WARNING! This Blog may contain traces of nuts, dust and spoilers

Personally i dont think anything i say about either of the films i saw today can really be called spoilers as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was written years ago and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who couldnt tell you pretty much the whole plot if you asked them and War of the Worlds has been around for literally a century and at least 4 versions, but never mind, i should probably warn the people who have been imprisoned/trapped in a deep dark hole/picked up by aliens, moved at the speed of light, then come back to find its 200 years later even though they've only been gone a couple of minutes á la Close Encounters/whatever that the following does contain spoilers. if i remember there will be some spoiler free stuff at the bottom.

SPOILERS AHOY

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

i saw this first so i'll talk about it first. much better than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! its much closer to the book and far less cheesey. Tim Burton is a genius, Johnny Depp is a fantastic actor, the children could speak their lines without looking and sounding like they were reading them off a card just out of shot when they've only been able to read for a week (see younglings in Star Wars Episode III for comparison) , Christopher Lee, they had mostly REAL SQUIRRELS instead of CGI, Deep Roy makes a great Oompa Loompa, Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap walking comedy dogs and talking with comedy voices, a fantastic 2001 reference (i was the only person in the whole cinema to laugh when it came on the Oompa Loompa's TV, and again when the music started), and Helena Bonham-Carter really is quite fit...

as for the down side....how the hell did Charlie manage to spend a 10 DOLLAR BILL in a BRITISH sweet shop? who in Britain uses the word candy? the small child behind me sang along to the advert for Coco Rocks at the start and then started kicking the back of my chair towards the end of the film. thats about it.

one thing thats annoyed me with both versions of the film though: surely sending the chocolate bars via TV is a really bad thing to do economically speaking? they have to use hundreds of times more chocolate to make the bar to send, only for it to be reduced to the size of a normal bar. it has just occured to me that it might be possible to send that one huge bar to millions of different TVs. that would be quite good for making a profit.

War of the Worlds

wow. very dark and very un-Spielberg-ey for a Spielberg film. even the camera movements would have been more suited than a Sam Raimi film to a Spielberg. not that im complaining, i thought it was fantastic. i used to hate Tom Cruise with a passion, but since i've seen Mission: Impossible hes really grown on me (and that was before i was told i look like him). i very nearly laughed out loud when the martians started zapping people and turning them to dust. i liked the way their clothes fluttered down afterwards...there were some points when i was nearly in tears too.

only three bad things i can think of:
Dakota Fanning's screaming was REALLY annoying. it went in via your ears then scraped its fingernails down your brain.
Robbie really should have died.
"...those microbes which god, in his wisdom, put on this planet..." i'll accept it in the 1888 novel by H. G. Welles because they didnt know any better back then. i'll also let it slide in the 1933 radio series and just get mildly annoyed with it in the 1953 film, but for fucks sake! we're in the 21st century! you can keep the bit about how we've earnt the right to live here by building up an immunity to them, but please! they're here by chemical chance, same as us! of course thats just my religious belifs (i.e. non-existant.....like god....)

bah...i forgot to listen out for the noise the tripods made as the martians inside were dieing. i wonder if it was the same sound that the shark in Jaws made when it died and when the lorry in Duel drove off the cliff...?

HERE ENDETH THE SPOILERS

as i predicted, yesterday i took my script to Muscats and all my main cast read it and...and...and there is a grasshopper standing on my Paint Shop Pro 7 & Animation Shop 3 Reference Guide.....how did he get in and why did he decide to clean his antenna and feet on a big white book when theres a nice green CD case not too far to the left? c'mon you....you'll die in here...let me take you to my room where i can chuck you out the window into the garden where you'll have a slightly higher chance of surviving? now hes jumped on the side of the book case...now back over the books and CDs he was on to get to the computer speaker. [Matt wrestles with the grasshopper and is briefly overpowered but he quickly regains control] ok. hes out the window now.

anyhoo....oh, yes....as i predicted, yesterday i took my shite script to Muscats and my main cast read it and thought it was hilarious. i really need to work on the character development side of things to make it A) longer and B) less shite. i want to get the script pretty much finished by the end of the weekend. it wont happen, but i'd at least like to have it nearly done so that i've got something for Shari to read to make sure it is less shite before we begin filming, although i am quickly running out of time for that...

i asked people if they had any ideas for other possible songs to go at the start instead of I Predict a Riot by the Kaiser Chiefs. Lynda, who i dont like much anyway, suggested pretty much everything that wasnt suitable from Jimi Hendrix to Britney Spears, so i had fun arguing with her. the only thing she suggested that was halfway decent was Dont Stop Me Now by Queen, but as i pointed out, the aim is to NOT try to blatantly rip off Shaun of the Dead. i also argued with her about M*A*S*H. she thinks its great. i disagree.
i could have killed her later on in the evening. we were all watching Spider-Man 2 and she kept making comments about the Peter/MJ love story (stuff like "yeah, so what? its only her" when Peter is staring at MJ walking down the stairs with John Jameson Jr at the plane-arium) obviously shes never had the oportunity to find out what it feels like to see the love of your life with someone else...

must stop being depressing. tomorrow im going to either watch the first two episodes of Lost from Channel 4 last night or listen to my parents record of the 1933 radio series of War of the Worlds, cos i still havent heard that yet, depending on what sort of mood im in.

GAH! i've just almost had a heart attack. the volume was a lot higher than normal for some reason and i received an un expected email. as a result Yahoo Messenger blared out some Papa Lazarou talking nonsense way too loudly. damn spam! its bad for your health!

im home alone til weds cos my parents are camping. may have a few friends over next monday or tuesday, depending on when im working next week. nothing too big though...

hum....im off to bed now. see ya later! wow....have i really spent an hour and a quarter writing this....?