Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

[emersende]

I just got back from seeing the film, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I hope it does really well in theaters- I was at a 10:00 showing, and the audience was all adults. It's not stupid or cutesy or full of fart jokes, and I never had the feeling that Johnny Depp's Wonka (you're right, that does sound dirty) was based on Michael "Monkey Fucker" Jackson, which pretty much covers everything that I thought might have gone wrong. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's better than the first movie, but it's pretty good.

[Deleted]

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie, too. After his first few minutes on screen, I didn't even notice JD's crazy hair and make up too much. I just cannot adore that man any more.

The Oompa Loompa's songs were great!

They were! Totally catchy and cute. I wasn't a fan of the music in Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, and was kind of worried about the songs -- but shouldn't have been. Lots and lots of fun.

I never had the feeling that Johnny Depp's Wonka (you're right, that does sound dirty) was based on Michael "Monkey Fucker" Jackson

I have to believe that rumor was floated by FUBAR himself -- after seeing JD's Wonka, there is NO WAY his character could in any way be construed as being FUBAR-like, unless you're FUBAR and you have a pathological need to find any opportunistic way of interjecting yourself into something positive (and relevant) in pop culture.

[kostgard]

I also have to say that Depp's Wonka is nothing like Michael Jackson, aside from the pale skin. This Wonka is a bit of a misanthrope and clearly doesn't like children (despite the fact that he's spent his life creating treats for children) and certainly doesn't want to touch any of them at all, let alone CMJ's kind of touching. He even seems like he could take or leave Charlie at first and he didn't really seem to warm to him until the end.

[Deleted]

I didn't like the songs. You definitely couldn't make out a lot of the lyrics, and the clever lyrics are what make the songs so enjoyable. They definitely didn't seem like they were being sung by the Ooompa Loompas, either.

Did anyone else think the "gallery of flags of the world" gag was kind of random? It was funny, but seemed totally out of place, like it was a joke leftover from some other movie that they just decided to add to Charlie.

[jynni]

"Charlie" is Golden Ticket at Box Office

Yay!!! 55 million!!!

This did much better than I expected - especially considering that much of the target audience might have been tied up with Mr. Potter for a good portion of the weekend.

Yay for Johnny!

[Benni]

I went to see Charlie on Saturday Night with my family and my friend and her family. We all just loved it. There were mostly families in the theatre and it was so nice to hear all the kids laughing throughout most of the movie.
Freddie Highmore is such a superb little actor. The other kids were truly obnoxious. I loved them. And Johnny's reaction to them was great. I liked the ending to this story better. I always hated the ending in the other movie.
Did anyone else catch all the shoutouts to Tim and Johnny's previous movies?
The most obvious one I caught was the Ed Wood one.
I agree Michael Jackson started the rumour.

[Deleted]

Was one of the shoutouts the apes on the TV in the Mike TeeVee sequence?

[Benni]

From MSN:
John August's rewrite of Dahl's 1971 screenplay is filled with references to "Hair" (Wonka greets the kids by singing "Good Morning Starshine"), "2001: A Space Odyssey" (the monolith becomes a Wonka bar, complete with "Zarathustra" fanfare), "Psycho" (the shower scene is re-imagined, rather ghoulishly, as a child-torturing device) and "Edward Scissorhands" (Charlie's snowbound home has an especially Gothic touch).

I thought the reference to ES was when he cut the ribbon with the scissors. From Ed Wood I thought the shoutouts were the pink sheep = the pink angora sweaters when he said I don't even want to think about that. Every one in the theatre started laughing. And again when he said "You look great" to the hairy Oompa-Loompa.
I thought I saw Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas in the Candy Bowl wrapped around a candy.
And yes the Planet of the Apes. There were more but I can't think of them right now. I think there was something on one of the buttons on the glass elevator.

[kostgard]

From Ed Wood I thought the shoutouts were the pink sheep = the pink angora sweaters when he said I don't even want to think about that.

I totally didn't catch that! I got all the other references mentioned above. Now that's even funnier - I just thought he was doing something weird in general with the pink wool.

[Deleted]

Roger Ebert broke my heart by saying it was a good movie despite Johnny Depp's performance. He may as well have attacked me personally.

You know, about the kid who played Augustus Gloop... I always feel sorry for kid actors whose roles are based on their being fat or unnattractive. I picture their stage parent hearing about the part and saying, "Hey! They want a fat, loutish kid! You're perfect for that!" I had the same thought when I saw Disney's The Kid -- The Bruce Willis character was constantly chiding the kid for being overweight and I hoped that in between scenes they gave the boy ego reinforcement.