever-superb Catherine Keener) is distracted by work and a new lover (Mark Ruffalo). Jumping on a table in the white wolf suit he wears like a second skin, Max rears up like an animal. "I hate you, I'll eat you up," Max yells at his mother, biting her hard before bolting from home in search of an undiscovered island where wild creatures roam and play drives out pain. Or so Max thinks.

Sendak's book consists of a mere 10 sentences. The challenge for Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers (Away We Go) is to flesh out the tale to movie length. Jonze started by breaking rules (there would be no manageable Disney version of Max). From the moment he climbs into a tiny sailboat and heads out to sea (a departure from Sendak, who had Max's bedroom morph into the island), Max declares himself king of this wild world. How to film the noise inside Max's head? The easy way would be to go the animation route. Not for Jonze. The director and his gifted team, including hand-held-camera master Lance Acord, traveled to rugged Australia and shot the action live with puppeteers inside nine-foot creature costumes. Per tradition, the voice work was done by name actors. James Gandolfini excels as Carol, the creature leader who Max discovers tearing down his home right after he builds it. Like Max, Carol has commitment issues. Lauren Ambrose voices KW, the redheaded loner. Chris Cooper takes on the beaked Douglas. Catherine O'Hara puts the sass into Judith, who henpecks the loyal Ira (Forest Whitaker). And Paul Dano moans touchingly at being the shortest creature, the goat-horned Alexander. That's where tradition ends.

Instead of recording each actor singly in a sound booth, Jonze gathered them together, encouraging howling and rabble-rousing. The spontaneity is infectious. Computers were used to create facial expressions for the creatures, with the actors themselves as models. For all the money spent, the film's success is best measured by its simplicity and the purity of its innovation. Jonze has filmed a fantasy as if it were absolutely real, allowing us to see the world as Max sees it, full of beauty and terror. The brilliant songs, by Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and the Kids, enhance the film's power to pull you in as Max literally hides in the belly of a beast, builds a fort and issues a call to arms: "I know something that always cheers me up — a war."
Jonze never belabors points about violence or the Freudian nature of identity and rebellion. Whether Max's cheeks flush with euphoria or rage, our identification with him is complete. Jonze brings all the senses into play. You can practically feel the animal heat when homesick Max falls asleep in a "real pile" of snoozing wild things. But the creatures don't coddle Max, and the film follows suit. By staring without blinking into the yellow eyes of these wild things, Max begins to recognize something of himself. Jonze doesn't blink either. That's why this adaptation of Sendak's rigorously unsentimental story is a moving tribute to both their talents.

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