Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

1971 kid flick

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 14/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The reclusive and eccentric titular candy maker holds a contest to invite five annoying children for a tour of his titular factory and a lifetime supply of his scrumptious titular confectionery treats. The tour ends early for some of the children who have poor listening skills. Grandpa Joe gets gas.

I just now realized that this movie is older than me.

Here's a link I stumbled across that suggests Gene Wilder had a lot of influence on the iconic character created in this. It's a great read, not only because it adds a bit to the genius of Wilder's performance but because it shows how classy that guy is. My 4 1/2 readers know that I love Johnny Depp and don't mind Tim Burton, but when I heard that remake was going to be made, the first thing I said was, "No, that's not right. Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka." And I know that I made the outrageous claim that this movie contained the greatest acting performance of all time, but that was actually wrong. The greatest acting performance of all time belongs to Gene Wilder for his work in this movie. Look no further than the wildly grotesque boat ride which not only gives Gene a chance to show his chops but just might be the greatest scene that takes place on a boat in movie history. That song, by the way, has lyrics that are from Dahl's book. I love all of Wonka's sneaky literary allusions which are not in Dahl's book: "Where is fancy bred--in the heart or in the head?" from Shakespeare, "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams" from O'Shaughnessy, Oscar Wilde, Ogden Nash, John Keats. It's like a sweet-toothed lit. major's wet dream! Wilder's multi-lingual tour guiding, the deadpan humor, the curly hair, the somersault, the schizophrenic tone switcherooing, the dance moves, his sweet singing voice, the fluidity of his movement. It's all so brilliant, one of the most whimsically dark characters. As I've said many times, Wilder's most fun to watch when his character is angry, and I try to find as many opportunities as I can in life to imitate his "You get nothing!" near the end. I'm also going to start each school year by saying my classroom is where "all my dreams become realities and some of my realities become dreams" before weeping uncontrollably. Anyway, enough about Gene Wilder and his character. You don't need me to convince you that this is the greatest performance in the history of acting.

All the kids are good, even if they're good in really exaggerated ways. You hate them all, except for Charlie, and you're supposed to. Violet's gum chewing and annoying voice, Veruca's whining, Augustus's general shape, Teevee's know-it-all attitude. You don't mind when terrible things happen to these children because they're really awful young people. Their demises work as little object lessons, too, the dangers of not taking care of one's body, of being too prideful or just a little snotty or mean, of greed, of ennui. Those Oompa Loompas. They'll get you, like enforcers of the consequences of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I counted correctly, there were ten Oompa Loompas in the credits. One was in Labyrinth, one was in The Elephant Man and Time Bandits, one was in fourteen of seventeen episodes of The Prisoner and Magical Mystery Tour, one was in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, one not only played three different characters in A New Hope but was in Willow and two Harry Potter movies, one was an Ewok and acted in both Labyrinth and Willow and Time Bandits, one was not only in one of those C.S. Lewis movies but played a character called Dwarf--Eater of Cars in something called Born to Boogie and was also in Magical Mystery Tour, and one was only in this move. And one of them was named Pepe Poupee (I shit you not!) and was actually a woman (I still shit you not!)! What's it say that all the winners of Wonka's contest are Caucasians, by the way? Anything? And I was surprised to find that Peter Ostrum is another of those great one-and-dones and that he didn't have a single other acting credit. He's as perfect for Charlie as Wilder's perfect for Wonka, and I think a lot of that has to do with his hair. Like Wilder, I guess. The only gripe is that Ostrum's belching is wack. If you're about to be dismembered by a ceiling fan because a carbonated beverage is making you float and you can only save yourself by belching, you need to do it like a man. I'll mention one more performance that I like: David Battley as Charlie's teacher, Mr. Turkentine. I used to think that was Paul Benedict, but it's not. He's hilarious anyway, and one of the funniest lines in the movie that nobody would ever mention is his--the "Well, I can't figure out just two!" when he's teaching percentages. Oh, wait! I am going to mention one more character--Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark is in this movie! Not the actor, the character--the dude who whispers to the children after they win. Or maybe I'm just on drugs.

Speaking of drugs, what a wonderful world the makers of this create without the need of computer graphics or a lot of special effects. The big candy room? 1/3 of it was actually edible according to Gene Wilder. That river? Yep, actual chocolate. Those wacky machines with their funky moving parts. So much color and so much fun. I'll take this old school set design over what Tim Burton did any day.

This is the second musical my family and I have watched for our summer family movie nights. A lot of the songs are great, too--"The Candy Man," a Sammy Davis Jr. staple; "I've Got a Golden Ticket"; "Pure Imagination," another great Gene Wilder moment; all the Oompah Loompah songs. Now "Cheer Up, Charlie" is pointless and shitty, and although Veruca Salt's "I Want It Now" isn't a terrible song, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Why does one of the children get a song before leaving while the others don't? This would be a memorable movie without the songs, but the songs make it even more memorable.

One of my favorite children's movies that are really made for adults. It's not for adults, you say? Well, go ahead and check for yourself what a snozberry is then. Oh, it's just so hard to not love Roald Dahl.

Bonus point for Pepe Poupee.

Pinocchio

2002 family fun

Rating: 2/20 (Dylan: 0/20; Emma: .5/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Pinocchio, as made by mentally challenged people.

"Who stole the salami?"

This may be the worst movie ever. Unless watching Roberto Benigni hop around like he's doing on the poster, only with less blue, is your cup of Pinocchio, you're not going to like this. Abbey claims to have liked it, but this might just confirm my theory that she's on drugs. At the 21 minute mark, Dylan started screaming in anger and ran upstairs. I continued watching but passed out and woke up later with the hair on half my head shaven. This is an ugly and stupid movie without a single redeeming quality. I will say this: We watched a dubbed version that is available on Netflix, and it was really tackily done. Sometimes, that can be comical; here, it's enough to make one old guy sick and a younger guy scream in anger and run off. Add to that some of the worst special effects you'll find. It's almost like there were real special effects, like Italian special effects or something, but the producers didn't think that Americans would understand them and dubbed them with really cheap C-studio special effects. A loud and painful movie.

Here's the question that I'm left with: What the hell is a puppet in Italy? Or a boy? Because a 50-year-old Roberto Benigni looked like neither. I think "puppet" must mean "ornery old man" or something over there. Or "one who inflicts great amounts of torment and pain." Or "character who is going to make your career much harder to defend to my friends."

Ashik Kerib

1988 Paradjanov movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A poor minstrel falls in love with a rich gal and then wanders all over the place having various misadventures, most of them colorful.

It's lucky for us that the U.S. and Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War because if we had decided to attack each other with color, it would have been hopeless. This is my fourth and likely final Sergei Paradjanov joint (that's what he called them), and like the other three, this is an unusual but wonderful experience. This is very obviously filmed on a tight budget, but Paradjanov overcomes that with his creative spirit and visual eye. Admittedly, I was frustrated early. It either took this story about this minstrel a while to gain momentum or I just needed to be warmed up a bit. My suggestion would be to try to find a Paradjanov short to use as foreplay before letting one of his features seduce you. This not only looks great; it sounds fantastic, too, with a soundtrack rich in Georgian folk music, the only kind of auditory daffiness that could fit a lot of this imagery. Observe: lots and lots of camels and guys with unibrows, beard thievery, a guy with fuzzy dice hanging from his crotch, birds and more birds, evil spirits arriving on ponies. Visual bliss if you ignore some of the most stilted acting you'll ever see and a story that didn't make a lot of sense. That acting. Yeesh. It was like a church group performance with even less of a budget. This movie might have the cheapest special effect I've ever seen, by the way--horse flight simulated with a close-up of a spinning globe. Oh, with a couple of dudes blowing shells in the only way shells can be blown into--gaily. My favorite scene features a guy sharpening knives while a guy spins a colorful umbrella behind him and to his right. It's a beautiful shot anyway, but then the camera pulls back and you have all these women undulating on the ground in the foreground pretending to be snakes. I think it's symbolic. Which reminds me--for a movie that is supposed to be a children's movie (I read), this is sure heavy on the symbolism. I don't think children can think this abstractly. And there's also a sex scene where some clowns toss a curtain over a man and a woman before the shell blowers do their shell-blowing thing and a guy starts throwing doves around. Yeah, that's exactly as spicy as it sounds. Ashik Kerib is more flawed than the other Paradjanov movies, more meandering and choppily incoherent, but if you're hip to the guy's cinematic voice, you'll be glad you popped this in. If I get married again, I'm having a Paradjanov-inspired wedding and reception, by the way.

Gooby

2009 children's horror film/possible sequel to The Shining

Rating: 5/20 (Emma: 2/20; Abbey: 1/20)

Plot: Poor little Willy's got no friends, his parents don't really pay attention to him, and to make his life even more miserable, his family is moving to a new place. And he's seeing monsters. Luckily, his childhood stuffed toy comes to life and septuples in size to hang out with him.

Biggest laugh I've had in a while: When looking up information for this movie, I saw it described on several websites as being about a boy and the bear from The Shining. And Gooby does like like the man in a bear suit in my favorite scene in The Shining which might make this the greatest movie of all time. Then again, it might represent the main problem with Gooby as a children's movie--that it's terrifying. Unless you happen to think that the main problem is that the name of the movie is Gooby. It's one of those titles I can't imagine people wanting to ask about for at a ticket window. "Two tickets to, umm, Gooby please?" I thought for sure there'd be a twist ending where it's revealed that Willy is schizophrenic. I assumed this was like an after-school special about mental illness. It's really the only way this could have made any sense at all. I figured the whole time that he would be the only person to ever see Gooby, but it didn't turn out to be that way at all. Toward the beginning of the story, he does see a CGI monster thing, the reason Gooby shows up in the first place, I think. But the man-in-a-suit Gooby and th CGI monster never interact, so I'm not real sure why that CGI monster was in this thing at all. Maybe they intended to have Gooby do battle with the CGI monster but realized that a CGI monster and a guy in a suit would look ridiculous. I couldn't believe it when I saw that this movie came out in 2009, probably because it's got the sentimentality of an 80's kiddie flick and everything it rips off comes from that era. The story's dopey, the dialogue is embarrassingly awful, and the way this plot develops would make even the men with the most cinematic intestinal fortitude lose their cookies. Gooby, by the way, eats a lot of cookies in this, sort of like E.T. with the Reese's Pieces minus the distasteful product placement. That would put Gooby a notch above E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, but at least there's not a scene in the latter where E.T. farts and then starts fanning his crotch to waft the smell in Elliot's direction. Gooby does that because that's the type of friend Gooby is. And that's the type of movie Gooby is.

And for your amusement, here's a picture of the bear from The Shining (best scene in that movie, by the way) and a picture of Gooby from Gooby (there is no best scene in that movie, by the way):