December 9th, 2004

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Movies
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Trailer

Via Waxy, who describes this film as the “most unnecessary remake since Gus van Sant’s Psycho“. I’d generally concur–the original is so creepy and weird. Check out the trailer for yourself–Johnny Depp looks kind of creepy, but mostly he reminds of Tom Petty in the video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More”.

I think Tim Burton suffers from a stylistic variation of the Shyamalan Effect. I just made that up. It’s the phenomenon where-in one aspect of a director’s work overshadows the rest of his efforts. The result is a certain predictability in their films. For M. Night Shyamalan, it’s the big twist in the third act.

For Burton, it’s his distinct visual style. When you see a snippet of a Burton film, you immediately know it’s a Burton film. That speaks to his artistry, but it can get tired after a while.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Johnny Nemo
December 9th, 2004
9:25 pm

Burton is what they call “visually creative”, which means that his *shots* are good, but his *movies* are awful. He’ll throw away everything else for a cool moment, but he can’t knit those moments into a whole. He needs a strong script, and a strong producer to make him *stick* to the script.

Shyamalan might be hamstrung by racism and typecasting. At least he writes his own stuff. But THE SIXTH SENSE was a horrible cheat; the movie only worked if what we saw on screen was all that happened, and the restaurant scene (”I thought you meant our other favourite restaurant,”) blew the gimmick totally. THE OTHERS used the same gimmick, but didn’t cheat.

Both these men are *neo-hacks* — creative people who have so thoroughly absorbed the virtues of the marketplace that they are incapable of realizing they’ve sold out before they begin. Where there used to be a certain craftsmanship to be admired about the honest hack, these guys actually think they’re artists.

I’m far from the first to suggest that Hollywood shouldn’t remake past successes; they should remake the flops. “Oh, *that’s* what we did wrong with that! Now we can do it right!”

[Reply]

Rog
December 9th, 2004
11:47 pm

Meh, count me as a vote for no remakes at all.

I confess a certain addiction to Tim Burton’s style, but for this remake in particular, the style of the original was already bold enough that it shouldn’t be trodden upon.

Besides which, no matter how much I like Johnny Depp, he’s not Gene Wilder.

[Reply]

Sue
December 10th, 2004
6:24 pm

I’d like to echo Rog… I’m not one to say ANYTHING bad against Johnny Depp, but there’s no way he can fill the Wonka shoes. I can tell from the trailer that Depp is going to be playing a caricature of himself playing Willy Wonka, NOT the character itself.

Besides, I always thought Wonka was a really sinister, wacked-out guy. Depp is much too handsome and ordinary-looking to pay any justice to the role.

[Reply]

The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns
July 26th, 2005
7:19 pm

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – PC police beware

Like any parent with deferred-parenting skills might do, I took my kids to see Charlie and the chocolate factory. Having seen the original 1971 version, I have to admit I was eager to see how a great kids story would…

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