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Today started slow, because of my sleeping habit and need to go to a seminar and get class materials ready -- classes start Monday(!). I've taught both classes before, and got notes for one done, found notes from the last time i taught the other that I can reuse, and got my syllabuses ready.
We chose to try the Singaporean cinema experience. We had a tough choice of Stealth and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which both opened this week. This was a close call since we expected awful things from both. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
spaceroo's elegant summary was, we expected an Armageddon-style big clunky idiotic movie from Stealth, while we expected Charlie to keep reminding us how much we liked the Gene Wilder version. We picked Charlie, since we hoped there'd be parts we'd honestly enjoy. The only twist on Singaporean cinema spaceroo tripped over was being asked for a seat assignment preference; sad to say, we ended up in the assigned seats since there was a good-sized crowd and moving would put us too close to the screen.
As for the movie, we both honestly had a great time. It's a weird film, very evocative of the original book -- so much that it brought back details I thought I had forgotten in the quarter-century (yikes) since I last read it. It didn't quite feel spontaneous, but you can say that about the old movie too (Pauline Kael described it as ``like watching Prussians at play''), and Johnny Depp as Willie Wonka is charming and fittingly bizarre.
It's a bit awkward that Charlie doesn't really have anything to do, all the time in the factory. In the book that's obscured by him being the viewpoint character; in the old movie it was obscured by adding a bit of naughtiness with the Fizzy Lifting Drinks and by removing Charlie's father, giving him a nice father/son tension with Willie Wonka. In this movie he triggers some flashbacks and seems to be setting up a subplot about how much Wonka had planned, but that doesn't pan out. The stuff with Willie Wonka's dad is a fine addition, though it points out how much Charlie isn't important to the mid-section.
Anyway I had a great time, and was completely sold by the music used for the nut-sorting room scene. I love bands that are trying to sound like The Monkees, or any sincere attempt to do pop music with a sitar. And we noticed in the theater multiple people came in Wonka hats. We wouldn't have had nearly as good a time at Stealth, and that gives today's life lesson. Torn between two apparently equal choices, take the one that hold a better prospect for non-ironic fun.
Trivia: The Harvard Observatory earned $2,400 in 1875 for selling time signals. Source: Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps, Peter Galison.
Currently Reading: Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 11 (1949), Isaac Asimov, Martin H Greenberg, Editors.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-05 05:16 pm (UTC)Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I practically swooned. The other thing that really did it for me in that scene was the look Wonka gives to Mr. Salt just as he opens the gate to let him chase after his daughter.... That look right there is chillingly beautiful. Mischievous and diabolical, the part of Wonka that reminds us that he's not a man. He's of the fae, fickle and childlike and not so much a man as an element of nature.
In fact, Krsity and I found the segments with Wonka's father distasteful because they run coutner to that. They try to bring Wonka down to humanity, to justify his behaviour and eccentricity, and I think the feeling of the movie suffers for that. They're cleverly done segments, to be certain, but I think I preferred it when Wonka was a true enigma.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 12:51 pm (UTC)Actually, despite some dread when the first flashback to Wonka's Father appeared, I rather liked that subplot. It was basic, sure -- of course the candy maker had a dentist father -- but over-the-top enough that it fit. And the young Willie gobbling every candy possible and comparing thoughts is, indeed, just what your manic genius does. Plus there's the house Not Being There when Willie returned, and the flags montage from it.
You're right about Willie Wonka as a spirit/fae, though. He did come across most memorably in that role.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-05 05:50 pm (UTC)I had the same sort of experience with Charlie. I still think I like the Gene Wilder version better, but this one was suitable, enjoyable, truer to the book in moments and updated well. The kids overall have a more modern sensibility, and are as less trusting of Willie Wonka as he is untrusting of them.. except for Augustus Gloop, who was very similar to the original movie's.
This movie felt rather underfocused on Charlie, yes. I think in the first movie, you understood him better, felt his frustrations. "Just in case you think I'm going to win it, I'm not!" This movie's Charlie is subsumed, almost too well-behaved. He wouldn't have tried the Fizzy Lifting Drinks.
All the oompa-loompas being.. well.. one guy... that was surreal. I'm not yet certain if it was good or bad, but it did make for some funny moments. And Christopher Lee in both Star Wars:ROTS and Charlie in the same year is too much character confusion for me.
--Chiaroscuro
Christopher Lee
Date: 2005-08-05 06:44 pm (UTC)Re: Christopher Lee
Date: 2005-08-06 01:00 pm (UTC)I wasn't, but I still haven't seen The Lord of the Rings movies yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-05 11:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 01:02 pm (UTC)Haven't read Terry Pratchett either. Many friends have advised me I should, but that's historically been almost a guarantee I would end up not liking it and questioning what if anything I have in common with my alleged friends.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 12:57 pm (UTC)You're right, of course, about a spoiler warning, and I didn't think of it before going to bed or out today. Sorry for that.
I think that in this version Charlie might have stood out a bit better in the factory if he'd made some effort to save any of the other kids from their fate -- being held back by Willie Wonka would be very natural here -- or by recognizing that despite appearances things are set up so the kids can't really be hurt, just turned blue or very thin -- which would also neatly set up his fate in the story.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 05:01 pm (UTC)--Chiaroscuro
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-07 04:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, the, ``It's candy, it doesn't have to have a point'' line was one I thought setting up the revelation that Charlie was exactly on Willie Wonka's wavelength, but it didn't get the reinforcement it quite needed.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 04:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 01:08 pm (UTC)Though that is kind of a curious message to give out in a movie, isn't it? Particularly when the movie's sure to be cut up for commercials when it airs on normal TV.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 03:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-07 04:30 pm (UTC)That may be. I don't have the movie that much memorized, actually.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 09:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-06 01:10 pm (UTC)Unfortunately the Oompa Loompa song in that part was done in a mighty Techno style, almost impossible to make out the lyrics. Probably they get more comprehensible on a second viewing.