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Post by timothylane on Feb 28, 2020 10:13:55 GMT -8
Mea maxima culpa. I should have remembered Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, although Wonka is absent for the early part of the movie. Dahl was unhappy with the movie because he felt it put too much emphasis on Wonka rather than young Charlie. (His title was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.) He may also have found it a bit too dark -- in the book you learn that all the other kids survived, something that certainly isn't clear in the movie.
But the Oompah-Loopas are indeed a major asset in both book and movie.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 28, 2020 13:17:57 GMT -8
Wonka is strange. I still don't understand the scenes of everyone sharing the same bed and being so lethargic that they can barely manage to get up out of them.
But the thing here is that Gene Wilder saves this sometimes odd material and makes it work...along with a ton of crazy visuals and such. You gotta see this one. But by no means watch the idiot remake with Johnny Depp. I don't know what Depp was trying to achieve in that but clearly (and ironically) an adult needed to step in and tell him it's not working.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 28, 2020 13:35:23 GMT -8
I think only the very young and us FOGs (f- ing Old Guys/Girls) actually get the ironic humor in both the book and the movie. You are entirely correct the remake, IMHO was a disaster, but you know the movies they keep remaking until it is so wrong even the people that liked the original won't watch. However, there can only ever be one, Plan Nine From Outer Space.
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Post by timothylane on Feb 28, 2020 13:54:59 GMT -8
Roald Dahl also wrote the famous "Lamb to the Slaughter", about a woman who finds a unique way of disposing of the murder weapon. "It's probably right under our noses." Indeed, it was.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 28, 2020 14:08:34 GMT -8
I saw the TV version of this many years ago. I believe it might have been on "The Twilight Zone." (I checked and Alfred Hitchcock presented this, but the one I saw was the British version in Dahl's "Tales of the Unexpected.")
I later read the short story.
The woman was very clever, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.
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Post by timothylane on Feb 28, 2020 14:37:30 GMT -8
It appeared on both Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. I've seen the Hitchcock version multiple times as well as reading the story. The episode follows it pretty well.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 28, 2020 14:43:53 GMT -8
Yep. And speaking of weirdness, The Wizard of Oz is very weird as well. I didn’t particularly like this movie as a child. It didn’t seem to mean anything and I wasn’t into musicals and Judy Garland at the time. (That is, I passed the Queer Test with flying colors.) Now I really do love the music. Judy Garland is just grand in this, but I feel no need to wear rainbow underwear. I know, that’s a horrible picture to have. I think in a weirdness contest, the Oompa Loompas edge out the Munchkins. What say you?
One forum gets right down to this vital question:
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Post by artraveler on Feb 28, 2020 15:35:08 GMT -8
but I feel no need to wear rainbow underwear. I know, that’s a horrible picture to have. There are some things you just can not unsee--thanks a bunch
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 28, 2020 16:40:16 GMT -8
I watched about 20 minutes of Mary Poppins returns on Netflix. It is insipid, a bore, and just not entertaining. So I decided to turn on Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory which is also on Netflix. It’s a real hoot and it starts fast and goes fast. And I’ll have to tell you the child actor who plays verruca is amazing.
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Post by timothylane on Feb 28, 2020 16:57:42 GMT -8
And if you haven't seen it before, now you know why Veruca Salt is the ultimate brat. So much so that she and Willie Wonka are the only characters whose full names I recall. (I don't remember Charlie's last name.)
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 28, 2020 21:22:00 GMT -8
Veruca Salt is a blast. I don’t know if Netflix has an extended version or if I was just paying better attention. But it seems as if there was a lot of stuff I never noticed before. This info notes: That tunnel scene was there and I don’t remember seeing that before. Wilder is wonderfully manic during this segment. I don’t know whether this bit of trivia could possibly be true (don’t they know they are all actors?), but in the trivia section it says: It’s a wild and wacky world in the movies. Perverts and Prima Donnas. But this was a nice piece of trivia: In the end, Wonka assures Charlie and his grandpa that all the other kids were perfectly fine but might be a little wiser now. And I love the Oompas Loompa songs that each feature a moral lesson. And who is the head Oompa Loompa?
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Post by timothylane on Feb 28, 2020 21:36:26 GMT -8
I can't compare the version I've seen on TCM to the version you saw here. But I do recall the trip through the tunnel, and TCM makes it a point to include the movies without any cuts.
The Oompah-Loompas also sang some message songs for the various kids in the book, but not the same ones as in the movie.
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Post by timothylane on Feb 29, 2020 18:08:21 GMT -8
Over half of the vote is counted in South Carolina, and the Yellow Jester has about half with Bolshie Bernie under 20% and Steyer barely over 10%. The latter may get no delegates (it depends on whether he gets at least 15% in any district). If you add Battygeek, the Blonde Squaw, and Koldbutcher, they'd qualify for a share of delegates, but it doesn't work that way. Gabbard is doing about as well as the vote for the others (i.e., the candidates who already dropped out).
Of course, Super Tuesday is only 3 days away, and the Yellow Jester hasn't been able to campaign in any of these states lately -- either in person or via ads. Bolshie Bernie leads in several states, including the PDR of Taxachusetts.
I doubt anyone will drop out between South Carolina and Super Tuesday, but I suspect several candidates will drop (i.e., "suspend their campaigns") after that.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 2, 2020 9:45:17 GMT -8
A guest on the Hugh Hewitt show brought up an interesting point: Crazy Bernie is not a Democrat. When it comes down to it, if it comes down to a brokered convention, he could be toast. Qualification #1 for the Democrat Convention: You must be a Democrat. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I don’t know if Plugs and others can collect enough delegates so that Crazy Bernie doesn’t go in with a majority.
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Post by artraveler on Mar 2, 2020 10:14:06 GMT -8
Crazy Bernie is not a Democrat. That may be a minor point. The modern democrat party is to the left of crazy Bernie. They can just turn around and say they nominated a moderate.
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Post by timothylane on Mar 2, 2020 10:29:01 GMT -8
One cartoon I saw showed Bolshie Bernie at the debate saying he thinks the Behemoth should run everything and the others all disagreeing -- with their fingers crossed behind their backs. Most apt.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 2, 2020 10:42:00 GMT -8
Rush is reading this that the Democrats see Crazy Bernie as another George McGovern. Rush is saying that the first move to marshall the forces to get him out was for Butt-gig to bow out which reduces the splitting of the vote (presumably in favor of Plugs and Doomberg).
Personally, I don’t see the appeal of Crazy Bernie.
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Post by timothylane on Mar 2, 2020 12:09:51 GMT -8
Amy Koldbutcher has also now dropped out. Considering she ran behind Battygeek in every primary, this makes sense -- but it's still a surprise that she did so before the Minnesota primary tomorrow. Maybe her internal polling indicated that victory there was increasingly unlikely, and decided to get out while the getting was good. She will also endorse the Yellow Jester at a rally tonight. Now the Demagogue field is four sexagenarians, with the Blonde Squaw being the least old (at their ages, "youngest" makes no sense).
And Trump, at 73, isn't as old as the Yellow Jester (77), Doomberg (78), or Bolshie Bernie (78).
The 1984 Demagogue race resolved into a 3-way race of Walter Mondull, Gary Hart, and Jesse the Jetstream. Once the Blonde Squaw gets out (probably after tomorrow's results come in), the same thing will happen this year. This presupposes that Doomberg doesn't collapse. A 2-way race between Bolshie Bernie and the Yellow Jester would be a high-stakes gamble for the Demagogues. It would probably eliminate a brokered convention, but it's all too likely that Bolshie Bernie would win, and that terrifies the party elites. (They don't object to his socialism, they object that it's too open to be politically expedient.)
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Post by Brad Nelson on Mar 2, 2020 12:51:50 GMT -8
We shall call him Trump the Younger from now on.
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Post by timothylane on Mar 3, 2020 20:15:54 GMT -8
A lot of Demagogue voters decided in the last few days for the Super Tuesday primaries, and they heavily favored the Yellow Jester unsurprisingly. As a result, he carried 6 Southern states plus Taxachusetts and Minnesota. Sanders won Vermont, Colorado, and Utah. Texas and Maine are still too close to call, with Bolshie Bernie narrowly ahead in Texas and the Yellow Jester very narrowly ahead in Maine. California has just been called for Bolshie Bernie on the basis of exit votes.
Blonde Squaw With Empty Head came in third in her home state of Taxachusetts and fourth in her native state of Oklahoma. Tulsi Gabbard averaged 1% of the vote, but did pick up a delegate in the American Samoa caucus. This would qualify her for the debates, but the DNC apparently plans to raise the bar so that only white septuagenarians will qualify. Of course, by then there may only be 2 candidates running. (Doomberg overall won American Samoa, his only victory. I'm not sure he'll even end up second anywhere else, though he currently is second in Utah and California. After all that money and effort in Virginia, he came in just behind the Blonde Squaw with less than 10%. But he did at least win delegates in some other states.)
One problem for the Yellow Jester is that half of the South is now in, so Bolshie Bernie may have a better chance as more western states with lots of Hispanics vote, as well as the industrial states in the Northeast and Midwest. One problem for Bolshie Bernie is that he generally did better among early voters, so his totals today were quite poor. For example, it would appear that he won the early vote in Texas but lost among those who voted today. (As a result, his lead is declining as the night wears on. As I said earlier, the state hasn't been called.)
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