austin_dern | If you are wise you'll listen to me

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. 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It might be wise to note "SPOILERS" here and have a LJ-cut, Austin, as some folks have not yet seen the movie.

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

...and I was always expecting the Eye of Sauron to appear over Christopher Lee's head...

I wasn't, but I still haven't seen The Lord of the Rings movies yet.

Try either of the animated Discworld series - Mr Lee was utterly perfectly cast therein. (I shan't say as whom, on the off-chance you've not caught either yet - but if you're familiar with Mr Pratchett's writings, I'm sure you'll guess quite readily)

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.

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.

Yes indeed. In the first movie, Charlie gets lines like "Why won't she listen to Mr. Wonka?" to Grandpa Joe and there's the "They'll be restored to their perfectly awful selves." In this movie, his only real line of that ilk is "It's Candy. It doesn't have to have a point."

--Chiaroscuro

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.

If you are wise you'll listen to me

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Christopher Lee

Re: Christopher Lee

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