Willy Wonka

I thought it was interesting that Garrett and Leeper pointed out that Wonka seemed to set things up for the kids to get in trouble. I've seen this movie a million times, and I knew Wonka expected the kids to show their true selves in his factory-but I never thought he was so devious as to plot their demise. When you think about the seating arrangements of the boat and the wonkamobile, and the fact that there was a piece of GUM for Violet, and  Wonkavision for Mike T.V., ....maybe it was more than coincidence.

I've always liked this movie because the "good" guys had no shame for saying exactly what they thought. "If she's a lady, I'm a Vermicsious Knid!" Grampa Joe said of Varuka; and of course Wonka always did whatever he pleased.

All the characters are so good. Grampa Joe is so sure of everything; Charlie is so good; Wonka is so devil-may-care; Varuka is so spoiled; the other kids' parents are so selfish and uppity and sure that their kid is the best kid in the world; it's fantastic. I also love the plot-it takes its time, showing us the ridiculous people of the world who want a tour of the fantastic chocolate factory above all else; and it has its weird oompa-loompa sing-along scenes. I love movies that aren't afraid to have scenes that are unnecessary to the plot.

I've always wondered: do we learn anything good from this movie? Is Wonka worthy of being a role model? Does one good deed really wipe out one bad deed, as it does for Charlie? Should the oompa-loompas be singing about Violet's gum-chewing when she had much worse habits to be focused on (no, not the nose-picking)? Why do we let kids watch this movie? And why do we hail Roald Dahl as a great author, when all his characters/stories are like this?

"Swifter than an eagle! Stronger than lions!" hahahahaha. 

Hey, I found a web page where somebody traced all the Wonka quotes that they could to books and poems and such that the quotes came from. It's pretty cool: http://home.comcast.net/~tom.brodhead/wonka.htm