Today was an errands day. Let our landlord know when we're leaving, grocery shopping, bought our subway tickets for the month, etc. Then we headed to Osu for a little bit of fun shopping. I found a Pinkie I've been looking for, one of the Super Lover ones, with glasses. Yay! *the crowd goes wild* Then it was home for showering, washing clothes, and eating dinner while watching a movie.
I forgot to mention the other day I got a package from my family. Thanks so much everyone! Now I have fun food (one box of Mac and Cheese is already gone), and some new books and movies. Happy early birthday to me!
Thanks to Dad *hugs* I have now seen the Tim Burton incarnation of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." I know it's more authentic and everything, but I have to say I still like the old one better. As Aimee said, it was all about Tim Burton, and I would have rather it had been about the...you know, story.
To read more of my thoughts, go behind the cut...
In tone, it was darker than the original, in some cases a little too much so. I could mention melting marionettes as a gruesome, unnecessary touch. Creepy is good, nightmare inducement in children under the age of 12 is not. However, I didn't miss the silly songs from the first, and it was nice to have the squirrel scene rather than that dorky goose scene. The techno gadgets were great, and the little boy who played Charlie was so winsome and adorable, you just totally want him to win the whole time. And he's innocent all the way through. The glass elevator being used as an actual mode of transport was pretty cool, and although embaressing, I must admit to laughing every time the stupid gag of Willy Wonka walking into the see-through door of the elevator showed up. :)
On the other hand, the Oompa Loompa songs were such a waste of film. Having one man play all the Oompa Loompas was stupid; it made it look so obviously CG. And the lyrics were impossible to make out, so the songs didn't really matter much, except to bring a little bit of N*SYNC to the movie.
And the weakest link? Willy Wonka himself. Which was such a disappointment. Firstly, the visual was just...bad. The pasty white skin, high voice, and really REALLY bad pageboy hair was all sorts of icky. And he seemed emotionally stunted, rather than an eccentric genius. And what's with the backstory? What's this new trend? Mr. Wonka's (non-canon) relationship with his father really added nothing to the movie as it was done in hurried drips and drabs that didn't influence anything except to make him particularly eager to off Mr. Salt and to add some sort of conflict to the story of the perfect Charlie taking over the factory (in the Gene Wilder version, this was handled with the Fizzy Lifting Drink and the Everlasting Gobstoppers bit). He very obviously despised all children, unlike Gene Wilder, who seemed a bit fascinated by them. And lastly...he didn't seem to enjoy the candy. And that's a big old question mark in my mind.
Lastly, just little things. Why did Grandpa Joe look like he was going to die any second? And how on earth did they manage to get a child to play Veruca Salt who looks identical to the original little girl? That's just freaky...
My final decision? Eh, two and a half out of four stars. Good adaption and great vision of the factory and stuff, but it just didn't leave me wanting to stuff my face with smores. *nods*
Posted by Mandy at August 6, 2005 12:08 AMWhat! You didn't save anything for your actual birthday??????
You could have made a Mac and Cheese cake.
Love you.