July 15, 2005
I’d like to say Tim Burton’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY plays better now than it did then, but for me it’s the reverse. I can guess based on some costumes I saw when I went to see the 2023 movie WONKA that there are people who grew up on this one and still like it, but for people my age I felt alone in believing it even had some good qualities. It was disappointing because I had faith that Depp would have an interesting take on Wonka, and that faith was not rewarded. But I could point to many things I liked about it, so I felt a little protective when people said it was worthless.
I’m partial to both the 1964 book by Roald Dahl (or at least the version of it that existed in the ‘80s) and the 1971 film by Mel Stuart starring Gene Wilder. After a teacher read the book to us in class I decided Dahl was my favorite author – I read James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Danny the Champion of the World, The Twits, George’s Marvelous Medicine, The BFG, The Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, I’m not sure what else. I remember waiting what seemed like forever for The Witches on inter-library loan, and it was worth it. His dark sense of humor really appealed to me. His descriptions of awful people next to those scratchy Quentin Blake drawings. When I found out he wrote “Lamb to the Slaughter” (the short story turned into the Alfred Hitchcock episode about the woman who killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb) I was amazed. When I found out he had a book for adults called Switch Bitch I giggled. (But I never read that one.) (read the rest of this shit…)
I really wasn’t in the market for a Willy Wonka prequel, I did not think it sounded like a worthwhile idea, or that this new movie WONKA looked good, as much as I enjoyed director Paul King’s two PADDINGTON movies. So I wasn’t even planning to see it until it turned out to be the first thing showing at the SIFF Cinema Downtown, formerly Cinerama (1963-2020). It has been my theater of record for decades, but after owner Paul Allen died the people running his company wondered “What is there to gain from maintaining a beloved city institution?” and closed it shortly before the pandemic. We all assumed the worst for a couple years, but thankfully the Seattle International Film Festival organization acquired the theater (just not the name) and fuck it, if they were showing WONKA I was gonna see WONKA. I’ve seen so many Star Warses and Batmen and Tarantinos and 70mm retrospectives in there over the past 25 years, waiting in long lines, feeling the excitement of the crowded lobby as they take my ticket, but this is the first time the excitement was only about being in the building.
THE BFG is the latest BFD from Steven Spielberg (
