Sunday, August 07, 2005

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

It's quite terrible of me to name my entries after movies but still, first up on what happened yesterday.

I met up with Si Hua and Sequeena for a late breakfast at about 10AM. We sat at one corner of the Sun Plaza Mcs that we used to frequent when we were in secondary school. It brought back a lot of memories for us because we used to study there in the morning for the 'O' levels, but ended up chatting and experimenting on how many $2 sausage mcmuffins can be eaten per person before 11AM. Anyway, we got to see the many photographs that we took last week and they were rather interesting. I wonder if anyone is going to develope them. I know I will.

After that we went to shop around to buy some stuff to bring to Si Hua's sister's house. We bought 3 packets of tomyam, one bottle of Zappel. I think that was about it. It was a 15 minute walk to the house, and I must say it looked very pretty. Of course the first attraction was Si Hua's nephew, Kenzo, who's a month old. Cool name huh! I don't even know whether I spelt that correct. We were greeted by her very hospitable sister and we took our time to eat our cup noodles. Nana and I ended up playing Lego with Joel, Kenzo's older 4 year old brother. Actually it seemed more like Nana and I were the kids. It was quite fun to do something simple like building a house out of Lego. After that we took a few photographs of the house with Joel (waiting for Nana to post those pics up in her blog. Hurry up woman!) Oh, then Si Hua's parents came by when we were testing the Macadascar VCD. The three of us are kinda close so her parents do know us pretty well. Haha... We had a mini-eating session again, cooking another cup noodles and this durian puff which her dad bought. Yummy! I forgot to mention that I had the opportunity to taste the extremely sinful Seafood-flavoured potato chips. Gosh. They tasted good too!

Nana and I talked for a long while about a lot of stuff. It's amazing how we can talk about meaningful stuff (graduation, our future plans, studies) without going through a lot of small talk. We were so engrossed that I forgot to take the FIR CD in the end. Darn. I went straight to Far East to take a walk and I felt kind of weird because it's been a long time since I've been there! Gosh. It looks kind of different and after spending quite some time there, I got to see a lot of interesting stuff that I'll be spending money and time on, but that'll be for next time. Shan't give all my discoveries away.

Met Van rather late and by that time I had to get 2105's tix for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. While walking to PS, I saw Shuming, who didn't have the lucky chance of seeing me. She was with... arhm. Anyway, she called when I was buying the tickets. Oh, and 2 thumbs up for her hair. We were walking rather quickly in opposite directions so it did take some time for me to register that it was actually her. Looking good ya! When I was walking to this hawker place which I can't describe, Jia Hui saw me and he gave me a call. Damn! I wish I was the one who saw him instead. By the time he called I was rather far from his location already. And I was kind of surprised to hear from him. It's been 7 years since we've known each other. Wow.

Anyway, had a great dinner at the place with Van. She told me about her 2 weeks of very busy hostel life and all the fantastic people she got to know. For her it was almost like one big happy family. They had rag day, flag day etc. etc. and she looked like she's been enjoying herself lots. Good for her. We walked back just in time for the start of the movie!

Bring on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!


I was enthralled from the very beginning to the very end. Despite having read the book a couple of times, this movie packs some very special things that are not included in the book and ups the surprise factor. Other than that, the movie follows the content of the book religiously. I haven't read the book in the past 7 years, yet I could remember some of the lines that were taken out word for word and added into the script. Very cool.



Not only has the movie able to stay true the book, it also brought the everything to life. When Roald Dahl could only cook up the images in his head, Tim Burton and his team have managed to translate all of that to awesome images on screen. That in itself is a huge achievement. Accompanied by the outrageously fantastic soundtrack, it is certainly one of the most memorable movies in recent times which makes use of music to enhance the entire mood of the movie. From the trucks moving out to deliver chocolates to giving melody to the poem that Roald Dahl wrote for the Oompa Loompas to sing, the people behind the scenes who created such strong musical backing for the movie deserved to be recognised.



For the uninitiated, the story is about Willy Wonka trying to find someone to hand over his factory to because he doesn't have any children. Thus, he cooks up a masterplan where he'd hide 5 Golden Tickets in ordinary chocolate bars and the kids who find it will have a chance to tour his factory. In the process, he'd be able to pick up the good kids from the bad kids and eventually find his predecessor. Simple plot, but there is not one second that you'll feel left out of the story, despite this essentially written for children. Johnny Depp's acting was magnificent, to say the least. The man brought the eccentric Willy Wonka to life and is in fact one of his most memorable roles to date. He was fab in Pirates of the Carribean too. You may think you know the book very well, but this movie will have your attention from beginning till end.

However, like a chocolate, it was only as good as the movie lasted. It isn't reflective of anything in any way. I give it 4/5 stars. Good stuff! I'll be catching another movie later. I hear you gasp. I'm sorry, I'm a poor bloke but still...

Wedding Crashers here I come!

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