Film Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Ah, nostalgia. That strange malfunction of hindsight that causes us to look back and think how much better things were before.

But there is no place for nostalgia in the land of film remakes. Remakes, you see, are the new vogue; you cannot help but notice it just looking at the summer movie lineup. Hungry film producers are eager to sanction a remake because they build on an already existing market. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a double whammy because it has two already established markets: fans of the book and fans of the first movie.

However, only one of those demographics is going to come away from this film pleased, I think.

In my own personal opinion, pairing Tim Burton and Roald Dahl was a stroke of pure, unadulterated genius. Both are edgy, sometimes dark, criminally funny, and distinctly... well, weird. Burton's personal style simply oozes out of this film in all its lush spindly, spiny, colorful glory, and is an excellent match for those strange stick figure drawings from Dahl's own books. Some of the trees in the chocolate room in particular called to mind Dahl's illustrations for me, as did some of the controls the Oompa Loompas were manipulating and some of the inventions in the inventing room. Burton's fondness for angular faces and deep shadow was also an excellent fit with the characters in my mind's eye from Dahl's novels.

But then, I fall into the first of the two established fan bases I mentioned: I am a fan of the book first and foremost.

Fans of the first film will quickly realize: this isn't Gene Wilder's chocolate factory. Johnny Depp is immediately off-putting as Willy Wonka, and deliberately so. Rather than the wide-eyed innocent lunacy of his predecessor, Depp hints at much darker neuroses and psychoses behind the quips and quirks of the chocolatier.

Depp's character, while fascinating in the same sort of way that a massive accident on the freeway is fascinating, is not loveable, nor endearing, nor, in fact, very believable. Depp's great genius as an actor comes from his ability to create entirely whole, unique, and realistic characters -- no matter how much of a hyperbole they might be, but the over-the-top characterization that worked so well for Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean somehow falls short for Willy Wonka. Where it was delightful to watch a swishy swashbuckler, it is unnerving and even at times uncomfortable to watch the creepy chocolatier.

Yet while the visuals are stunning and the weird-factor strangely captivating, the dark side of the movie feels disjointed with the morals the film tries to teach, and the message becomes trite, over played, and entirely un-subtle rather than blending with the other elements of the film as smoothly as the river of chocolate. The Gene Wilder version of the film worked with the syrupy sweet morals about good children and bad children in part because it had taken off the edge and given Charlie a clear cut reason for winning Wonka's ultimate prize. Burton's version tries to stay closer to the morals of the book -- Charlie wins Wonka's prize not because he is better than the other children, but simply because he is less bad -- but the final product falls short of the delicate balance of bitter and sweet that Dahl achieved so perfectly in the book.

Film Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Walking out of the movie theater after seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I felt a little like I had walking out of seeing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time: astounded by parts, enthralled by others, but overall, a little disappointed at the choices the filmmakers had made.

Parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had me in stitches. Seeing the Vogons, Magrathea, the Heart of Gold, Zaphod's heads, Marvin -- it was all like a beautiful dream come true. Watching it, I could tell that the directors really felt a synergy with the source material and wanted to bring those visions to life. The decision to use puppets in many places instead of CGI was BRILLIANT (we'll leave my "Why Yoda Should NEVER Have Been Animated" rant for another day), the sets were stunning, and the casting was a stroke of genius.

Martin Freeman is Arthur Dent, in all his glory. I worried about Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian all being Americans, but they pulled it off brilliantly. I believed every single one of them in their roles.

Too bad they had rather a crap script to work with.

It occurred to me in thinking about this film to wonder why it had spent so many years in development hell before finally being made. Was it because film executives were afraid of the inherent strangeness of the story? Were they worried that it wouldn't appeal to a vast enough audience and end up as one large inside joke?

Probably. But the thing that really struck me after having seen the film, read the interviews, and judged the end product for myself , is that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is what I've heard referred to as a linear story. It doesn't follow a three act structure. Even when taken with the other four books, the plot wanders and meanders the way real life does. Since it was originally conceived as a radio programme, the episodic nature of the storytelling bleeds over into the novels.

It is not, in short, a story that is readily adaptable for the screen.

After Douglas Adams' death, the screenplay was handed over to Karey Kirkpatrick for a final rewrite. Not having any familiarity with the work himself, he could see why Douglas' screenplay didn't work; it didn't have an overarching plotline or theme to tie the whole thing back together. By his own admission, he created one out of thin air in the hopes that it would sell the film to a more traditional (and therefore wider) audience.

The "exploration" (and I use that term VERY loosely) of the romance between Arthur and Trillian and the theme of Arthur's reluctance to venture out of his comfort zone provide the three act structure that the studio executives at Disney so desperately craved. Unfortunately, it was a poor choice, forcing all of the rest of the story, the parts the fans love and crave, into secondary roles as subplots. Indeed, the destruction of the Earth, the search for Magrathea, and all the resulting hilarity becomes secondary to the entirely fabricated love story between Arthur and Trillian.

In addition, because the rest of the story is what most of the fans are going to go to the movie theater to see, many people will be highly disappointed when they are spoon fed a weak and horribly clichéd plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights for girl, boy wins girl back. The only good parts are the details that get thrown in between the commas.

By superimposing the Hollywood status quo onto a story which is, at its soul, anything but, the screenwriter effectively succeeded in alienating a large portion of the film's core constituency: Hitchhiker fans. The ones who can quote the novels chapter and verse, the ones who have all of the BBC TV show on tape, the ones who arrived to the theater with their towels slung enthusiastically around their necks (true story). When the quirky events they know and love get relegated to the back seat of the film, they are going to be understandably disappointed.

Unfortunately, the wider audience Disney was so worried about garnering will also come away disappointed. While the in jokes that abound throughout the movie redeem it in some small way to fans familiar with the material, I fear that much of it will fly at light speed over the heads of the uninitiated. Because the episodes have been crammed into a much shorter time, competing with new material and the dubious main plot, the actual funny bits zoom past at breakneck speed. In addition, many of the jokes are so literary -- literally excerpts from the Guide -- they cannot be quickly digested by someone who isn't reciting the words along with the film in her head. Someone who hasn't read the books would probably have to see the film more than once to appreciate many of the jokes -- and since the main plot is so terribly trite, they'll be lucky if they make it through the first sitting.

My biggest question, I suppose, was why they couldn't have come up with a better A plot. The source material is THICK with plots: Zaphod's search for Magrathea, Ford's research for the guide, Arthur's experiences being thrown out into the universe and searching for a home. Any and all of these would have made a better three act structure than the contrived romance which actually made the cut. I understand the filmmakers' need to define a rising plot line, I understand their hesitancy to make the film as a linear story, I even understand the pull of a classic love triangle. What I don't understand is how they could subvert the source material so blatantly and expect the fanatical fan base to understand.

To murder an old bit of verse, "When it was good, it was very very good, but when it was bad it was AWFUL." Trying too hard once again, Disney, and it has resulted in a bastardization of what could have been a great film. I think the thing that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy teaches us is that when you seek something as vast, as wonderful, and as mysterious as the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and -- well -- everything, it's quite probable that the answer will be more than a little disappointing.

Film Review: Lost in Translation

Sophia Coppola is a quiet filmmaker. She doesn't rely on explosions, vulgar comedy, blatant sex, or other shock-value techniques to make her films, and this makes her films both intriguing and confusing, engaging, and slightly off-putting. But somehow they work. They move quietly along, whispering in our minds, leaving ideas and images that don't immediately resonate, but that begin to ring true with time. Her films tend to shake us from within, like a deep bell tone, or the lowest note played on a pipe organ: quiet, almost beyond hearing, yet deeply felt.

The average movie goer-might not immediately connect with Coppola or her work, for she isn't producing films for mass consumption to fit every palate. Her films have a slightly foreign quality to them, as if perhaps, something was lost in the translation. And yet, I find, if one pays close enough attention, her films are fulfilling in their very lack of fulfillment.

This may sound as though I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not. A painting fulfills expectations by showing us a scene; a good painting exceeds expectations by causing our imagination to travel beyond the frame to question the story behind the scene. The painting does not tell the whole story, because it does not have to; it is the wonder that makes it great.

I feel this way about Copola's films, especially her recent award winner, Lost in Translation. While the film is very spare, using only the absolute minimum required dialog and back story to propel it along, it is somehow more powerful for leaving us to question it than it would have been had all our questions been answered. Few filmmakers could execute this successfully, but Coppola does so with inherent grace.

I would venture to say that this kind of quiet filmmaking is an almost impossibly delicate balance between the director's personal vision, which might not reach anyone but herself, and a vision suitable for the masses, which everyone can understand, but everyone has seen before. Coppola finds this balance expertly through, interestingly enough, her film's lack of concrete details. We do not know everything about Bob and Charlotte, but then, neither do they. As in life off the screen, it is enough that their creator knows them.

And therein lies the universality of Lost in Translation; it is an undeniable part of the human condition to be a seeker, to search for meaning, and to find oneself lost. There is a scene in the film when Bill Murray's character is sitting in a tub, talking to his wife on the phone, and he begins to rant about the ways in which he wants to change his life: taking better care of himself, eating better food, in short, a lifestyle overhaul. In that moment, he becomes an archetype -- not a hero, or an anti-hero, but a human being, experiencing a moment of epiphany, of wanting something more for himself, for his life and being sure of the path to take.

Every human being has experienced moments like these, and it is these universal moments of quiet revelation that characterize us; it is not explosions or unbelievable adventures or life and death situations, but simple, quiet, universal moments that define our lives and our existence as human. By tapping into these experiences, Coppola's Lost in Translation transcends traditional moviemaking, where the aim is simply to entertain, and enlightens it with the intention of quietly touching us, and making us think.

Film Review: Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban

Before I begin this review, I have to give you a brief disclaimer: as I write this, there is a Harry Potter coffee mug with the cold dregs of my morning tea sitting at my left hand. I own all 5 books in the Harry Potter series in hardcover (because I couldn't possibly wait for them to come out in paperback) and I have read all of them a minimum of two times, some as many as six times. Seriously. On top of the same bookshelf on which these books reside sits a Harry Potter trivia game (in the vein of Trivial Pursuit) and a Harry Potter chess set (from the first film). If you were to look at my DVD collection (which, for a film major like myself is surprisingly small), you would find both of the first two Harry Potter films. My point is, I am not your average adult Harry Potter fan; I have chronic Potter-mania at a level bordering on that of an 11 year old child. I will admit to you that I waited in a bookstore until midnight to be one of the first to get the fifth book when it came out. I was number 472 at my store. I know that because I kept the ticket. Such is the level of my mania.

That being said, (in far more words than was strictly necessary), I did not really love the first two Harry Potter movies. I went to both on they day they opened. I bought both of the DVDs as soon as they came out (the first before I even owned my own DVD player). Yes, it can safely be said that I like the first two movies quite a lot.

But I don't really love them.

Until Friday June 4th, I couldn't really have told you why. True, they weren't entirely faithful to the books, which I passionately love. True, some of the characters weren't entirely as I pictured them. True, some of the scenes that were cut left me asking why, as did some that were left in. But all of this is to be expected when a beloved book is made into a film. I'm a film student, for God's sake! I know better than anyone that it is impossible to fit a 200 page book into a few hours of screen time, especially a book as impossibly detailed as one of the Harry Potters. Cuts must be taken, sacrifices made. This is why they're called "adaptations."

But knowing all this didn't make that uneasy feeling go away. Something was wrong. Something was missing. What, I couldn't say.

Then, at 8:30 on Friday night, as that delightfully catchy John Williams theme began playing and the entire theater around me erupted into spontaneous excited applause, I began to find out.

I don't know who made the decision at Warner Brothers to hand the reigns of the Harry Potter franchise over to a new director. I suspect, from what I've read, that Chris Columbus wisely thought that the series would get stale if not reinvented periodically. Who actually decided to take that leap of faith and hire a new director, we may never know, but he should be awarded an honorary Oscar for saving the Harry Potter film franchise.

Cuaron is, in every way, the best thing that ever happened to the franchise, and I will tell you why. Cuaron envisions the world of Harry Potter and his friends and enemies as a real world. An existing world; not a figment of the imagination. Harry's muggle family no longer seem to live in a cast-off section of EuroDisney entitled "Suburbia," but in the real, and infinitely more frightening and depressing world of cookie-cutter suburbs and urban decay. The castle is no longer a pretty CGI fabrication of a pastoral, run down building, but a truly ancient, magical place with a sense of time and history to it. The children are no longer puppets moving through a technicolor set of brilliant backdrops, but real adolescents with real problems that just happen to also include magic. The difference between Cuaron's vision and Columbus' is that Columbus envisioned his films as fantasy; Cuaron envisioned his as drama.

Although one can tell from the opening frame that this version is going to be different, the true magic doesn't happen until the second hour of the film, when I finally, finally found myself reliving some of the page-turning anticipation and involvement that had kept me so glued to the books. Finally the pace, action, and acting all have come together to produce that tightly knit and masterfully woven exhilaration that Potter is famous for. Finally, I fell in love.

The most convincing evidence I can give you for this, is that my complaints about the original two films still hold true: I am still disappointed by some of the things that were left on the cutting room floor, or indeed, never even made it before the cameras. I am disgruntled that the crew didn't take a little more care in keeping continuity with the first two films (Professor Flitwick anyone??), as this film, no matter how different, is still intended to be a part of a whole. And I do challenge a few plot holes that would have left an uneducated viewer (ie: one who has not read all the books multiple times) scratching his head. The real difference is that this time, I don't care! None of these little shortcomings overshadows the overall success of the film. THAT is the thing that truly sets this film apart from its predecessors.

I could go on and on about all the little things that I loved. I could praise the art direction and cinematography for days on end. I could extol the much more judiciously used effects until I am hoarse. I could talk about the delightful changes in all the young actors, their growing into their trade, and the impossibly wonderful cast of brilliant adult actors who nurture them into their roles. And I may do all that and more, at another time.

For now, I will finish with this simple statement of fact: I have already dusted off a space on my shelf for the third film in my DVD collection, and I am already trying to determine what would be a reasonable amount of time to wait before going to see the film in theaters a second time.

I love this film.