Welcome back to the pod.
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Welcome to the polarized podcast.
This is a podcast about movies, polarizing movies matter of fact,
and polarizing the sense of rotten tomato scores.
Sometimes critics love it.
Sometimes audiences heat it or vice versa.
Those are the movies that we cover on this pod to day and forever.
Yeah, this is what it's always going to be.
So just buckle up.
I mean, get ready for that.
I am your host.
I'm one of the hosts of said pod.
And right now I'd like to introduce my other host, my cohost.
We also like to refer to him as the forever guest.
Mr. James Lindsay.
Hey, how's it going?
Hey, how are you?
It's me, James Lindsay, and you are the brandini.
I am the brandini.
And you know, I reintroduce you.
I did the Uno reverse card.
You know what?
I would know you kind of know you know you know you know, you know,
you're going to get. Now introduce.
I actually kind of feel like a rusty刀.
DQUE because I would also like to say.
I haven't said yet.
That's a new cocktail, but OK, so it's the newest cocktail.
Hot as gock.
Dowling town,
we're talking to Charlie, Charlie, and theioca factory today.
The 2005 timberton film score, 83% critics.
51% audience.
Pew, Pew, Stinky Stinky.
You go on one side
Ring a ding ding.
Sign me up for more of that, please, from the critics on this one.
From the critics.
It's a critically favored movie.
And I'll get into it later, but I did notice the Amazon Prime reviews
were very positive in the audience side as well.
So for whatever reason, on the round tomatoes, audiences like no spank you.
Right. Oh, interesting.
I wonder why. OK.
Yeah.
Well, that's that's OK, but I don't get it either.
And the thing that makes that makes sense, though, to me, what doesn't make
sense is that the critics like this movie.
Yeah, I would expect it to be switch.
Wazy.
Uh huh. Me, too, man.
I definitely expected this to be switched.
This is something we usually talk to talk about like a little bit later
in the podcast, I feel like, but I'm curious, like, why you think that is
like the critics were so down on this, you think they were still feeling
that Tim Tim Burton, you know, sort of juice that the director
is that hasn't didn't quite run dry at this point in terms of like
things that were visually pleasing to the eyes and
not completely all blown out with the green screen and CGI and everything.
Because what was what was before Charlie on the Chaga factory?
It was big fish.
And I love that movie.
That's grown to be that was like the most improved player on my Tim Burton.
If I had a tier list or a ranking or whatever, big fish would because I
I didn't see it when it came out and I kind of just wrote it off.
And then I finally saw it.
And I'm kind of glad that I waited till I was a little bit older to watch it
because then it hit me like a fucking freight train.
And a break every time I watch it.
But that one, that one is one of his best ones for sure.
And this one is, I think the beginning to the latter half of his career,
I feel like it's is going to be like half of his movies look like this now.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the other half look a little bit more like big fish because you're
if you're telling me that's what's before this, this is like this is
the dividing line between those two movies is is this how these two
movies look completely different.
Yeah, also to like different things.
Big big fish is a great dividing line because it is such a different thing.
It's it's such a different movie in comparison to his other movies leading
up to this point.
And kind of Oscar.
A little bit.
Yeah.
A little.
Yeah.
Because it's very like sleepy hollow probably before that.
Well, I planted a the age before that.
Oh, shit.
Yeah.
But then and then I like that.
Yeah, but then and then I like Sweeney Todd.
I don't know.
Me too.
Yeah, me too.
I think Sweeney Todd does the visuals that this movie is trying to do better.
I agree.
You know, and maybe it's just because of the technology and the muddy
gray darkness lends itself to just like being backdrop for that the
the actors and the people to stand on the stage and sing their song.
And yeah.
And that's that's the action in that movie for the most part.
The couple slices in the couple days.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Big big plot point there.
Yeah.
I like Sweeney Todd too, man.
I like the song from there.
Brandini's Miracle Elixir.
Little bit of high noon.
Apparel spritz.
Okay.
All right.
Well, let's bank that one.
Because I'm like, Bang, or I mean, the music there is not written the same.
I was I was trying to think of like going into this because I think you and I
I know I do.
I relish the times when we get to have a musical to talk about on our podcast.
Me too.
And I feel like I've really grown to enjoy it.
Yeah.
I've always I've always liked musicals and I've always like horror movies.
I think being able to sit down and talk about them with you in this podcast
have kind of made those genres I've loved even even more and more as and I feel like I've gotten to know both a lot.
A lot more musicals and horror are completely different, but I've for those are a little bit of a blind spot.
Some of like the more like essentials and I feel like I've grown those out a bit more and seen seen more of those kinds of movies since starting this podcast as well.
And it's a bummer that starting this episode.
Yeah, I was like, what song would I want to listen to?
And I have this Augustus glup on on ready whenever we want to hear a little song if we want to.
But it's like that's even starting from that base element and starting there and also inevitably we are going to compare it to the original.
And if we're starting with we actually have another comparison that we're going to talk about as well.
I'd be happy to lump that into this as well.
The new Wonka movie which we've both seen and you know, we won't.
There's nothing really intense to spoil.
It has a similar ending to the curse and I won't say why for anyone who might be wondering.
I haven't yet.
And the reasons might surprise you.
But the music of all three.
I found myself thoroughly just charmed by the new one and the music that they instilled in that one was.
Subtle and not to show to any way that was taking away from the more innocence and purity of the characters and everything.
It seemed to be more like like the carnival sort of aspect to it a little bit of someone, you know, kind of rolling into town and and opening up as a fun house and all that stuff was.
Really, really great and just like delicate like gentle soft music.
This is just like.
And then at five different songs on top of each other start start going and then the original which I watched again.
I watched all three leading up to this recording and everything and I just yeah, you can't can't discredit how wonderful every single song except for cheer up Charlie.
That's like the everyone has agreed upon skipping over that one.
But even now when I have probably rather listen to over I still can like sing sing it and know a little bit of it rather than this one where it's like I can't even do let's let's do a little taste just because we've been talking about and we can get on with our our conversation.
And we'll and then or if there's any other songs that that you're thinking of.
Just shout them out, shout them out in the chat.
The Veruca song was my favorite.
Oh, is that one the one that kind of gets a little Beatles.
Yeah, it gets a little bit of a little lamb glasses.
You should be you should be wearing your glasses for that song.
This is the whole lead up to a skip ahead a little bit here.
Of course they haven't had a fresh audience in many more.
This is a huge song.
The introduction, you know, it's.
It all looks terrible.
Yeah, you're right.
This is a great big.
So big and.
The time is right.
I don't know what it is.
This one is like the least offensive to me, I feel like.
I guess the Veruca one.
But.
Visually, it just kind of it's it's a.
It's in my mind, it's these concepts.
Art images that they.
Storyboarded out with Tim Burton.
And he had gotten to this blank check, if you will period in his.
Right.
Era of filmmaking where they just looked at all the storyboards.
And they told them like, if this is what you want, we can.
We'll throw all the money at it to make it exactly.
In your mind, how you want it to look.
And.
He had, he didn't need to cut any corners.
He didn't need to get practical with too much.
He did with other things.
He spent a lot of money on getting practical with training
squirrels, which we saw a little bit of before recording.
So cookie.
Yeah, it seems like just whatever he storyboarded out,
they just sort of like, yeah, make it.
We'll make it happen in post.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, there's there's some visual stuff in this movie that
is cool.
Like a lot of the stuff with.
Charlie's house.
Oh yeah, I like that.
I think the factory exterior is interesting.
It just doesn't go with.
Christopher Lee's house in the snow.
I like that a lot.
Oh, love, love that a lot.
Yeah, there's there's some stuff visually in this.
And but I agree with you, regardless about, you know,
this is a point in his career where, and I mean,
just to speak to him in general is like, he started as like an
animation guy, like he was, you know, his whole stick has been
the visuals of the visuals of a Tim Burton movie are very
distinct and stylized.
Yeah, it's been, yeah, super stylized.
It's just Colin Carter.
It's just, you know, it's what he's about.
And that definitely is on display here in the movie,
but man, there's just also times where it's a blank
checkpoint of it.
It's like.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
It was going to start getting into this, the movie plotting of
it. But before I do that, I mean, I just want to establish
between the two of us of like, when you think about a successful
Wonka movie now at this point, like you've brought up naturally,
the songs being a big part of it, you know, mind you, this comes
from a kid's book.
So obviously songs aren't like a necessity when you're talking
when you're, I guess, adapting this into a movie, but because of
the very first one with Gene Wilder, like it's now a staple of
it, that it is a musical by and large, which then I just, I
think really well, reaches its actualization in the newest one
that is very much, it is the most musical of all of them.
And it doesn't really successfully because it's a musical in the
sense that like major plot points kind of get sung and the and
those songs are like big and fun and go into character stuff and
really, really hits the like, it hits the spot, it hits the mark
on if you think Wonka is because of who he is as a character,
you know, him being this like magical ringleader,
just, yeah, like larger than life, kooky character.
It's understandable why you would think music from the get go from
the early one, why you would think music would be a good fit for
this because him being a ringleader type person would be, you
know, kind of conducting this whole like, oh, and now this song
and now that song and all of that.
But other, you know, kind of Wonka is some of the
isms or things a Wonka movie should have to is the
it's like the factory of it all, like how the chocolate is
getting made.
Yeah, like that whole stuff that yeah, just chocolate, I guess
maybe like really highlighting what candy means to children,
what candy means, like how it fits in the world and establishing
that.
And then I mean, the first one was it was very cynical in that
way and had a lot of the dry British humor that I had forgotten
about.
Right.
And then it was kind of, it was fun.
A few years back, I went to the Hollywood Bowl here in Los
Angeles and went and saw an orchestra playing the music live
to the movie as I watched it in a, you know, a beautiful amphitheater
and they passed out little cards, scratch and sniff cards and
you would scratch and sniff.
There would be like, OK, now scratch your card at this moment.
You would smell like something.
Oh, my God.
And then like, Snausberries, of course, and you scratch a
Snausberry and smell like Snausberry is very fun.
What was my what was my bigger, bigger point?
I forget.
Chocolate candy in the movie.
Like, oh, just that.
Oh, just that I had forgotten that this like this, the cynicism
and the consumerism in the satire that had been prevalent in
that original one that it was poking at because there's this
whole montage when it's announced that about the tickets of
everyone just going bananas for it and then shaming Charlie at
school and all that stuff.
And then like the counterfeit ticket and everything and the
slug worth stuff, which isn't the slug worth thing isn't a
thing in this one.
It just they kind of.
Right, right.
Yeah, your slug worth being like the other chocolate.
Yeah.
And then that's like the trick that Willy Wonka plays it
because it's not actually slug worth.
It's just him testing them to see if they're trustworthy.
And then at the end like spies because there's that whole, you
know, part of the movie where, yeah, and then it gets into it.
It gets more into the father thing with Willy Wonka in this one,
which that's that I think that's the interchangeable kind of
stuff there.
And where the first one jumping head, but how it just fucking
like ends in this like just most joyful, the happiest moment
right at the very end, like all everything is wrapped up so
fucking quickly, like he gets mad at first, you know, and he's
like, you stole fucking fizzy lifting drinks and you signed a
contract, you get nothing, nothing good days, sir.
I love that.
And he has all like half stuff in his office.
Sorry, I was talking about this movie, but and then they launch
off the glass elevator.
He's just like, can my family stay not like, I don't know.
I didn't have a good fire.
I don't have a good relationship with my father.
So that's going to be that's going to be a whole another 20
minutes to the movie because I don't I'm not a well adjusted
person.
But and Gene Wilder is like, well, of course, Charlie, more
the merrier and then take with me and you'll be in a world of
pure imagination.
And then it's like, oh my God, I feel the best after this
movie flying off on a glass elevator to the song and everyone's
going to be leveling living happily ever after.
And in Charlie and Charlie and the chocolate factory, he's
just like, fuck your family, you know, and then he's then they
separate and then they got figured their own shit out and come
back together to the avail of, you know, Willie Wonka as a
character and getting more into his backstory, which there is a
way to do it.
Wonka does it to me.
Like, but that's like, but that's like, but that's propelling
the story forward in a way and not looking back too long because
and with Wonka and Timothy Chalamet, like there's definitely
backstory, but it doesn't dwell on it in a way that hinges like
hinges the movie up in the third act, which is what is what
happens in this one.
Yeah.
I mean, to me, the reason for the father stuff and the way
that it's portrayed, which is it's yeah, it was so crazy to watch
this movie, Charlie and the Chakra Factory and be like, oh, so
everything we're going to tackle the father stuff and just
tack on the father stuff.
It seems like it's interspersed.
Absolutely.
In the movie, but what is like the actual conflict in the
resolution are all tacked on at the end and and the conflict is
so like basic and obvious of like, right?
Oh, he had a father, a dentist father that hated chocolate.
Oh, big surprise.
Like I was just so obvious and I get that it's I don't know,
maybe it's like a folk tale or whatever.
So I can get a good turn trying to try to play it out and
everything.
And like, oh, he's trying to teach him a lesson about how bad
candy was and he was just such a villainous sort of evil and
all that, but he ended up being proud at the end.
And I just didn't do much for me because it was so like tacked
on and just hit the very flat basic notes of like, oh, he
hated him and now he's proud of him like or he chocolate and
kid love chocolate and made it his whole life.
And now the father's proud of it.
I don't know.
It's just very basic.
Not worth it.
Yeah.
But it's it's also representative of Tim Burton, like ethos and
where he's coming from because it is, you know, so relate.
It's like the most him Burton like himself in the movie like
Edward Scissorhands like Edward Scissorhands where, you know,
Tim Burton grew up as essentially an emo kid to a father who
didn't understand him and then our goth kid.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I guess he's pretty easy.
People might come out to me for that.
Maybe just punk, punk in general.
He's a little punk.
He's a little but nonetheless, like different, you know,
cool.
His dad would have described him as like a weird or different kid.
And it is something that I obviously has been such a major
influence in Tim Burton's life as, you know, the reason that he
has these very dark and morose, like aesthetics to his movies is
because of this being a misunderstood, you know, creative
type that, you know, essentially grew up with.
I think his dad was like a salesman or, you know, some,
some like office corporate job.
Yeah.
He definitely has ideas about, you know, 50s, ideal, like American
Dream sort of America and, and doing griffs on that for sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I mean, and it's so interesting to think about all three of
the movies coming from the like director, like what the director
cares about and how that manifests itself in the movie because
with the Wonka movie, it is just so clear the place that like
the voice, like where it's coming from and what it believes
about or how it views the world.
And it just has such a more like, not optimistic, but it has
such a more like bursting with joy.
Which one, the newest one or the newest one?
Definitely.
Optimistic.
Yeah.
And, you know, and it's dealing with their sad stuff and that
one for sure, too.
There is for sure.
The sad stuff.
The thing is poignant and they handle it very delicately.
They handle it so fucking well in my mind.
Like all of the stuff that about his mother and the Wonka
movie, the new one, like just wanting to be this person that
has, you know, like living up to expectations from a parent
and like, you know, what that means and reconciling with
your own destiny.
Just wow, really crushes a lot of that where by the end of it,
it just had me in the palm of its hand where I was like so into
the.
I was so behind Wonka.
I was so on his side.
And this movie I am not on Wonka side at all.
He's weird, mean, just crazy, unlikeable.
At this point to propagate and to have him portray himself
like that and then go into his character even more so than the
Gene Wilder one just gets it backwards and wrong in a way
because yeah, it really does seem reverse where Gene Wilder
is seems like approachable.
But then once once you get into it with him, it's like almost
like, are we having two different conversations right now?
Or but his eyes are gentle and he's smiling.
But then you realize the content of what he's saying and
everything that he's doing is kind of just like, oh, he's kind
of like treating me like or like deep down like he doesn't
he's being a little stinker and he's fucking with me and he's
goofing, but he's doing it in like a tongue-in-cheek sort of fun.
Like we're saying like a like a like a hooligan and a circus or
something like a ring ringleader and just doing a little fun,
fun tricks.
And but then there is this there is a coldness and then and
there's a calculate calculated sort of way of his being as
well.
But then it all falls down at the end and I'm restating that in
that one because when it does, he is so joyful and happy and
that's what's inside and he's willing to show that vulnerable
side.
But this is who Willy Wonka is through and through on this one.
So when he's showing you showing you cold and calculated on
the outside, he is that on the inside as well.
And there is no difference in that the end when he does just
like, no, this is just who he is and who he's been.
And to take that character and to try and get into him more is
just upsetting when Gene Wilder is like, I would rather get into
him more Gene Wilder, but I like the mystery of it all.
And even with this one, it's like with how weird this guy is,
you would just be like, yeah, let's just be satisfied with the
fucking mystery of how weird this dude is.
We don't really need to get to know any more about it or whatever.
Like even seeing him and like the head gear and then the normal
sort of town and all that stuff.
I'm like, really?
I don't know.
You seem like you came from the moon.
Like, no way.
Like you just grew up like down the street.
Get out of here.
Like what?
Like you know, I'm not satisfied with this explanation.
You know, we get a little bit of him going to the Oompa Loompa
Land and get some of that.
Yeah, it's I kind of remember that.
I just remember so much of the release of this movie and going
to see this movie in the theater.
Weirdly from a big deal.
It was such a huge deal growing up because it was an issue.
And I don't remember.
But yeah, like it'd be it being pitched as this darker Wonka
movie and getting into, you know, generating excitement in
our demographic because it's not going to be a kid's movie.
It's going to be like a dark, you know, darker take on something.
And.
So where the emo thing makes sense.
So you said earlier, because all the hot topic kids were just,
you know, jumping for joy.
Jumping for joy.
Yeah.
But man, it's so weird.
The guy who did Corpse Ride.
Oh, no.
Oh, it's my favorite movie.
Yeah.
But it's isn't it so interesting like watching a movie like this
now at a later point in our lives.
Where that stuff sucks.
It's like kind of grading for it to just be so.
Like edge lordy a little bit.
It's overcompensating a bit.
Right.
It's.
It's so there.
There's such a weird unassuredness of itself of like,
what do we care about?
Do we care about anything?
Like, and just that kind of almost that conundrum that I'm,
that, you know, goth and emo kids run into.
It's like, you want love.
We all want love.
But then the way that you express it is like, well, you can't,
you know, I've been burned so many times or such a complicated
relationship with just other human beings.
So I don't know how to express that.
But I think, you know, you really just get an idea.
Like it's very Edward Scissor hands.
Like here is a guy that, you know,
wants to find connection, but doesn't know how.
And it doesn't.
And it's kind of both Edward Scissor hands and Vincent Price in
that movie.
Because he's like the factory owner and like the boy in a way.
I don't know.
Oh, totally.
Yeah.
Like just like Tim Burton.
Yeah.
So this movie.
Yeah.
I mean, how did you think that opening montage looked at the factory
making of the chocolate?
Oh, I mean, it's so Tim Burton.
It's this fucking music at that point.
Really.
No, it's it's music at that point.
It felt like Mars attacks.
Yeah.
There was like a lot of the, I guess it's a naturally a
Theraman like.
Like where you like like this is a cookie movie about to watch.
The effects are very of the time.
And it.
Yes.
They don't look great now.
Do not really hold up.
Yeah.
No.
And I think the biggest problem with them.
It sucks that it's all like automated chocolate being made and
everything here just like.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, it's like, it's like,
it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like,
it's like automatic meshing.
It's like, it's like, it's like because I've been just upload
the machine, right?
Yeah.
It's newspaper.
And you get all these hot dogs.
And you like trackers.
And you know, he really, you get all this fucking,
this dude has pullers, all the hot dog dressing.
Okay.
But shit.
So, so shit.
It's beneficial.
And it's bearish man.
So, so shit,某ets,me 겁니다,
I don't think I remember the game is so intense.
So, this car guy.
Yeah.
So it's just everything is everything is not grounded to the world.
It's just here's a conveyor belt going into blackness.
Here are things holding a thing spinning around to no end, essentially.
And it just sets you in the mood of this movie.
I guess, but man, off from from the beginning, I'm like, I do not care for the vibe of this.
Where, again, yeah, like you said, it's just it's so cold.
It's so CGI.
But the Danny Elfman score, right?
It's kind of cool.
If, yeah, if you're into the Danny Elfman of it all, it's it's bank.
It's like it's a very quintessential Danny Elfman score.
Like it's it's in that in the most.
Yeah.
It's like an exacting sort of sort of way.
And I just thought it sounded a little extra terrestrial at some point with some
of those those noises, but it's bringing you into the vibe of the movie.
And then you get to the house, which is like conceptually
like looks really cool as a shot of like all these uniform buildings, which is just
like, yeah, like a lot of gray and it's kind of drab and it's boring.
Like it's rough to rough to look at, but it's almost worth it to see
like the contrast of Charlie's house amidst it all is like.
I get the idea that he's he's trying to elicit.
And that is like the Edward Scissorhands of like all these little boxes of houses.
Then there's just one weird fucked up one or there's a castle way up on a hill.
And this is where this character is.
And,
yeah, and you know, you get the his take on on the grandparents in the bed.
And having celery soup and Helen Abonnam Carter killing it.
I don't know. We got Grandpa Joe got you.
He's pretty good. I don't can't say I was.
Joe, he's my favorite part of the movie.
I can't recall him from much else.
I like his his stories of being the in the worker in the factory.
I like that moment.
I thought that was good.
Like getting a little I like that idea of getting glimpses of Wanka.
I don't want all like the backstory of him growing up in Daddy Dentist.
Just like, yeah, he gave me this chocolate that turned into a fucking bird in my mouth.
And just like, oh, that gives me just a little little something to to go off of,
you know, like to titillate my the mystery of it all.
And then the other thing that I thought was really funny this time.
And I remember in I recall in the theaters, people laughing to you of
he's like, OK, go out and buy me a bar of chocolate, Charlie.
And he's like, OK, I'll be right back.
He's like, OK.
And then slowly fades off into black.
Then Charlie's like, Grandpa, I'm back.
And then he just wakes up and he like cut the editing and the pacing of that.
It was perfect of him like falling asleep and waking up like
that really felt like taking a nap and waking up and being like, wait,
how much time passed with the hell?
That was great.
What the hell?
I mean, and his dance is a little like
me, did he do?
Oh, trust, I'm a big grandpa Joe dance fan.
Yeah. And it just goes to like why he in my mind is my favorite because he
provides actual joy and wonder.
I know that Charlie is relatively good about that and being like, oh, wow.
Like, oh, man, I like I love chocolate.
Like, I know life sucks, but like, man, you know,
I'm getting to share these little nuggets of
hmm, sweetness in life or, you know, or something to cherish and something
to strive to much better than original grandpa Joe.
Are you are you aware of the subreddit grandpa Joe hate?
Oh, no, of the original.
No, but I could understand why because he's kind of a commotion.
There's a whole subreddit of people just dunking on grandpa Joe and telling
how shitty of a person he is and oh, you got the golden ticket also.
You can get out of the bed and help out a little bit around the house.
Huh?
Oh, right.
Like, you kind of looks mean to this guy.
They were like using his using the money for his tobacco.
I said, motherfucker, like they haven't celery soup.
It's Charlie's birthday.
He needs a birthday.
It's Charlie's birthday.
No tobacco for you, grandpa Joe.
You stole was he was he lifting drinks?
Good day.
So I thought it was so funny when he was telling the story about working in the
factory to Charlie, he said he was a much younger man, but it's.
Yeah, that was good.
That was good.
Funny.
Yeah, I like that.
That's all that that lands.
That's a that typically is a joke that'll get me.
Somebody is in there in there.
Some good stuff, the visual stuff is good, and then the
the arc of the father, I thought, you know, was pretty good, too.
Of like him
to replace by the robot and then getting job fixing the robot.
That's fun.
Nice little arc for for him to like land on his own feet in his own way.
That was apart from the Willy Wonka and the chocolate and the chocolate factory
and all that stuff like they still got to take the house and live there and all
that stuff, but he was he's like, I'm going to go work at the toothpaste
factory right down the street.
You know, we keep each other in business.
Us too.
No, yeah, we got to we got a big, the biggest chocolate factory in the world
and a big toothpaste factory.
Where do they live?
Really, just why is everything so sad?
Oh, yeah.
And that's, you know, that's an interesting thing that you brought up earlier.
Because people steal commentary on the like England in that time.
Even though I don't know if they
do they see where they are like really in this movie?
It's England.
I mean, all the all the houses and everything like in the flats.
I don't know. It just it does
wreak of that, but it's just it's so like fake, you know, and you see.
And you see the original is just like he's just in a town and he's a normal kid.
Like, I don't know, this is this is like some
it's already telling you fantasy before you've gone into the chocolate factory.
It's already just screaming like this is some fantasy world
before you've even walked in the door and I like how normal everything is.
And I'm sorry, I'm I'm relating.
But even in the newest one, too, it's just like, you know,
in the shopping mall and magical things happen around them.
And there is a magic magic in the air magic between them.
And yeah, and there's like you and there's and it's all fun.
And it's it's all for fun.
And that's the biggest difference, right?
It'll bite you in the ass if you're an asshole occasionally, you know, whatever.
I mean, that and that's where this movie, in my mind, is the worst of the three,
because this movie isn't fun.
It is really pessimistic and just hates its characters.
Like, oh, it just it's so wild to me, you know.
That's that approach that a director can have on material,
because there is a place that it's coming from in, like,
like deciphering the text to the movie that you could get to that conclusion.
Because rural doll is kind of an asshole or is an asshole.
It was like a huge asshole.
Like I guess it came out like saying that he actually kind of hates kids.
But like what is it?
He's like he actually hates kids, but like he likes writing about kids to like
teach them not to be shits is like kind of the vibe that I got from him.
Like he knows how to write kids stories well, because he's like.
Sees the bad behaviors that people exhibit as adults coming from being bad kids.
And he's able to just make those connections to like creating characters
in which that's like the case of creating these like shits of kids.
And like to tell other kids to be like that.
I know, right?
That whole situation is so crazy.
You know, they just like, yeah, which I'll write.
I'll write one for you.
You write one for me.
Hey, find you come over here and write one of my stories.
Yes.
Then being friends to him and the in Fleming, I am Fleming.
It's hilarious too, because it also speaks to their character, because it's both
British men who served in the army that are raging alcoholics and pessimists
after it and just have just such a
yeah, such a fucked up way of looking at the world.
But both are imaginative to you and found, I guess, what they were best at,
which it was.
I read the elevator sequel as a kid.
And I remember that being bonkers.
But I all I remember is that it was bonkers, but I don't remember too much.
I remember the grandparents they come along to and they just like travel the fucking
universe. It's weird and written by him as well.
Moving on in this movie,
Brandon's just walking away for a second, so I'll just lay out a little more plot
here so we get into the gold ticket of it all.
Oh, wait, there's this moment.
Brandon's back.
There's this moment when they're talking about Willie
Wanka, I think kind of before during like the first announcing of the golden
tickets where they and this just cracked me up so hard this time because this
movie had come out before this other movie when I used to watch this movie
Bunch on DVD.
But after Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story and that line about you can't.
Can't build you a house of chocolate or a little milk in the sun.
Son, and there's a whole sub story in this movie about about this.
And this must have been from the book to it just really felt like.
Yeah, just like builds a whole palace of chocolate.
He's like, well, you better start eating.
Right. And then they just now that was pretty.
It's just crazy.
It's like that was pretty practical.
You look in the background and there's like a fuzziness and a haze to some of
the stuff and there's the color correction.
It's fucking awful at this and gals in Wonderland is a whole nother level.
But this one at least has some like practical stuff.
But then they color corrected to make it all clean and it just ends up making
everything look like kind of shitty.
But watching some behind the scenes stuff today, man, they have this whole
fucking thing stage set up with a bunch of brown melting goo just coming off the
walls and them sitting right in the middle.
It was like this is like pretty much happening like practically.
That was that surprised me.
The stuff that was practical.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the craziest.
But that was a funny story.
And yet you cannot build a house and chocolate.
It'll melt in the sun.
It will melt in the sun.
Oh, that's just getting not if it never rain.
Not if it never.
I think I'm doing pretty well for a 14 year old with a wife.
OK.
But yeah, then we get the all the golden tickets.
I mean, this kind of goes by the numbers of the first one pretty well,
especially with all the violet stuff and like the fact like all the.
Yeah, all the girls like all the ladies like
unwrapping everything and that's like, yeah,
that behind the scenes stuff was just interesting.
A little bit of that were like there's a big room of all these people unwrapping
all these chocolates and there's just someone with a megaphone going one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, because there's columns of people
taking boxes out, opening and then passing them and then moving to the next one.
And down the column of line of people, they want it all to be symmetrical
and uniform and everyone doing things at the same time.
So on three, you grab that box on five, you open the box on seven, you go to the next box.
So everyone down the line is all doing the same thing.
And that was pretty cool to see.
You know, this is a big operation.
I remember yeah, this movie coming out was just a big deal and to see some of
that stuff leading into it and Tim Burton taking on this this big thing is like,
yeah, must have been must have been a lot.
Yeah, and there's my TV, Augustus Gloop.
We got all our guys.
We got the who's the gum chewing glass?
Veruca.
That's Veruca.
And then by the way, Ruka and Violet Beauregard.
Yeah, Veruca with the gum chewing.
Her mom sent a lot of stuff.
I like her. Yeah.
A lot. She's funny.
She's a good actor.
She knows how to just do this.
These big eyes and smile that just.
Yeah, lights up a room.
She's got these eyes.
Yeah, I mean, they get into the factory and like the I love like the how about
that song when they.
And I might go barrel in too far too far ahead.
No, no, barrel through it.
I mean, yeah, remind me kind of another spy kids.
Flupas a man and help us save us moment.
Well, I can only like.
And then when you had the DVD and you started that bad boy up after you got to
the menu or like the menu would start to be like Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka.
And then they would like open up and be like, here's all the buttons.
Play special features and just be having that like playing in the background.
Like play the movie, play the movie.
I don't want to hear the song anymore.
Or you would watch the whole movie and fall asleep at the end or in the credits.
And then you'd wake up to the DVD menu.
Do you remember those days, Brandon?
I do. And you'd wake up to just like the loop of just like.
Willy Wonka or whatever the movie might be.
Oh, DVD.
Oh, DVD menus.
The days.
What a time.
That was something that.
Yeah, there's certain parts I remember being in the theater and having like
here, feeling people's reactions.
And that was with someone where people were like, what is this?
It's good. Yeah.
The same as everyone, all the other people, the characters on screen.
Everyone was just feeling the same thing in the theater.
I think of just like, oh, absolutely.
Hashtag random at the time.
Hashtag random.
Of course they would because Johnny Depp's performance is an insane,
insane performance.
Yeah, here we go.
He has a voice.
He has this whole him smiling in a like.
I don't understand.
Look.
The intro to him is wild to me because it is
the puppets or marionettes or whatever you would call them.
Yeah.
Just burning, just lighting on, getting lit on fire.
Very dark, very scary.
Even like his, his entrance is like, oh, this is a psychopath.
And I guess that's in Burns version of.
Walking normal and then falling, but getting back up and everything is fine is
a song and then burning down, but then it doesn't get back up and everything's
fine, it's just burns down.
And then the getting back up, I guess, is just like, oh, there's Willy Wonka.
And it's such a weird pacing of it all.
It is.
Because he's just pans over and he's just there.
Yeah, he's like standing next to him like, oh, isn't this so crazy?
Isn't this so funny and quirky that like who are you?
And he's like, yeah, it's me.
It's me. I'm Willy Wonka.
I almost made me feel like at the time I was like, is he just trying to do as much
opposite of Jack Sparrow as he can?
Right. Maybe that's being too like.
I don't know. Maybe that's simplifying it too much.
Because where is the inspiration coming from?
Because it definitely feels Michael Jackson.
Yeah, it does.
Like that's maybe that's too easy.
But it's just like bringing kids into his factory to never, never land.
I don't know.
Is that too easy?
And I remember people at the time because Michael Jackson and his,
as you know, almost at that time was like very much in the news and people were
talking about it. So to do a riff on him as a character was a take.
And I remember people being like, wow, he's just, yeah, he's doing like a Michael
Jackson thing.
Yeah, right.
Because I mean, this would have been around that time where it's like,
hey, you know, all the South Park shit, all the South Park stuff.
Yeah, he just he has.
Well, yeah, it's Johnny Depp is
really, really running with this character and performance and wanting to make it
very unique.
And I think a lot of that just has to do with the fact of like the gene wilder
trying to be, you know, gene wilder setting the standard and trying to elevate that.
You just have to go completely different, I think, is Johnny Depp's.
Or yes, I can't do that version any better.
So I have to go completely.
Yeah, yeah, completely, completely different.
But is it coming from Johnny Depp?
Is it coming from Tim Burton?
The idea and the whole
GUI center of who that who that character is and how they portray themselves and
the comedic timing of it all is like there.
And sometimes it hits, but mostly it's just uncomfortable and unsettling and not
fun to be around. He's not a fun character to be around.
And gene wilder, even when he is a prick, you know, like he'll say something and kind
of like, you know, yeah, like you can tell he's kind of an asshole.
But then that comes from a simple 10.
He's he's like a hermit or whatever.
He's like this weird, this weird eclectic dude that is doesn't relate with people.
But with Johnny Depp, he seems almost like.
And I don't know if it is.
Is he intimidating?
Is he just an office for sure?
Office like very standoffish.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like I get that idea of like he's never he never developed as a child and he never
grew up. So I think there's that idea of like he is still an adolescent in his mind.
And
but that's where that's where I think, yeah, again, it's still it makes me go back
to the Michael Jackson of it all because he gets the gray hair.
And when he gets that gray hair, that's the whole impetus for him to like make
the whole golden ticket thing is because he's got this gold, this gray hair.
And he's getting old and all that stuff.
And he doesn't want to get old.
I don't know. It's just it's it's bad shit.
I think it's it'll go down as like one of the most bad show performances
that was OK and put to screen by a fucking lot of money and a lot of people
that were all like,
yeah, I mean, it's Johnny Depp.
We got Johnny Depp on our movie.
He's Jack Sparrow.
He can do whatever the hell he want.
Everyone on Disney told us told him, hey, you can't do that.
Keith Richards impression for our Pirates movie.
That's bad shit.
And he's like, you got to trust me and it paid off.
So I mean, if you could do that for that one, then we just got got to be able to do
for this and Dark Shadows is going to work out great.
And everything's going to be more to Kai is going to be awesome.
We're going to love Johnny Depp forever.
Right. Absolutely.
Yeah. Believe in him.
He understands what this movie needs.
And Tim Burton, for that matter, too.
I mean, God, yeah, it's just it's hard to say no to a Johnny Depp.
Tim Burton, yeah, back together.
Because they just, you know, they they have a track record of success.
And so people are really, I mean, and again, just to bring it back,
like the critics enjoyed this performance.
I mean, we're kind of lauding it.
But I mean, the critics liked this performance.
They thought it was a unique and fresh take, essentially, of this character,
which is just baffling to me because.
Our problem with it is something I feel like is so simple and fundamental
when it comes to partaking this movie or partaking any movie is, you know,
whether or not the character, your main character,
ostensibly is likable or interesting.
And even though he has a lot of flash that would make you think he's interesting,
none of it has any backing substance to it.
It's just all kooky, sporadic nonsense at times.
Like you're just
more like a majority of this movie has like, wow, what a.
What a what a choice and not in a really a positive way.
It's like what a choice is in.
Yeah, like you're just making choices to make choices.
It's like a hat on a hat at times where I'm like, this.
Yeah.
Yeah, like I know you need.
You need to give us a little bit more here about.
How you actually feel wonka because it's just driving me nuts.
How impenetrable your mind seems to be in a lot of these situations where it calls
for you to be like, this is, you know, this is how I feel about these kids and whatnot.
It's like by and large, right off the bat, it's just I don't like them.
I don't really like anybody.
Everybody's weird.
I'm trying to be a normal person, but I can't be and just the more and more I
think about it, I just continue to just be so baffled by at least like Gene Wilder.
It seemed like a ball.
Gene Wilder and both channel may seem like they're trying to show something to
another person and in part something like, hey, let me like show you this world of
pure imagination, like going like maybe maybe I am a little cynical myself and
maybe I don't see the best in people always, but he's trying to give some of them
a chance at this moment in time.
And
the whole point of him bringing these people in, I don't know.
It's just, yeah, you never never get an idea that he's trying to to show them
it in like a way of like, look at how cool this is.
It's just like it seems like he's going through the motions in the tour and everything.
And he's just like, come on, let's let's go.
And he's just like so pleased with his own inventions.
And he has in no way like wants to see people's reaction to it or just like how
how like how what it makes people feel.
He's just
amazed by the engineering of it all and and all that.
I don't know.
It's it's just a it's a different take on a classic tale and it's very different.
And I get the point to want to make it extremely different.
But to lose the heart and soul and the fuzzy, gooey
center that was just put in another
version is just makes it that much clearer or that this one didn't do it completely
right and going through speaking of going through some of these motions, I don't know.
So we go through some of these these these kids and these the classic oompa
oompa you fucked up and now you must pay song and
the yeah, go up in the chocolate tube.
You heard a little bit of gloop gloop.
I guess it is gloop.
See now it's in my head.
OK, so that's pretty much all I can remember.
Goop, goop, that guy great performance from the oompa oompa.
He did a lot of work to do all those different oompa oompas.
And then oh yeah, I was going to say
Vice Roy, what about fucking yeah, Freddie Heimor?
What a find that guy that little kid in this time.
Yeah, little kid just like fucking amazing performance.
And then we get them back as a movie I love.
A heartbreaking movie that I love is Finding Neverland that they are in together.
And I think they're wonderful together in that movie.
And that's subtle, subtlety in that and that performance
by a Johnny Depp.
I don't know, it's a it's a tearjerker, but I enjoyed it.
And he was a little youngster in that one, too.
And I remember he does a really good scene at multiple good scenes.
But him crying just makes me so sad in that movie.
So yeah, I just want to say that like he's he's awesome.
He's good. Yeah.
He's not the problem with this movie.
He is.
Everyone else is solid.
Everybody else is solid.
We I mean, come on.
Come on.
Count Dooku himself.
Chocolate. What is all this chocolate doing here?
And caramel, it will get stuck right in your teeth.
Yeah, I like a lot of I don't really have too many complaints about the
performances at all, like just looking through the cast list of,
you know, the parents and the kids like everybody is solid in in what need what
is needed of them. It's all to me, the problem of the writing and the direction
is and Johnny Depp by and large.
But even then, even if Johnny Depp had just been like
Benny and June style Johnny Depp of like kind of like
just a little whimsical little prankster kind of guy with like that would do kind
of a dead bit deadpan sort of face, but he'd be doing funny stuff on top of it.
This is like, yeah, what's going on?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What a smiling and just going, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The thing that cracked me up this go around
for this movie, not much did, but the thing that was really funny that he kept
doing was giving Mike TV shit for mumbling.
Mumbling. Yeah.
I thought that was pretty funny.
That is funny.
Right.
Probably number center.
Because it's another example of like, you know, his father's voice coming out.
And just this.
Yeah.
And it's a little callback from the first movie, too.
Hmm.
Because like Gene Wilder at one one part in that movie is like, you should really
speak up or something like to, I think, to my TV or something like that.
But right.
Something else he said in that movie.
I would just like sweet is better, but liquor hits quicker or whatever that line.
I completely miss as a kid.
But that was like it cracked me up this time
because he's just like he like uses some alcohol and parts of like making the chocolate.
Or he's like, why do you want to the adults is like, why do you do that?
He's like, I got to find that line.
Continue.
I can find it.
No, no, no.
So the kids, yeah, all of them are getting
off one by one.
All of the sets for each room.
It's very timid. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
Oh, any just like whispers that to the one of the dad's.
No, I was like, wait, what?
That's good.
It's just want to like get drunk with fucking Gene Wilder as well.
OK.
Oh, Gene Wilder.
This is all right.
The man is the goat.
Yeah, sets in the chocolate factory, pretty stunning at times.
It's just fraught with, you know, scenes will either in transit or certain scenes
just in general are very CGI when they're in places of the factory where there are
like machine actual machines and they're interacting with it.
It's great, but.
It's just but nonetheless, it's always an
escapable, this like weird sheen that is on stuff like all of the kids' faces
look plasticy and it's dark and yeah, just God, the visual fucking language.
Spatial like design between everything is like there's a lot of space between everything.
And like you were saying, I really like how you described the opening montage, how like.
Construct like how it's constructed doesn't make any logistical sense.
And everything just like goes into a void.
And that's why it's all storyboarded to me.
It's just like whatever that little image that Tim Burton wanted to look like,
it just has to look just like that doesn't need to make any sense.
It could be an Escher painting for all we care.
Escher painting is it can it just as long as it visually like has his style or whatever.
But even in like walking into the chocolate water found thing, I don't know.
It's like there's there's the bright green and the red and there's like this
in curving green passers of edible grass and all that.
But then you look in the background with yet it's just like still the gray
warehouse factory walls and like, yeah, the fuzzy green effect or whatever.
And.
I don't know.
Some of those some of those little candies they're eating looked pretty,
pretty fun, but then it like.
Yeah, it's just that everyone's mean to each other.
And they like and they bully poor Charlie and just like I'm not having.
This is supposed to be the fun.
Everyone's having a good time thing and.
Poor Char.
We'll cheer up, Charlie.
There's a big blueberry girl, you know, you got to have that big blueberry girl.
Mike, Mike TV goes into the TV that that set was I thought was pretty cool.
Interesting. Well, yeah, especially that 2001 pretty similar.
Yeah, 2001.
Oh, my pretty similar to the original where the Wonka bar is the
what is that called the black spire black pillar?
What do they call it?
Black obelisk, I think is obelisk.
I think and then so yeah, 2001 callback,
which is so weird to think about from like a kid who's like playing video games
that like I don't know.
Yeah, it's weird.
I think you'd want to update that a little bit because it's not like you're
in, you know, it's one of those things like kids are just like it's being like
2001 space. Oh, Kubrick.
Yeah, I love Kubrick.
I'm seven years old.
Yeah, that's what the kids are watching.
Kubrick films.
Mike TV almost looks like he's space baby.
I get it.
All right.
Yeah, it's just that fucking fuzz on this movie drove me nuts where everybody
just, you know, obviously it kind of helps the poor CGI because everything looks so
CGI, but then it's yeah, it's really a drag by the middle end of this movie where
you're like, yeah, nothing seems real.
Even though there are cool real stuff and like machines in scenes, it just can't.
Yeah. Tim.
Yeah.
I mean, we were from doing this like, yeah.
With Violet, we mentioned the squirrels and that's a situation where you spend
all this time getting all these squirrels all trained up and everything.
And then you mix them with some fake squirrels and some CG squirrels and then
cover it with this color correction.
Everything just ends up looking the same.
And so all those real squirrels, I don't know.
I guess it it it must have helped because if they were all CG, it would have looked
much worse, so it did help a bit.
But it just it's a bummer that all that hard work and effort
isn't as on display as I would want it to be.
It's like, you know, need to see the seams of everything necessarily, but just to
be like, wow, that's that's a real squirrel there.
You know, like, I don't know.
Those are all real squirrels or or whatever.
It just that and that was clear in his older movies.
That's the thing.
It's like, that's not impossible to have because he's done that in his career.
And when you want something to happen like in Beetlejuice, it's like, yeah,
and they open the door and there's a big fucking worm out there.
And it looks like this.
And it's like, we'll make that happen.
And, you know, now it probably, you know, in that that you look at that now.
And back then it's dated, but it has a style and it looks cool.
And it looks like singular and unique to itself and everything.
And this looks so uniform and planned and
monotone in a lot of ways that that's the the upsetting thing to see his creative
juice is being pushed into these
conceptual nightmares where I would I would I would I would appreciate where I'm
like more collaboration or something.
I don't know what is the is the answer or it's or it's
it's totally fine.
And I don't know he's able to make exactly what he wants to make.
And sometimes it's things like a Frankenween or something, which is solid too.
And then I don't know.
And then that was just like seeing all of them walking out of the factory after
with the music after them flying over the glass elevator.
Just like, yeah, things are weird and everyone's changed and everyone's worse
off coming out of this factory.
And it's it's not a great feeling.
I feel like we kind of covered a good
amount of like the father stuff that happens at the end here.
So oh, there's the like is it twice that it happens where he just runs into the
glass elevator door?
I remember as a kid thinking that was hilarious.
It's pretty funny now, but it is funny.
Yeah, I was getting in the second time just like he's using mid conversation.
It's kind of like, OK, let's go and we're going to do it.
And he does kind of have that bookish accent.
Is that it? Like the vampire's kiss, Nicholas Cage of like,
it puts you put the paper in the file.
A B C D.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like, yeah, very well read, very articulate, but in a way that's like nerdish.
Yeah, let's see.
Let's see. Yeah.
He's got these.
I don't know.
We'll never see seeing another thing like it.
I wonder if, yeah, enough time you like you see a new joker and a Batman be like,
yeah, I took it from Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka.
Right. Totally.
Of course. Yeah, I would not be surprised, man, because it's that level of character.
That level of character.
It's that insane of a choice in major motion picture.
You know, like more often than not,
a person that isn't Johnny Depp is going to be told, hey,
tone it down a little bit.
We need a little bit more realism in here.
You are too out there, too alien.
No one is going to be able to understand what you are.
Are you weird?
You're coming. Yeah, you're weird.
Um, well, I'm I'm happy with it.
You I'm happy.
Let's take a quick break and then get into those little reviewies.
We're going to take a break.
We'll be right back.
OK, we are back, baby.
I'm just looking through my notes here real quick before we move on.
There's a time moment where Violet is asking her father to make time go faster.
Which I thought was funny.
Good morning, Starshine.
The world says hello.
It's quite the line that I remember.
Weird, not weird, but just like kooky people in high school would just like quote,
like quote, like lines from movies and so I would do the same.
That I would all half of my
things I would say was a commander family guy.
That was my personality.
But like.
Or answer the phone like that.
Good morning, Starshine.
The world says hello.
Can I be camel cannibalism?
And that's from the part.
There's this one moment that I thought was really great where young Willie Wonka
goes through what appears to be a traveling montage.
I wrote that down to the flags of the world.
He's walking around and there's all these flags going by.
He thinks he's just traveling the world.
The guy is like, hey, kid, you got to go.
We're closing up.
Lots of the world.
That's a naked gun like Zucker Brothers.
Like air plane level joke that is this too good.
It's too.
Like, I know it's like the Ed Wood side of the humor of Tim Burton.
I think it's grandpa says, holy buckets.
I like that.
OK.
And then Christopher Lee, I haven't seen by cuspids like these since.
Willie.
Weird.
Is that you, my little Willie?
A couple of call outs for me from my notes is Deep Roy is the real MVP.
Who's that?
Deep Roy is the guy who plays all of the Oompa Loompa.
Oompa Loompa's total MVP.
Yeah, big time.
Out of the jokes come from him and he kills it.
Tunnel scene was underwhelming.
I know, right?
For how like I can't weird the first.
You're like, oh, OK, we're just in a CGI boat swirling around.
I like the little like vaults, like they look at the different vaults and how they
name them, like stuff like that is fun in these movies.
Right.
Again, you get little glimpses of like what's possible.
You get a good amount of them.
New Wanka movie, I feel like, too, just his little tricks that he's got.
Yeah, I cannot sing the praises of the new one.
I was just emotionally enraptured by the end of it.
I was like crying and then I was having a good time.
Like the stuff of the mom was like, fucking hitting for me.
I was like, oh, my God, this is so good.
Like him just wanting to be the best person for himself than realizing.
But then also reconciling that with his mom's view of him.
I was like, man, this this is just firing on all fucking cylinders.
I really like the bad guys, too.
Those three bad guys.
I love the bad guys.
They're funny that like I think it was the slug worth.
Dude, just have the funniest like
smirk on his face when like.
But then he also and these are my favorite types of villains is when like
he looks very evil, but he also looks kind of dumb.
Because he's like what he does is smirks and that camera would shoot him head
on and be kind of cross eyed.
You're trying to look so threatening, but you look kind of fucking stupid.
It's just like my favorite was some of my favorite antagonists.
Cool, well, should I get into some polarizing reviews?
Go for it.
All right, we'll start with the critic side of things.
An 83 percent certified fresh movie from 2005.
Let's check in on some top critics from Rotten Tomatoes.
Kent Tucker, New York Magazine slash Vulture.
As the star who's framed in the center of nearly every shot he's in,
Depp is Depp is a constantly surprising Willy Wonka.
From Sandra Hall, Sydney Morning, Morning Herald.
Finally, a worthy, excellent remake.
From Robert Hanks, Independent UK, four out of five.
In its combination of fidelity to its source and wacky visual ideas,
Burton's take is a triumph of common sense and imagination.
Exactly the qualities for which we admire children.
Common sense.
From Stella Papa Michael, Papa Miguel,
is someone else's girl.
BBC.com says four out of four scores, four out of four.
An intoxicating endorphin rush.
What's we got here from Stephanie Zacharack, Salon.com.
In its best sections, it's magically deranged in a no way.
Wait, in its best sections, it's magically deranged in a way no other filmmaker
could even come close to pulling off.
And we'll finish with Claudia Puegh from USA Today, gave it a three and a half out
of four, the summer's most visually arresting escapist adventure.
You know, when like the movie was
written out for like a week or two and there there's a new trailer with like
some banner like four out of five, five out of five sort of things.
Oh, Claudia Puegh from USA Today says it's summer's most visually
arresting escapist adventure.
And I do have a minute in there.
So they they loved it certified fresh and let's check out the audience side
of things with the 51 percent polarizing feelings on everything.
This one's a Google review one star from Sam Wall.
Sam Wall, Sam Wall,
waste of time, dark and weird.
The studio never should have let these group of mentally ill men remake their
incredible original, a perfect rendition of the delightful doll book.
This a children's movie that children should never watch.
Adults should not watch it either.
They have better things to do, like raise their children properly and never let
them see Johnny Depp in anything.
He's a terrible actor who was somehow
told early on the being weird as good acting.
His psychotic emotional life touches no one except other strange psychotics.
He has ADHD, depression, he's bipolar,
he's addicted to coke, THC, Benzos,
Sarah Call, cocaine, alcohol,
oxycodone, etc, etc, and spends his life the few years his disease lover might
have left on a bender violently assaulting people.
He needs to be in prison, never on a movie set again to dry out and pay
penance for his violent rages.
He thinks paying a staff of goons and thugs,
three hundred thousand dollars a month to get him illegal drugs and cover up
his messes will continue, but he doesn't have a dime to give those twisted
sick of fans anymore. Depp is old. His career waned long ago in the mid two
thousands when the atrocity came out.
Luckily, many of the executives responsible were fired and no longer
have careers and neither does old fat ugly Depp.
So this is a taste of the power of the internet when you can use something
later and include information that was not
at the time, a thing.
But no, yes, because he is not a,
yeah, he's not a fat person.
Or just all in all the stuff that was clearly
influenced from the Amber Heard trial, I feel like.
And this is this is probably maybe some of these Google reviews have have some of
that, but you definitely provided his opinion on the on the movie as well.
Let's let's do a couple here, a couple more here from Jackie Nisbet Thompson.
One star.
Mrs. Nisbet.
It's me, Mrs. Nisbet.
No, no.
It's tea time.
My my sister and brother-in-law, they're like Camper Rig.
It's named Mrs. Nisbet.
Nisbet.
That's like the name of the Camper Rig.
Yeah, that's so so like they take trips on Mrs.
Nisbet. It's pretty good.
Mrs. Nisbet.
That's such a great name.
That's like another one that's like reminds me of like Ned Schneebly.
Yeah, such a good one.
Mike White.
All right. So Jackie Nisbet Thompson says,
putting this in one star because people look at those first.
Good strategy.
Wow, great.
See, that's a strategy.
I don't understand why bad reviews say the older version is like the book.
Let's see.
Wrong song lyrics, lyrics, a huge piece of the plot never happened in the book.
Children got eliminated in different ways.
The only accurate thing in the older
movie was probably the description of Willie Wonka and the names.
Not to mention, Roald Dahl hated the 71 version so much, he never let anyone make
another movie of one of his books again.
Good choice, Roald.
Have you seen James and the Giant Peach?
The Matilda I watched was OK, but fantastic.
Mr. Fox was all wrong.
Oh, stop.
I don't trust this person.
Bingham.
Some people are complaining that it's dark.
The book was dark.
Most Roald Dahl books were dark.
And one of his children or grandchildren said that in the beginning of a collection
of Roald Dahl books, they were both slightly dark and whimsical.
And this movie is incredibly accurate.
The only big change was Willie Wonka's backstory, which was weird,
but added depth, depth to the character.
Johnny depth to the character.
The songs were only changed to be more easily sung.
This is an incredibly true to the book movie that I love.
You see this to brain and you see this algorithm that this person is is messing with.
I know, man.
Isn't that isn't that something about that just messes with?
Does it see like that's where we could be like this messes with our process of what
we're trying to do here.
But to me, I think it if it deepens it because I think it makes it interesting to.
Find examples like this, like that.
These numbers are can be misrepresentative of movies in ways that you might not expect.
You know, some things are worse than the score is or some things are better than the score is.
And some people are reviewing things for reasons that.
Yeah, or not all.
I mean, our but our.
Our format is bulletproof in my mind because we're not about like we at least yet haven't gone with.
Like it's not a declaration of whether we side with one side or the other.
We just come up with our own opinions and then we're using the scores.
The polarizing scores around tomatoes, the jumping off point.
So like there is definitely.
The scoring system on Ron tomato we've talked about before is like not.
Necessarily good litmus test.
It can be somewhat directional, but yeah, it isn't necessarily something that you
should hold to be like the end all be all.
And really the reason that we we're just using it as a really great way to watch
movies that for whatever reason are polarizing in the sense between critics
and audiences, but we're not really about siding with one or the other.
You and me just come to our own conclusions and give our own scores,
which we're about to do.
But like, yeah, it's funny to think about that score as such a great example of the
gamification of the Internet by and large, because that person put a one star review
but like the movie and they were forthright by saying the reason that it's one star so
that it will show up closer to the top.
And yeah.
It's people will do that.
That's the Internet for you.
Absolutely.
Especially if there's a number number system, there'll be a that's already
gamifying it in that way.
Let's do one more from Yasmin.
Padilla one star.
Totally horrible.
Should have been rated R.
Very gross and gory.
Waste of Johnny Depp in a shameful scar on Tim Burton's career.
Willy Wonka is like Lex Luthor from Batman V Superman, Don of Justice.
I'd rather watch that movie.
Total mess just because all the other kids are spoiled and Charlie is poor.
Are we supposed to root for him?
When the other kids are murdered slash deformed, Charlie, Grandpa, Joe and Wonka are laughing.
Horrible movie, not worth a watch.
Cats is better.
I'd rather watch Terminator Genesis and that's something.
Also, child thinks he slash she is about to die.
Oompa Loompas are dancing and making fun of the poor kid.
Would have been better if I'd been an animated film.
Oh, get this person in Hollywood, baby.
Yeah.
Get him in.
That's was a little smattering, a little taste of the people out there and the critics alike.
We talked at the beginning.
We were talking now.
I think the polarizing nature of it all is I think, yeah, the critics still kind of sniffing
the stuff that Tim Burton is smoking and
and it's hitting them in a way that is like kooky and weird.
And some of the CG stuff, I think, was.
Held up better at the time as well.
Like the just the whole new take on it was fitting the time as well.
This is just a very dated movie.
It's very.
This movie is very dated when you are
amazing, inevitably comparing it to a timeless movie.
A truly timeless movie is the original.
Like as a child, I grew up watching it in the 90s and loving it and laughing and being
a little creeped out by some of the kids.
You know, why that girl turned into a blueberry?
Oh, that kid shrunk down like it's scary.
It's a little scary.
You know, there's a little and there's
but there's consequences for your actions.
These kids were little shits and you stole fizzy lifting drinks.
Good day, sir.
But you know, like it's.
It's a it's a fable or whatever.
It's a it's a it's a folk story.
It's a it's a you know, it's a it's a little nighttime story or whatever.
It's it's your consummate, but it doesn't need to.
This is when as well, a lot of things we're leading into is got to be
dark and gritty and realistic.
And this is not the kind of thing that needed that treatment.
Tim Burton, in terms of like this.
Form a part of his career moving forward is is my least favorite of all of his stuff.
And because after this is like Alice in Wonderland and stuff and like that.
Visual styling.
No, no, thank you.
No, thank you.
Is that your review?
No, no, for Alice in Wonderland.
If this was the Alice in Wonderland podcast, that'll be next next week on.
On.
All right.
On.
Shit, Bob.
Two of those movies, right?
Come on now.
People, what are we doing?
Sounds like the perfect inaugural episode for James's podcast.
I've done this in the past, but maybe it's time to pass the mandolin to you
screaming into the.
Hey, this is the James of Screaming in the Void.
We'll get we'll be back in a second.
Let's talk this episode brought to you by Squarespace.
You know, I almost feel like Tim.
So what are like Tim Burton doing like the silver,
though, sorry, the glass elevator.
That would like kind of make sense,
especially at this time, like if you just don't a fucking just straight up
sequel and made it weird, like Tim Burton, I don't know.
I feel like that might have made it made more sense.
But that's not to say that this didn't make sense for him to do this, right?
I'm saying the style, the stylings of it, because he's such a stylistic director
of the style, style of it all.
And then like to actually do an original story because that has a lot going for it.
The newest one is it's an original story.
And it is an origin story that's free of a lot of the fan services just so night.
And I like the fan service and the newest one.
It was just like just enough, you know,
it gave him his trademark things that we all know and love about him.
He says a few of his little lines and everything, but it's pretty subtle.
There's like a like a motif of a few of the songs from the original as well.
And you already like when that movie started, I was like, I'm such in a better place
than this, like a minute it started.
It was like it started with a world like pure
imagination, whatever was like in the background as like, you know,
the kind of like this like oh my god.
OK, thank god. OK, we're in I just felt like in such better hands.
I'm so glad you like the new movie, man.
I is. Yeah.
Before we were in this, I was like, dude, you should check this movie out.
I'm glad I did.
And and I'm glad you did too, because it really was such a wonderful movie.
Like I I know I'm like coming off as such a fucking huge stain of that movie.
But I don't give a shit because like
Wonka rips that's such a great movie.
It has a little bit of a little bit.
It has like it has all of it.
It has like that movie is stuffed to the gills with shit to sink your teeth into.
And.
Maybe you want candy for sure.
The enemy made me want candy so much.
Seeing that like robot make the chocolate at the beginning of Wonka was like,
you know, I don't want to.
Right, but then him just, you know, talking about how he needs these.
And then they want how he needs these like special ingredients to make these
chocolates and the way that they look in his hand.
And he's like, oh, it's in these big jars.
And then these like fun colors and shapes and all the special ingredients.
Totally. Yeah.
That's makes it special.
Makes it. Yeah.
Makes it mean something.
And it showed me that you don't need to just like, oh, I'm Wonka.
So I need to be fucking weird.
Weird. Like that's what that means is I need to like really make some big
decisions about making this character mine and trademark weird.
And then I'm yeah, I was impressed with Shalamet's handling of it to be so care.
He's just a charismatic person.
And I think that went such a long way as naturally.
He shows a motion in that vulnerable side of Wonka was a cool,
cool thing to see at that moment of him.
Like, yeah, there's something about him like sire, like or like being a mentor
to a child that was that would like worked really well in that dynamic that
called back to the better parts of like, you know, the warm side of him.
And it seems like, you know, once he starts getting stolen from and starts
hiring loop-loopers, then he gets a little more jaded that I like the idea of like,
well, he's this can be a different guy.
This is an earlier end in his life.
He can be happy, like more like upstart sort of sort of guy that's trying to
optimistic, make his way for better.
Yeah.
And the childlike wonder.
Wow. All right.
Well, yeah, I think we we almost had a podcast about about all three,
but we definitely covered Tim Burton's enough.
Is there a score that you would give in any final thoughts?
El Brandini.
Yeah. Yeah, man.
I just when it comes to like revisiting a Wonka movie, this is the last on my list.
The reason for it is because I just didn't have as much fun with it.
I think if you were to take certain shots and scenes of this movie, it is really kind
of like a marvel, if you will, of like special effects and setting.
But it is just on all like consistently undercut by the people on screen are just
like at each other at odds, don't like each other, don't understand each other.
Yeah, there's
and it's weird. Yeah.
I don't know. I guess I didn't care for that.
So like flustered right now.
There's like I want to be I want to make sure that just at least for myself that
I recognize that there are some visual elements of this movie that I thought were
cool and interesting, but by and large, my enjoyment of this as a whole movie,
as a whole thing was very little.
I just I and I feel like it's because the movie didn't want me to like it.
I was like wanting me to like a conversation I wasn't allowed to be a part of.
And it's given me shit for trying to be like, hey, I want to I want to hear what's
going on.
I'm going to give this movie a 55 percent.
Yeah, very fair score.
I know what you mean.
There's something that and I'm trying to decipher why this movie is
somewhat like watchable for me.
It's like it's like pretty watchable.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to figure out is it because it's based on a story that I'm so
familiar with and going through those motions of that story, whatever sort of
adaptation is kind of nice.
And it's never been something that I've wanted to revisit since.
Yeah, I have this movie on DVD for whatever reason.
It was it was just one that we throw in and and Hamon,
because I think we like the original so much.
And this one was was just the next thing we like.
Jack Sparrow and and all that stuff.
And.
Really looking at it with a critical eye past the fact, you know, I think what I
was like 15 when I saw it, I think it was still stepping into starting to be a
little bit more critical about the movies that I would watch.
I think sure.
But I think just the fact that like, oh, why will I like Johnny Depp?
I like Tim Burton.
I like Charlie in the Chalk Effect.
I like Willy Wonka.
Why wouldn't I like this movie?
And that's kind of how I felt at that time and looking at it now and how outdated
a lot of it is and the performance of Johnny Depp.
It's definitely going to get a subpar score for me.
And and I've talked a lot about it in this podcast.
Some some of the good things.
Yeah, definitely Freddie Highmore.
There's conceptual things that.
I get why they tried so hard to make happen, because in their minds,
they looked at everything on the storyboard and they were like, this all
looks great and we should do exactly this because we have the computers to make
everything that we would ever want, we can pick one actor for Numpal Lumpa.
And, you know, and that's that's something they didn't even completely
take do all the CGI because they made him do like all those separate
performances, every single separate one you see, he did.
He did each separate one.
And then they impose him on there, which is cool and all that.
But yeah, which is something I think they take into that.
And the squirrels and all that other stuff is just like, I don't know.
It just seems in the wrong place.
The money doesn't seem to be on the screen in the best way.
You know, I it looks expensive, but it doesn't
look like satisfyingly good in a lot of ways.
But Tim Burton is good director and on a lot of other projects.
So there's certain shots, you know, like I was saying with Christopher Lee and
Lee's house and the in the snow and all that and and a lot of houses, I guess,
like the house. Yeah.
Charlie Chalker, they house and stuff like the houses.
I had notes on that.
I was like, oh, this house looks cool.
Yeah. The inside and the outside.
Mm hmm.
Like in the factory, everything is just so fake and and
unpleasing and unsettling and not fun.
That, you know, like there's a the story when grandpa goes back to the factory.
They're like that looked kind of real and nice, like the old school style
before the Oompa Loompahs came in and all that.
I'm getting too lost here in talking all about the movie again.
Yeah, I'm going to do a 48.
Yeah.
Yeah, 46 or 48, something like that, like a mid 40s sort of feels pretty good to me,
partner Bill Grimm. Which one do you pick?
48.
48. Cool. Yeah. I get it.
I get it, man.
That's so funny that we were 49.
I'm going to do 49.
Do 49. That's
this is another great example of why I love doing this with you, bud, is like
we didn't really talk too much about our feelings about this movie.
You know, I think we're pretty good about not, you know, getting into like,
we'll text each other when we're watching these movies about certain things,
but it isn't necessarily about how we feel by and large.
It's like, oh, isn't this wild that this is a fact or, you know, this situation?
Did you get to this, you know, scene or whatever?
And
it's just it's so fun that both of us kind of came to this and we're like,
yeah, this is this is kind of, you know, it's like the thing we've always talked
about on this spot of how even though this podcast is called Polarize,
it's similar, similar hard scores.
And I'm like, yeah,
you have similar podcast where both of us are going to give polarizing scores
every time, not the pot for you.
What we're doing is we're taking polarizing movies and making them not
polarizing months to friends.
I enjoy that.
I enjoy the process and I enjoy people talking in that way rather than getting
me or even because there's examples of us disagreeing too.
Oh, for sure.
It's not like, you know, we're like, you know what, Brandon?
Fuck you, man.
Yeah, like you.
The fact that you like this movie makes me question our friendship.
So I went to the next one.
Yeah.
All for that content, baby.
We need the content.
That's why we do it.
Yeah.
And I think the last Jedi, I think would be the closest.
And that's even one where it's like, yeah, I don't like love that movie,
but I do like it.
And even that, I feel like it's a hot take to even kind of like kind of like that.
Right.
So and that's yeah.
And there's yeah, there's probably a few others out there.
Oh, the
Santa, the Mel Gibson, Santa one.
I didn't like that.
We had a good time.
Yeah.
And I feel like I loved it.
Oh, yeah.
You didn't like some of the you don't like some of the Disney stuff.
Yeah, there's stuff.
There's, you know, there's stuff.
No, there's stuff.
Hey, anybody.
Yeah, check out our back.
There's plenty of if you want to hear.
Yeah.
When we're just yelling at each other the entire time.
That's that's what happens.
That's what we do.
Do our scores get put into the description at all?
I guess I would probably not be a good idea.
No, I can.
I should go back and just tabulate them all.
I know Blarge was doing it, but senior El Cori was senior was doing it for a bit.
But I guess it's not a yeah, I guess that's not.
That would be nice to have a wiki, a polarized pod wiki.
Oh, yeah.
How about a little Excel doc that we weren't going to do it?
I could probably do it.
We can do it.
Yeah, let's figure that out.
But just be a that's I mean, that's Charlie and the Chaka factory.
That's polarized the pod.
That's right, baby.
Let's talk about what we're doing next time.
It is a movie from 10 years prior, a 95 movie starring Andy Garcia.
It is called about this movie.
Things to do in Denver when you're dead.
What a cumbersome title.
And then it is also so indicative of the movie.
Once again, you're going to read that.
Things to do in Denver when you're dead.
37% from critics, a 72 from audience is.
Should I I can read the description?
X Crook, Jimmy, the Saint Tasnia and Garcia is trying his best to go legitimate
until he's dragged back into the world of crime for one last seemingly simple mission.
All Jimmy and his eccentric cronies have to do is intimidate their target.
But they make a disastrous series of mistakes that result in the death of a
woman connected to a powerful gangster before long.
Mr. Steve Buscemi, a notorious assassin who never slips up, is sent to take down
Jimmy and his partners, Mr. I like that.
Box office gross, two hundred and thirty two thousand.
OK.
Yeah, baby.
Andy Garcia, Christopher Lloyd, William Forsythe.
I think Walken and Christopher Walken is in here somewhere.
Oh, walk into it.
Yeah. And he's a bulk.
Loose as a motherfucker.
Oh, I have one scene production.
Whatever. Yeah, let's talk.
All right. Well, we'll see you guys next time.
If you want to see us record live whenever we do this, it's on twitch.tv.
Slash Polarize pod.
You can send us a line at Gmail.com slash Polarize the pod or Gmail.com.
Polarize the pod.
Polarize the pod at Gmail.com.
There's one other thing.
Yeah, a rate and review on Apple podcast would be also more of those would be sweet.
We love you all. Brandon, is there anything else?
No, I love you all as well.
That's my that's my thing.
I'm glad we got that in and we'll see you next time.
Bye bye.