Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Oompas Loompas Dissapoint

When my "real life" starts next week and I've moved in to my own place things will be better. Right now I can't write. I can't think properly and my writing has taken a serious nose dive. I have all these plans...new blog template...audio blog...fiction contests and actually sending things away to be read, rejected, rejected, rejected and eventually published. As I sit writing this I am in our office/bedroom/closet/living room that has served as our "area" for the past few months. It's been so generous of my parents to let us stay here but our lives are so unsettled and I can't get the words on the page any more organized than the room I'm sitting in.

I have been wanting to see the new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (with Johnny Depp) for ages now and last night we finally sat down and watched it. I was bitterly disappointed. I read and loved the books as a child (Roald Dahl is wonderful...I swear, if you haven't yet read "Fantastic Mr. Fox" you should do so quickly) and of course, loved the original film with Gene Wilder. Although Depp did a good job I can't help but feel he was mis-directed by Burton. The original Willy Wonka was kooky but warm and he loved children and the magical world only they could live in. He was a candy-making romantic. Depp was just dark, crazy and a little mean. They cut some important parts out of the film and it all sort of lost its charm. And the oompa loompas sucked. There was no bouncy little diddy following each child's disappearance...nope, they modernized that part. At one point all the oompa loompas (who, incidentally were carbon copies of a little Indian man) broke out into a disco/rap thing. Highly unimpressive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I wasn't charmed by it either. I never got the connection between Johnny Depp and Charlie (and the actor who played Charlie was one of the things I did like) -- it seemed like he just decided he wanted Charlie to move in out of nowhere. The affection Wonka had for the kid in the book just didn't come through. It looked fantastic (we saw it in Imax), but it was all a little...cold, I guess.