Change Your Image
madscientist2787
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Love Witch (2016)
Genreriffic feminist satire by auteur Anna Biller
Elaine, a young witch, uses love spells on men in this satire/homage of mid-century melodramas and Gothic romance fiction. This film boasts some of the most gorgeous set design, costuming and camera-work I've seen in ages. Biller's wholly unique take on gender politics leaves a lot to unpack, but is entertaining through and through.
Color Me Obsessed: A Film About The Replacements (2011)
A music doc without the music.
Gorman Bechard's has created a unique type of music doc here, telling the story of cult-favorite Minneapolis-based rock band The Replacements exclusively via talking heads interviews with the group's fans and contemporaries. No-one from the group themselves is interviewed, nor are any clips, songs, or even photos used.
What could have been an experimental-seeming gimmick actually really draws the viewer in as the interview subjects recount the band's rise to prominence, their anarchic live shows, and the musical envelope-pushing of their early records and subsequent "commercial sound" of their later ones.
The roster of talking heads includes a handful of celebrity admirers like "The Kids in the Hall"s Dave Foley, George Wendt and Tom Arnold, contemporaries like Husker Du's Grant Hart, younger musicians who were influenced by the group like members of the Hold Steady, the Gaslight Anthem, and the Goo Goo Dolls, and a multitude of graying record engineers, punk club promoters, record store owners, college station DJs, and others. Collectively, they paint a vivid portrait of the group. Despite being only passingly familiar with the band, I found this approach deeply involving; much more so than the usual "Behind the Music" approach. Well and truly, a unique documentary.
The Dictator (2012)
Baron Cohen is back with The Dictator
This political farce, which is the third film that Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen have made together, is also their first which is a straight narrative comedy rather than a prank-laden mockumentary. Although Baron Cohen exhibits the same total commitment to his wacky main character as always, this isn't quite on the same level as Borat, but that's only because you can't write anything as outrageous as tricking a rich Southern family into being okay with bringing a bag of your feces back into the dining room. This film is something of an homage and a reversal of Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Whereas Chaplin's film focused on a poor barber impersonating the Hitler-like ruler, Cohen's Admiral General Aladeen is shaved and abandoned in New York City, where no one recognizes him, while his uncle schemes to present his mentally challenged double to the United Nations. There is even an ironic inspirational speech at the end, which recalls the Chaplin classic. The film is very funny and happy to offend. It's dedicated to the memory of Kim-Jong Il, Aladeen plays a Wii shooter game of the '76 Munich Olympics, and tells feminist, organic co-op owning love interest Anna Faris "There's a woman going to school is like a monkey on rollerskates. It means nothing to them, but it's so adorable to us!" Jason Mantzoukas, Ben Kingsley, John C. Reilly, Fred Armisen, Aasif Mandvi and Chris Parnell all have funny supporting roles, and the soundtrack contains covers of pop songs, like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's "The Next Episode" and R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" sung in Arabic-sounding gibberish.
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Bizarre rom-com with the plot of a psycho-sexual thriller
Sandra Bullock - someone that only a Hollywood producer would envision as a lonely spinster who can't get a man - is a Chicago el train ticket booth attendant with a secret crush on commuter Peter Gallagher. When he suffers a coma after falling onto the tracks, she goes to with him to the hospital, and through a wacky misunderstanding, his family believes that she is his fiancé that he never told them about. While he is in the coma, she gets to know them, and eventually falls for his brother, played by Bill Pullman. Like Sleepless in Seattle, this is another romantic comedy where the writers and directors confused plucky and adorable with stalkerish and insane. The plot sounds like a bunny-boiler sex thriller (even the title, While You Were Sleeping, is creepy) and yet, this is a fluffy chick flick. My girlfriend, who likes this movie has admitted that the fundamental wrongness that permeates the picture is the reason for her enjoyment of this mid-90's favorite, but I was less enamored. I would have actually preferred to have seen "While You Were Sleeping With Michael Douglas" (thanks, Kim Morgan) than this movie, which is uncomfortable in a not-fun way.
Red State (2011)
Despite its title, Blue Staters are not safe from Smith either.
Apparently, Kevin Smith self-financed this gritty little horror-thriller and took the exhibited the film in a roadshow fashion like Dwain Esper and Kroger Babb used to do, before selling the rights, auction-style, to Lions Gate Films. It concerns a group of teenagers who are lured by the promise of an internet hookup into a trap set by a fanatical church group hell-bent on punishing sinners, and the badly botched rescue attempt by ATF agents. Frequent Tarantino actor Michael Parks is the Fred Phelps-like preacher villain, and he is incredible. During a 12-minute church sermon sequence, it's impossible to take your eyes off him. Needless to say, Christians are not shown in the most flattering light, but I do not believe Smith, whose earlier Dogma mixed raunchiness and skepticism with heartfelt piety, is suggesting that all Christians, or Middle-Americans, are evil and crazy. Rather, by showing the Cooper family more trigger-happy versions of the Westboro Baptist Church, who take it upon themselves to capture and execute those whose practices they disagree with, Smith shows how little difference there really is between Muslim and Christian extremism. But the film is just as damning of the U.S. government, whose mishandling of the situation results in a Waco-like siege with many casualties. John Goodman is the closest thing the film has to a good guy, and even he begrudgingly accepts an order from his superior to kill everyone in Cooper's church so that "(his) wife won't have to clip coupons until we're old and gray." Cooper and his Jesus-freaks may be homicidal, hateful, bigoted extremists, but they are steadfast in their beliefs, and have a clear objective. On the other hand, supposedly organized, moderate and level-headed government bureaucrats screw up what should be a simple job due through second-guessing, adherence to authority against better judgment, and worrying how the media will make them look. The movie may be called Red State, but it's a sobering microcosm of America as a whole.
Doctor Dolittle (1967)
Criminally underrated
Movies that lost enormous amounts of money are often regarded as bad films, when often this is not the case. It's pretty easy to see why audiences who flocked to see 2001 and Rosemary's Baby did not take to Dr. Dolittle, but it is is a delightful film - I actually prefer it to My Fair Lady, and I like the songs better too. Of course my judgment is probably clouded by nostalgia (I watched this many times on video as a kid) but I still feel the film is unfairly maligned. It is a beautiful old-world adventure that hearkens back to a time that does not exist anymore. Rex Harrison is completely charming, the animals are all adorable, and Richard Attenborough's brief appearance is perhaps my favorite cameo of all time.
Kodakara sôdô (1935)
A brilliant silent slapstick satire!
I saw this mini-masterpiece tonight at New York's Japan Society on the tail end of their "Comedy and Horror" night in the series "The Dawn of Japanese Animation." Each selection of weird, Fleischer Bros. and early Disney-inspired distinctly, yet Japanese cartoons are paired up with a live action movie in the same spirit.
"The Treasure That Is Children" (or "Kid Commotion" as the title literally translates) is a brilliant comedy that combines the rapid-fire sight gags of Chaplin and Keaton with the biting misanthropy and social satire of Shohei Imamura in full "The Pornographers" mode. Silent comic star Ogura Shigeru wears his Chaplin influence on his sleeve (or rather, his entire wardrobe, including a similar mustache, and a lanky physicality) but he manages to make his bumbling man-child of an expectant father, Mr. Fukuda. Painful slapstick humor abounds at the expense of pregnant women, children, and a poor defenseless piglet. It's really sad that the majority of Torajiro Saito's silent comedies were lost to the ages: we should get what still remains of this great filmmaker's work on DVD, pronto!
Linda Linda Linda (2005)
Let's sing a song for every @$$%! in the world!
I'm happy to report that the Japanese film Linda Linda Linda, which screened tonight at NYAFF (and was the first film of the festival that I was able to go see at the ImaginAsian theater) is hands-down the best movie I've seen at the festival so far. An upbeat and joyous film about a high school girls' rock and roll band, it's practically guaranteed to go straight to the heart of anyone who believes in music, and its power to save one's soul.
The plot is as straightforward as they come. Shiba High School is holding their annual Holly Festival complete with a musical talent show, and three friends - drummer Kyoko (Aki Madea, Battle Royale), keyboardist-turned-guitarist Kei (Yu Kasii, Lorelei) and bassist Nozomi (Shiori Sekine, of the real band Base Ball Bear) are struggling to get a band together. After their previous guitarist injures her finger and has to bow out, they recruit shy Korean exchange student Song (Bae Doo-Na, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) as their vocalist, and decide to cover three songs by the Clash-esquire 80's J-punk group The Blue Hearts. After weeks of staying up all night practicing, jamming until the wee hours (not to mention the fact that Song has to learn her lyrics phonetically), they are finally ready to play their music before their teachers and friends.
Admittedly, the description above probably makes this movie sound like every other movie about a band, or a sports team, or some kind of sentimental, rah-rah "Eye of the Tiger" pap. Trust me - nothing could be farther from the truth. What this movie is about is the people - the four schoolgirls that are its main characters are as quirky, and as button-cute, but also as three dimensional, as anyone you'd meet in life, and the movie's long, uninterrupted takes and improv-style acting give us a fly-on-the-wall feeling of being there. Opening with a MiniDV shot of one girl giving an on-camera interview about the Holly Festival, the movie starts out depicting its characters with shy restraint, gradually revealing more and more about their personalities, foibles, their joys and sorrows, until eventually, they literally start to feel like our friends. By the end, when the group performs their songs, we've honestly forgotten that they are characters in a film. We want to stand up and applaud.
I would honestly say that Linda Linda Linda is one of the greatest rock and roll films I've ever seen. Being a recent film, it doesn't have the legendary status of This Is Spinal Tap or A Hard Day's Night, but honestly, it's up there. This is rock and roll stripped down to its very core. No pretension, no decadence, no sex, drugs, limos, and all of that bullshit - just the three-chord structure of a song and its power to save lives. It's a truly beautiful thing to see and hear.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Humor
The description of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 sounds like a recipe for an unarguably perfect horror sequel. The cannibalistic family are still up to their usual hijinks, and Dennis Hopper stars as an ex-Federal Marshal who has sworn revenge for the deaths of his brother's kids in the first film. There's a bigger movie budget this time, allowing for the family to relocate from their farmhouse to an labyrinthine underground lair beneath a cheesy tourist attraction which looks like something out of a Mario Bava film. A screenplay by L.M. Kit Carson (Paris, Texas) and makeup effects by Tom Savini. The first death in the film is a 90-mile-an-hour car chase/chainsaw-induced head wound set to Oingo Boingo's song "No One Lives Forever"... now look me in the eye, and tell me that that doesn't sound better than Citizen Kane? As fate would have it, though, this film is actually completely terrible. It's about as far removed from its predecessor as Killer Klowns from Outer Space is from Psycho. I don't know how, or why, but some idiot somewhere decided to play this film for yucks. Presumably, their reasoning was that it would be too hard to try and outdo the original in terms of grueling ferocity, so they opted instead to mix the gore with slapstick. It might have looked good on paper, but the filmmakers amped the goofiness up to eleven and it really all falls to pieces.
Replacing Edwin Neal in the role of The Hitchhiker is Bill Moseley, who is 1,000,000 times more irritating here than he is in the overrated The Devil's Rejects. Prancing about, picking his metal-domed head with a rusty coathanger (don't ask) and giggling manically like an evil Jimmy Fallon, he embodies about everything that is wrong with this movie. Well, just about everything, because then there's also Leatherface. Gone is the unstoppable, ruthless killing machine we all know and love, and in his place, we have a puppy-eyed, Quasimodoesque lunkhead with a strange preference towards dry-humping young women with the aid of his chainsaw instead of chopping them to bits without hesitation. I can only assume Hooper was going for some kind of Blue Velvet parody here... which brings us to Mr. Hopper. Even when he's tearing around the family's lair, slicing everyone and everything up with his chainsaw and shouting "I am the Lord of the Harvest!!!" at the top of his lungs, he still looks bored and confused. "One for them" indeed.
Amazingly, this film actually does have a substantial fanbase. Many of them insist that anyone who doesn't like this film could only be an unpleasable complaint-artist who wouldn't be satisfied with anything that wasn't exactly like the original. And that's just not true. I mean, I wouldn't have minded a funny Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel if it had actually been, well, funny. But...it just wasn't.
Hostel (2005)
A real good, down-and-dirty picture
POSSIBLE MILD SEMI-SPOILERS
Despite what everyone would have you believe, Hostel is not an exploitive piece of "torture porn" - it's a good little movie with no self-doubt about what it is: a pulpy, unpretentious but scary and effective flick, made for horror fans, by horror fans, with no attempts to try and pander to the general public.
I won't lie to you - the torture scenes are pretty goddamn gnarly, and in a couple of places even downright disgusting, but in truth they only make up a very small portion of the film, and the picture has a lot more going for it than just blood and guts. For starters, characters are all pretty likable; I felt actually concerned for them, which is more than can be said for 99% of horror movies post-1980. The scares don't come as much from single, individual acts of torture and depravity, but from an overall feeling of dread of being a million miles from home, in a European village where everyone is in cahoots and is against you. If anything, it belongs with Deliverence in the subgenre of "Vacation Gone Wrong" movies...the kind of fear that I'm sure everyone has experienced at least a little of when they've taken a trip for some R n' R.
I saw this in a theater full of teenagers, and I for one really like horror movies with an audience because I get a kick out of the shared reaction. The girls screeched and ewwed in all the appropriate places, and when the villains got their blood-soaked comeuppance at the end, there were actually cheers. Of course, my horse!
A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Cute little kid's film
Jim Carrey plays a nefarious villain here who is out to cheat a trio of extraordinary orphans out of their inheritance. Carrey swallows massive amounts of scenery as Count Olaf (think of Snidely Whiplash crossed with Doc from Back to the Future) and there are some fun cameos from Billy Connoly, Meryl Streep, and (briefly) Dustin Hoffman. Fortunatley, the child actors aren't too horrible in this movie either.
For its intended audience - kids who are a little young for Harry Potter but starting to outgrow all that Disney singing lobster crap - this should be a lot of fun. The Tim Burtonesque decor ought to delight 'tweens who regularly shop at Hot Topic, too. As for parents and older folks who are subjected to it, it should be an enjoyable throwaway experience. It's not a subversive family film masterpiece like The Iron Giant, but it's a nice-looking film with a few chuckles to be had.
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
"Joyless, candy-coated claptrap."
My sister convinced me to watch the film last night. I strongly wished I had not. Joel Schumacher and Andrew Lloyd Webber took a classic monster story and turned it into a half-assed romantic fantasy for lonely housewives. I'm sorry, but I just can't be asked to take seriously a story about some selfish doofus who enters the room like Bela's double from Plan 9 from Outer Space, demands money for no reason, and screws with innocent people just to impress some doe-eyed singer chick. And he's deformed....if you can call a what appears to be a port wine stain on the face on one of the otherwise sexiest human beings I've ever seen. You can't get away with this kind of behavior unless your name is Lon Cheney. Sorry, Mr. Butler. As for the rest of the film, The music is mindnumbing, the actors are all annoying, and the whole thing stunk. Avoid at all costs.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
The weakest of the series so far.
Spoilers Herein.
I'm somewhat sad to report that The Goblet of Fire is as of yet the sloppiest, most awkward and least heartfelt entry into the Harry Potter series. While it does contain a few gold moments and a spectacularly dark climax, the majority of the film is a collection of proverbial sore thumbs, and it pales in comparison to both Chris Columbus's decent, kid-oriented entries and Alfonso Cuaron's marvelous Prizoner of Azkaban.
I believe the movie's failings are because of two reasons - first, that director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) doesn't really understand the story, and is probably pretty shaky on the entire Harry Potter universe. This is probably why the film seems so unsure of itself. Everything in the film dealing with the Yule Ball is practically a movie-within-a-movie on how to shoot bad scenes. Don't get me wrong - I'm not opposed to romance in the Potter universe. There were moments in Azkaban where we'd see little hints of a romantic subtext in the way that Harry would accidentally touch Hermione's hand and what-have-you, and they were handled expertly with subtlety and skill by Cuaron. Newell instead opted to beat the audience over the head with obnoxious teen movie clichés, and even managed to bring his own lackluster efforts screeching to a halt and loudly bringing us right out of the movie by sticking a glam rock band right in the middle of it all.
Many of the actors seem equally unsure of themselves, which is a typical result of a franchise film by a director who doesn't really "get it." The worst of all is Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore, who took over from the brilliant Richard Harris in the last couple of films. While Harris did a fine job of conveying a sense of wisdom, and the ability to reduce the Great Hall to silence while speaking barely in a whisper, there was also a sense that the guy was just too damn old, and it was nice in Azkaban to see a Dumbledore with a bit more of a twinkle in his eye. Here, unfortunately, the twinkle is nowhere to be seen, and in its place we have a hyperactive Dumbledore who yells at the top of his lungs and bodyslams Harry against the wall. He looks like he could unscrew your head and poop down your neck, but he isn't very believable as a grandfatherly, wise old wizard.
In fairness to Newell, though, I don't think that all of the movie's faults were entirely down to him; many of them are to do with J.K. Rowling's original book. Azkaban was by far the best film because it was also the best book out of the ones I read, and it was handled by a director who understood the universe, and was skilled at making both intelligent children's films (such as the highly underrated A Little Princess) as well as more adult fare. I know a lot of Potterites complained about how much of the story he left out, but such is always a dilemma with filmmakers adapting popular books - they have to deal with trying to fit ten pounds of poop into a five-pound bag. Azkaban omitted some details and sub-plots but remained a remarkable film, because, among other reasons, the book was remarkable too. The Goblet of Fire was not so remarkable. In fact, the only thing I remember about that book was that it was even longer than the previous three put together, and the next two that I didn't read were even longer. After all the deeply personal trials faced by Harry in Azkaban, a plot revolving around some wizard Olympics-type contest feels pretty uninteresting in contrast.
There are a few nuggets of gold in this picture. Brendan Gleeson is terrific as "Mad-Eye" Moody, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, which, if you have been following the series, is the teaching position which always ends up being filled by someone who is a little weird. Out of all the child actors, Emma Watson gives the best performance as Hermione, showing a great deal of emotion and character development since her Chris Columbus days, whereas Radcliffe and Grint appear to be having second thoughts about signing on to make these movies for the rest of their youthhoods. Robbie Coltrane, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman do wonderfully as always, and Ralph Fiennes has a brilliantly evil turn as You-Know-Who, whose scene toward the very end is one of the darkest in the whole series. Harry's encounter with the dragon is also quite a nice CGI set-piece. However, as I said before, these are small bits of gold in an otherwise very awkward and lackluster film, a cake which could have baked a lot longer in the plot and characterization oven before pulling it out icing it with CGI gimmicks.
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)
Pure, absolute pain.
Martin Landau was correct in his assessment that this film makes Bela Lugosi's Ed Wood-directed films look like "Gone With the Wind" in comparison. Bela gets a top billing here, but in truth he merely plays second fiddle to a Martin and Lewis ripoff duo who are quite literally the two most annoying characters in all the movies ever made.
I'm not familiar with any of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedies, but after seeing this film I'm not in a hurry to acquire any of them. Duke Mitchell, the Dino-ripoff, has all the charm of a urinal in a men's public bathroom, and his singing voice is akin to that of Elvis Presley with a chest cold crooning into a cardboard toiler paper tube. His friend Sammy Petrillo makes for such bad, loud, ugly, unfunny, and downright wretched comic relief that he makes Jar Jar Binks look like Hannibal Lecter. With his hideous facial features and shrill, high-pitched caterwaul, I can't imagine why anyone would put him in a motion picture, as opposed to putting him in the woods, in an unmarked grave at midnight.
There isn't very much to say about Lugosi; he plays his mad scientist character with what appears to be a constant look of shame for being involved in such a dumb film. There are unconvincing-looking jungle natives, stock footage animals, a fat girl who keeps chasing Petrillo, et al. If you value your sanity and well-being, skip this one.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Not Burton's best, but still very tasty. SPOILERS HEREIN.
There are spoilers in this review.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it seems, is virtually impossible to judge without comparing it to the 1971 Willy Wonka film, regardless of the insisting of Tim Burton's loyal fanbase that it is not a remake, it's an adaptation of the Roald Dahl story. According to Burton's promises prior to the film's release, it was to be a darker film, truer to Dahl's book than the Gene Wilder movie, which he described as "not one of his favorites." The plot, for those two or three of you who have not read the book or seen Willy Wonka deals with a mysterious chocolate tycoon who places five golden tickets in bars of his chocolate, the finders of which are invited to take a tour of his wonderful factory. One of the finders is Charlie Bucket, a poor boy who only has chocolate once a year for his birthday, and the other finders are a collection of spoiled li'l turds from all around the world. However, as it happens, (and I'm gonna give away the ending here because it's as ingrained into our cultural vocabulary as the fact that Darth Vader is Luke's poppa) Wonka is actually looking for an heir to his factory, which he finds in Charlie, after all the other kids are eliminated from the tour as a result of failed conscience test-related accidents.
To be honest, Mr. Burton's assessment of his film as truer to Dahl's source material than the '71 film is, in my opinion, not entirely accurate. Yes, there are trained squirrels sorting out walnuts in this version rather than geese laying golden eggs. True, the Oompa Loompas in this film are pygmy natives (all wonderfully played by the same quirky, Indian little-person actor Deep Roy) rather than the freaky orange-painted munchkins of the original film. But other than that, this is Burton's movie. From the freakish set design to the characterization of Wonka as nervous, gleeful but emotionally stunted from years of isolation, Burton has stroked, twisted, sweetened and pummeled Dahl's story and made it his own. After films like the deeply flawed Sleepy Hollow and the putrid Planet of the Apes, this will no doubt sound bad to a great many viewers, but in truth, Burton actually quite well with this material.
The visuals are clearly what Burton has the most fun with. Wonka's factory is a cross between Disneyland and Halloweentown with elements of Mario Bava and Dr. Seuss. The Oompa Loompa songs look like the freakiest of Bollywood musicals, and Danny Elfman's interpretations of Roald Dahl's lyrics (all sung by the composer, overdubbed hundreds of times) sound more like his old Oingo Boingo songs than anything he's composed since. The Mike Teevee song segment goes as far as to lampoon everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to heavy metal videos, cooking shows, Rock-'Em-Sock-'Em Robots, and Psycho. Charlie's hometown is enveloped in softly-falling snow, another Burton trademark, and the kind of gadgetry seen inside the chocolate factory would make Pee-Wee Herman and Vincent Price green with envy. Almost all of the actors are perfectly casted. Young Freddie Highmore (reportedly recommended to Burton by Depp because of his performance in Finding Neverland) is wonderful as Charlie; he's possibly the finest child actor working today. David Kelly (also terrific in Waking Ned Divine) is wonderfully charming as Grandpa Joe. Noah Taylor and Elizabeth Bonham Carter are very empathetic, despite their somewhat brief screen time, as Charlie's parents. Almost everyone in the cast outshines their 1971 counterparts, except for Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregard and their parents, who are hilarious in the original film and aren't given very much to do in this film. Johnny Depp and Gene Wilder play very different but equally brilliant Wonkas.
The film also features a series of flashbacks to Willy Wonka's childhood, which was never discussed in the book. These scenes feel somewhat out of place with the rest of the story, but they are still a joy to watch, particularly because Christopher Lee, who may well be the single coolest living human being, plays Willy's dentist father. "Lollipops," he snarls, he voice dripping with contempt as he shifts through his young son's Halloween candy. "These are what we call 'cavities on a stick'." He proceeds to throw the confectionery treats onto the fire. After sneaking candies whenever he can and taking notes of his observations, young Willy runs away from home to become a chocolateir. This, as we find out, is the reason for his reclusive, eccentric and child-like behavior.
As to which version of the story is 'better,' the '71 film (which Roald Dahl reportedly hated) has moments in it that are superior to most of what happens in Burton's film; chiefly the hysteria of the world looking for the golden tickets ("I am now telling the computer exactly what it can do with a lifetime's supply of chocolate!"), the exchanges between Veruca Salt and her hapless father, and Wonka's insane, snake and chopped-off chicken head-filled riverboat ride. However, the mix of unexplained darkness, do-goodery, and illogic make for a much more confused film than Tim Burton's interpretation; a version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that operates on its own rules, but clearly understands them. If it does anything for the original book, it proves that no film taken from a literary source is in fact the 'definitive' interpretation; it is merely how one artist sees things. For that, I think that Mr. Dahl would likely be pleased.