Keeping up with the Spiegels!

While Oliver Stone may be the director most associated with Wall Street, Spike Jonze can now truly lay claim to the road of the 1 percent. Mr. Jonze (nee Adam Spiegel) has purchased a Wall Street apartment, city records show, along with his sister Julia Spiegel Lunn.

According to a source familiar with the sale, Mr. Jonze and his sister bought the 75 Wall Street condo for their mother, artist/author/activist Sandy Granzow. The three-bedroom, three-bath condo will accommodate Ms. Granzow and both her children when they come to visit, though her son could also easily walk the 20 minutes it takes to get to his own home in the nearby Forward Building, where he has lived for the past five years.

The home is located on the 7 1/2-floor—actually, no, it's about a dozen floors up from there, with much better views of the harbor and Brooklyn, home to Mr. Jonze's former flame. The 182-square-foot master bedroom comes with a mammoth bath and a walk-in-closet. A 498-square-foot dining room joins the open kitchen, and a separate living room affords the ideal space to kick back and watch Adaptation. Mom and son are very close, and Mr. Jonze actually introduced The Observe to Ms. Granzow at a screening last year.

75 Wall.

"It is a remarkable apartment because it was a custom combination of a two- bedroom apartment and a one-bedroom apartments," explained William Bish, the director of sales at Corcoran Sunshine, the group managing sales at 75 Wall. "Its one of the largest apartments in the building, with the exception of the penthouses," he told The Observer. Mr. Bish declined to comment on who exactly the apartment was for.

Originally listed for $2.58 million, Mr. Jonze and his sister paid just $2.35 million for the place.

The Observer seriously hopes we didn't just ruin their Hanukkah surprise.

eknutsen@observer.com

"When Vice magazine first started, all we cared about was sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," Smith said in a voice over that opened each episode. Images of strippers and alcohol flashed on screen, and the theme song, Sham 69's classic "If The Kids Are United," was turned to 11. Then the hookers and booze segued to more sobering images: the North Korean army, missiles launched in the middle east, impoverished U.S. towns. "But as we started traveling around the world," Shane Smith continued, "we got more into politics, culture, fashion, are, and the environment—basically everything."

That does a good job of summing up the show's anarchic, freewheeling, blissfully funny and often bitingly serious approach to investigative journalism. It's gonna be a nice little shit-kicking addition to the fare usually on MTV. ("This is not Jersey Shore," we overheard someone say early into the first episode.)

To mentally prepare the audience for the bombast, an open bar ran through bottles and bottles of Sailor Jerry rum, which could be mixed with either Coke or, in a twist, Reed's Ginger Beer. "Poor man's dark and stormy," a friend scoffed. Regardless, the crowd picked a preference and ran with it. Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner was milling about, but at times he was hard to pick out because so many others looked just like him.

Smith and Spike Jonze's adventures in Yemen took place in the pilot. In one memorable scene, the duo have an extended chat with a group of extremely dissident radical Yemenis, some of whom believe the U.S. is in cahoots with Al Qaeda. During this conversation, everyone in the room is chewing immense amounts of Gat, a drug with an opiate-esque effect that has driven most of Yemen to addiction.

Jonze seemed to not have the tolerance for gat that the Yemeni—and, apparently, Shane Smith—have built up, because he was visibly woozy. "I think I'm really high," Jonze whispered to the man sitting next to him. "No English!" the man responded.

Spike, sitting in the back left of the theater, laughed along with the rest of the audience. Making things potentially awkward, however, was the fact that sitting right next to Jonze was his mother.

"I think everything in VBS is telling a story, and they're only as good as their ability to tell a story," Spike told The Observer before the screening. He was talking about VBS.TV, Vice's online broadcasting arm, where he's the creative director. "They've been doing VBS now for four years, and they've gotten very good at telling stories."

Before stepping into the theater, Sailor Jerry-and-coke in hand, we informed Spike that we had both gone to the same high school (albeit several years apart).

"Cool!" Spike Jonze said. And then, bonded by a hometown, he insisted we meet his mom, who—like all moms—was very, very nice. Nice enough, it seems, to forgive his son for getting high on Yemeni gat.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

1. Paranormal Activity: $22 million ($62.4 million total)

Ladies and gentleman, we officially have a phenomenon. Made for just $15,000, Paranormal Activity has gone from midnight screenings in a handful of American cities (not New York incidentally) to box office heavyweight in just a single month. The marketing marvel—like Blair Witch Project before it—has benefited from a "gotta see" factor more than word-of-mouth. And as Paramount continues to add theaters (they added 1,200 for this weekend and plan to add 500 more on Halloween), the results will only go higher. Paranormal Activity is certain to reach $100 million by the end of its run, which is almost comical to see in print (must we direct you back to the budget?). This is one of the biggest winners of 2009 and no one saw it coming.

2. Saw VI: $14.8 million ($14.8 million total)

Before you put a toe tag on the Saw franchise—something made easy because of the fact that Saw VI is the lowest grossing opener in its history—consider that with an $11 million budget, Lionsgate is already in the black on this thing. Oh, and did we mention that Saw VII will be in 3-D when it hits theaters next October? (Duh, of course!) The franchise itself is fine, but this weak opening in the face of Paranormal Activity does expose the soft, white underbelly of Saw: when faced with any competition, the films fold up shop. This is a bully franchise, if we've ever seen one.

3. Where the Wild Things Are: $14.4 million ($53.9 million total)

Further proof Where the Wild Things Are isn't a kids' movie: the 56 percent drop from last weekend. Unless word-of-mouth on the playground is pretty bad, Spike Jonze's film is performing like any other geek-centric blockbuster: after a highly anticipated opening that saw the fanboys and girls come out in droves, weekend two leveled off. Still, with $54 million already in the bank, Wild Things should find its way towards $75 million domestically. Add in the eventual dollars earned in foreign territories and on DVD, and Warner Brothers should make back its $100 million investment in Mr. Jonze's beautiful vision.

4. Law Abiding Citizen: $12.7 million ($40.3 million total)

Because we're fond of comparing Law Abiding Citizen with June's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, let's take a peak at their second weekends: Pelham plunged 48 percent in frame two, grossing $12 million; Citizen eased a much-more friendly 39 percent to find itself with $12.7 million. We're not going to spin Law Abiding Citizen as anything resembling a hit, but it is yet another example of how these types of films are good for the studio bottom line, so long as their budget is kept in check.

5. Couples Retreat: $11 million ($78.2 million total)

While people seem all-to-eager to bury Vince Vaughn because of the quality of his output, Couples Retreat continues to rake in the dough, dropping roughly 36 percent over the weekend and easily finishing ahead of the opening of Astro Boy ($7 million). Well on its way towards $90 million and with an outside shot at $100 million, Couples Retreat continues to prove Mr. Vaughn's worth as an actor: he can take crappy premises (cough, Four Christmases) and spin them into box office gold.

“Since I was a kid, I’ve been hoping that I could get kids on my side, because they’re the coolest and smartest,” said Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the New York premiere of Spike Jonze’s movie version of the Maurice Sendak children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are, held at Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday Oct. 15. “They know better than all of us.”

Ms. O was speaking about recording the film’s soundtrack with a chorus of children. But she could just as easily have been talking about Warner Brothers’ hopes for the film, which went on to do very well in its opening weekend.

Wearing a tight, sparkly maroon-and-gold dress by Sonia Rykiel and bright red lipstick, Ms. O. said that while she and Mr. Jonze aren’t an item anymore, their collaboration on the movie was one way to extend the relationship.

Also in attendance were Catherine Keener, who plays the main character’s mother; and Forest Whitaker, Lauren Ambrose and Catherine O’Hara, who provide voices for the monsters. Max Records, the 12-year-old who plays protagonist Max in the movie, walked down the red carpet with Mr. Jonze and the still-spry Maurice Sendak, 81, who wrote the Caldecott-winning picture book in 1963. Master Records wore a suit with a raffishly loosened lavender tie.

Steve Mouzakis, who plays Max’s teacher, said that during filming, Mr. Jonze actually put him in charge of a classroom full of kids. “I’m not a real teacher, obviously, but he said: ‘Go teach them.’ We got to the point where they were asking me whether they could go to the bathroom.”

Tom Hanks, a producer of the film, arrived surrounded by a flock of youngsters. “Spike has thrown a Hail Mary pass,” he said. Starting from Mr. Sendak’s 10-sentence book, he said, “how do you expand it? We had lots of variations, maybe they worked and maybe they didn’t.” (Dave Eggers co-wrote the screenplay.) “But we didn’t have a movie until Spike came in.”

Dressed in a black suit with a black shirt, Mr. Hanks soon noticed a Members Only jacket on a young reporter. “Members Only?” he asked. “What’s coming back next, The Love Boat? The Dukes of Hazzard?”

Let the wild rumpus start! Where The Wild Things Are was crowned king at the box office this weekend with a burly $32.4 million. Between Spike Jonze’s film, the better-than-anticipated opening for Law Abiding Citizen ($21.2 million) and the continued growth of Paranormal Activity, this was the highest grossing October weekend on record. As we do each Monday, here’s a breakdown of the top five at the box office.

1. Where The Wild Things Are: $32.4 million ($32.4 million total)

You’ll see much written today about how this opening for Where the Wild Things Are is solid-but-unspectacular. Do us a favor, though, and don’t believe everything you read: $32.4 million for what is really an art house meditation on the ennui felt by children from the director of Adaptation and Being John Malkovich (neither of which grossed over $32 million total) has to be considered runaway success. The giant budget (reportedly near $100 million) not withstanding, we’d love to know what everyone else reasonably expected.

2. Law Abiding Citizen: $21.2 million ($21.2 million total)

Fun with numbers! June’s Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 had a budget of $100 million, featured two A-list stars (Denzel Washington and John Travolta) and wound up grossing $23 million on opening weekend. Law Abiding Citizen had a budget of $50 million, features two B-list stars (Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler) and wound up grossing $21 million on opening weekend. The moral? When dealing with a  cat and mouse revenge piece, don’t go the extra mile. There is a finite audience here and Law Abiding Citizen found them for half the cost of Pelham.

3. Paranormal Activity: $20.1 million ($33.7 million total)

Before you start proclaiming that Paranormal Activity is no Blair Witch Project, take a look at the per screen averages. When Blair Witch expanded to 1,101 theaters in the summer of 1999, it grossed $26,528 per screen, which was good for $29.2 million. Paranormal Activity got its $20.1 million this weekend from just 760 screens… which breaks down to $26,530 per screen. Of course ticket prices are different nowadays, but make no mistake: this micro-budgeted DV horror flick is poised to be one of the biggest hits of the season.

4. Couples Retreat: $17.9 million ($63.3 million total)

Last weekend’s top choice dropped an expected 47 percent, which is about standard for your typical Vince Vaughn relationship comedy. While reaching the $118 million that The Break Up scored in the summer of 2006 might be out of the question, Couples Retreat should still inch its way past $100 million, which would make it only the second such grosser this year for Universal, after Fast & Furious. If you needed confirmation that it has been a bad year for the studio, you just got some.

5. The Stepfather: $12.3 million ($12.3 million total)

How is this cheapy horror remake different from all the others? It isn’t! Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley saw his foray into movie stardom stalk out fifth place over the weekend, easily topping Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ($8 million/$108 million total) in the process. If nothing else, at least Mr. Badgley has some bragging rights over fellow cast member, Chace Crawford, who saw his horror movie entry, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, open to half this number last October.

The reviews have come out (some good, some less good), but at this point it seems irrelevant--the film's publicity has been so comprehensive as to render a 800-word review absurd. A MoMA show, an HBO documentary, a civic celebration, and then there are the tie-ins--a soundtrack by Karen O, fine, but a novelization? What are you doing, Dave Eggers? And anyone who doesn't feel grossed out by the "wild things" Opening Ceremony collection is a terrible person.

The chemical reaction of childhood nostalgia, sterling hipness, and serious critical attention has yielded something totally odious.

All of which is too bad: because I really liked Where the Wild Things Are.

I found it exquisitely weird, and thought it successfully conveyed the blend of intensity and confusion that characterizes childhood experiences. Also the wild things are cool looking.

I recommend it in spite of the $610 wolf suit.

If you’re apartment building is like ours—the December temperatures in October are a problem when the heat isn’t on yet—then you’re going to need someplace warm to hide this weekend. How about the movie theater? In addition to the further expansion of Paranormal Activity, five films hit screens today and, as usual, there is something for everyone. As we do every Friday, here’s a handy guide to the new releases.

Where the Wild Things Are

What’s the story: Kids movies: They aren’t just for the little ones anymore! Where the Wild Things Are is the first of this fall’s kiddie-films-for-adults (another, Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox, lands in November), and we’re not ashamed to say we’ll be there tonight with paper crowns on. Spike Jonze—behind the camera for the first time since 2002’s Adaptation—directs the long-awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s classic, which has been expanded for the screen (by Dave Eggers, natch) from just 10 sentences to 100 minutes. The reviews have been very strong—though The Observer’s Sara Vilkomerson was lukewarm on the effort—and while we’re excited, we have to wonder: Will kids today actually care about something that came out more than 40 years ago? Now excuse us while we go bang our heads into a wall for using the term “kids today.”

Who should see it: Falcon Heene.

Law Abiding Citizen

What’s the story: This movie seemed a whole lot more interesting when Frank Darabont was attached to direct. Once he dropped off, though—presumably to film his cameo in Entourage—and was replaced by journeyman director F. Gary Gray, everything got kind of meh. Gerard Butler stars as a man who takes justice into his own hands after his family is murdered (spoiler alert?), and the killers cut a plea deal with the ambitious district attorney (Jamie Foxx). Apparently the violence here is pitched at Saw-like levels, so if the rote premise wasn’t enough to keep you away, perhaps that will.

Who should see it: Charles Bronson.

The Stepfather

What’s the story: Dan Humphrey, movie star? Lonely Boy himself, Penn Badgley, becomes the latest Gossip Girl cast member to make his way to the big screen in this remake of the ’80s horror film that featured Terry O’Quinn (better known as John Locke) back when he still had hair. Dylan Walsh steps (pun!) in this time around, as the charming stepfather who is actually a sociopath. Fun times! Normally we hate these types of movies, but, honestly, the trailer for The Stepfather looks surprisingly fun. Get thee to our Netflix queue!

Who should see it: Blake Lively.

Also opening this weekend: Stars aplenty appear in the underwhelming anthology, New York, I Love You and Black Dynamite makes a mockery of ’70s blaxploitation flicks.

I’m the first to admit that I went into Where the Wild Things Are with perhaps too high expectations. I blame part of this on the most excellent trailer—remember that teaser, released back in March, full of sumptuous, wondrous images set to that infectious Arcade Fire song? It seemed (regardless of the chatter over delays and studio clashes that has followed this project around) to be a perfect combination of parts: Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book; director Spike Jonze, the wacky mind behind Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (not to mention some of the best music videos around. And hey, remember music videos?); co-writer (with Jonze) Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and co-writer of the charming Away We Go. Plus, have you taken a good look at this Max Records kid, who plays Max in this movie? He has the most sweetly melancholic face—one can’t imagine him just walking into an audition. It seems more likely that the twee trinity of Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola and Mr. Jonze all joined forces to cook up his genetics, Gattaca-style.

The film starts off pitch-perfect. Young Max, just like in the book, is a mischievous boy who gathers snowballs to pelt his older sister and her friends, makes forts, throws tantrums, etc. But Mr. Jonze is also able to capture how long those childhood afternoons can drag, and how lonely being a kid can be. The rage that gets Max sent out of the room without dinner is more dramatic than it is in the source material (of course, it’s impossible to make a 100-minute movie to match a book that takes somewhere between one and three minutes to read), and is borne of a new backstory about a divorced mom and her new boyfriend (oh hi, Mark Ruffalo!). Suffice it to say, it’s not a mysterious forest that grows out of Max’s bedroom (bummer) but a fantastical journey that Max takes, which involves a seafaring passage that would make the Losties proud. And there, finally, is where we meet our Wild Things.

So here’s the thing: This movie looks so damn perfect. The sunshine filters beautifully through insanely tall trees, and those giant puppets are great-looking and move with a balletic grace that is fascinating to see. Yet once Mr. Jonze and Mr. Eggers depart from the bare-bones text, allowing the Wild Things to speak (it’s a little hard not to think of Tony Soprano when you hear James Gandolfini’s voice, even if it’s coming from a giant puppet), things get a little strange. The gang (which includes effective voice portrayals from Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano and Chris Cooper) is less wild than they are unhappy, and there are some very adultlike gripes and resentments running through the creature community when Max arrives. Which is not to say there aren’t some truly inspired moments within the film (just wait till you meet Bob and Terry). But something doesn’t quite jell, and no matter how gorgeous each set piece is, it doesn’t always entirely add up to a complete and satisfying narrative. I couldn’t help but think, from time to time, how on earth were these guys allowed to make this movie?

This one is certainly not going to be for the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs crowd. I can’t imagine any young kid seeing it, not just because parts of it are dark and kind of scary, but because I can’t imagine any small fry having the attention span to stick with it. Perhaps the target audience can be identified through the line of Where the Wild Things Are clothes, key chains and decorations available at … Urban Outfitters. 

svilkomerson@observer.com

Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can't keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Three Kings [starting @ 1:30 a.m. on AMC]

Why we’ll try to stay up and watch it: 1999 might have been the best single year for movies in the last ten. Seriously! In fact, there is a chance it ranks as one of the greatest ever. While it might be a tough slog to find 10 worthy Best Picture candidates this year (Star Trek, come on down?), 1999 could have filled up a new-fangled Oscar ballot with ease. There was an embarrassment of riches: Fight Club, American Beauty, Election, Being John Malkovich, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Eyes Wide Shut and The Insider. And that list leaves off movies like Boys Don’t Cry, Go, Run Lola Run, The Limey, Toy Story 2, Office Space, The Blair Witch Project and, of course, Three Kings.

David O. Russell’s Desert Storm serio-comedy doesn’t hold up as well as you might remember—in part because of a third act that gets treacley and message-y—but for large swatches of time, Three Kings is as good as any of the big boys from 1999. Mr. Russell keeps the pace moving at a ridiculously quick clip, perfectly balancing the absurdist M*A*S*H-like humor with the Bruckheimer-ian action set pieces; this isn’t Courage Under Fire we’re talking about here. That he gets great performances from the disparate cast of George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and director Spike Jonze is just gravy. Under no circumstances would anyone ever imagine these four people having chemistry together, but in Three Kings they blend like the perfect team.

After Spanking the Monkey (Jeremy Davies for life!) and Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings seemed like the film that would help launch Mr. Russell onto the A-list; his “Hal Ashby–on–an–energy-drink” style was perfectly suited to the new-wave Hollywood ascetic. Ten years gone, however, and the director is best known for his lack of output—when The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale comes out in 2011, it’ll be Mr. Russell’s first film in seven years—and his C-word–enhanced rant against Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees. We’re still waiting for his one great film. Here’s hoping that comes around eventually.

When we’ll probably fall asleep: Like we said, the third act of Three Kings gets a little stale. So we’ll clock out a bit beforehand, at 2:45 a.m., 75 minutes into the film, after a fantastic little interrogation scene between Mr. Wahlberg’s Sgt. First Class Troy Barlow and an Iraqi solider played by Said Taghmaoui. At once reasonable and terrifying, Mr. Taghmaoui—who you know from this past season of Lost and countless other roles where he’s asked to be the “Middle Easterner with a secret”—rails against what America forced the late Michael Jackson to do to his face, with the disconnected monotone of Sir Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man (with “Is it safe?” replaced by “What is the problem with Michael Jackson?”). When it comes to “that guy” character actors, Mr. Taghmaoui will always be our “main man.”

Michelle Williams is reportedly officially dating her close friend director Spike Jonze, who was previously married to Sofia Coppola. [Daily Mail]  

Vogue intern and New York Ranger Sean Avery, 28, is dating 51-year-old Kelly Klein, ex-wife of Calvin. [P6] 

In the ongoing custody battle between Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff, their 13-year-old daughter Caleigh is refusing to speak to her mother or go on vacation with her, according to the Manhattan judge handling the case. [NY Daily News]  

Not kosher: Former Real World contestant Kevin Powell, who is running for Congress, told an audience of Hasidic Jews Monday night that he would "bring home the bacon." [P6] 

Alex Rodriguez is working things out privately with wife Cynthia regarding visitation rights and alimony payments in order to avoid having to admit to his extramarital affairs in court. [NY Daily News] 

Katie Holmes has arrived in Manhattan to prepare for Arthur Miller's All My Sons, which will premiere on Broadway September 17. [Us Weekly]

NYC Council member Tony Avella is accused of receiving a bouquet of flowers from Pamela Anderson. Quelle scandale! [Politicker]