Jeanine and I just watched this, right now, and i have some things to say:
1) Man, that world is basically run on candy, isn’t it?
2) Willy Wonka is probably a great chocolatier, but it can’t be that hard to be the most successful candymaker in the world when your leading competitor’s name is SLUGWORTH.
3) Speaking of: no one names characters in children’s books like Roald Dahl.
4) Here’s what my problem was with Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. It was a difference, I think, between Depp’s “childish” and Wilder’s “child-like.” While Wilder was weird and creepy and eccentric, he really seemed like an adult that had a child-like sense of wonder; in comparison to Depp, who seemed like a character whose development was somehow arrested in childhood. It is the difference between Depp’s Wonka, who is a kid that has resources, and Wilder’s Wonka, who is a mad candy scientist. It is also the difference between a guy that’s weird (Wilder) and a guy that might try and molest your children (Depp).
5) Man, they just don’t make movies like they did in the fucking 70s, did they?
Yep. I completely agree with you when it comes down to the differences between Wilder and Depp… and no, they definitely do not make movies like they did in the 70s. its sad that everything that gets produced nowadays is made to be eaten up like popcorn… as a consequence most people just don’t seem to understand real value anymore, and would hardly recognize it if it walked up to them and slapped them across the face.
I caught Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the theaters when it came out. I was really surprised by just how bad it was. It didn’t do anything better than the original.
But this is kind of an exception: overall, I’d say movies are better now than they were in the seventies. Or, for that matter, probably any time period.
Granted, the seventies gave us some of the best movies ever made – The Godfather, Star Wars, Alien – but these didn’t exactly come out every month (or year, for that matter).
These days, blockbuster film making is kind of a science. As a result, movies like Iron Man 2 are delivered at a rate of about once every three weeks throughout the summer. There are, what? Three? Maybe four genre movies that came out in the seventies better than Iron Man 2.
And while Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a pale imitation of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, it’s not like this decade has nothing that can compete. For live-action kid’s movies (or things that are ostensibly kid’s movies) I’d argue both Speed Racer and Where the Wild Things Are aren’t just Willy Wonka’s equals; they’re superior.
Aha, I did not mean to imply that I think they made movies better in the seventies, because I don’t think that. I just mean that they did all kinds of wacky shit in seventies film-making–people just breaking out into song, frames flying around the TV screen, animated letters everywhere. The difference is equally profound when you watch the original Thomas Crowne Affair compared to the re-make.
“most people just don’t seem to understand real value anymore”
Also, the youth of today imprudent and profane. I can’t understand the things they like, and they think the things I like are boring! Also, they won’t get off my lawn.
Additionally, have you seen their haircuts and outlandish clothes?
“4) Here’s what my problem was with Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. It was a difference, I think, between Depp’s “childish” and Wilder’s “child-like.” While Wilder was weird and creepy and eccentric, he really seemed like an adult that had a child-like sense of wonder; in comparison to Depp, who seemed like a character whose development was somehow arrested in childhood. It is the difference between Depp’s Wonka, who is a kid that has resources, and Wilder’s Wonka, who is a mad candy scientist. It is also the difference between a guy that’s weird (Wilder) and a guy that might try and molest your children (Depp).”
YES.
You forgot about our hippity-hop music.