Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Date published: September 15, 2001

I just got done watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on the FOX Family channel. It was pretty cool cuz they had interview footage of Gene Wilder, all 5 of the kids, and one of the Oompa Loompas. It also had some other behind the scenes stuff. It was all from the 30th Anniversary DVD that came out about a month ago...I'm thinking I may have to pick it up...if I do, it'll be the 3rd DVD I've ever purchased.

As I watched it I was really struck by some of the messages in the movie. I always hear people talking about how the whole movie is some sort of acid trip or something (people say the same thing about Alice in Wonderland). I would agreed that it is a bit surreal (just like Alice in Wonderland), but it also has many moral enforcers in the movie. The Oompa Loompas sing 4 songs (one for each child besides Charlie). The songs talk about how one should not eat too many sweets, not be greedy, not chew gum all the time, not spoil ones child, and not watch TV too much (read a book "you get no commercials!"). Anyway, most of the time when people are talking about how the movie is some drug trip, they are talking about one scene in particular where everyone is riding down a tunnel and odd/scary images are being projected on the sides of the tunnel. I mean, don't get me wrong there is tons of nonsense logic in the movie and that's another reason why people say things like "the guy who wrote that was doing drugs when he wrote it" but I'm not going to believe that until I have some proof. Either way it's a timeless classic, and I rarely skip a chance to watch it.

UPDATE (Sept. 26th, 2001):
My good friend Sean Graham wrote me today to inform me that I should not in fact buy this DVD yet. Apparently the only version available is in fullscreen, but they will be releasing a widescreen version later this year. When I was reading up about the DVD, I did in fact notice it was fullscreen, but I figured it was a small flaw to an awesome DVD...now that I hear they will be releasing it in widescreen, it will finally be perfect.