News & Reviews

I managed to squeeze in a quick meal with the Terrys last Friday. I gave Grace a gift for her birthday, the boardgame Cranium. I then took Tara, Candace and Grace to the drive-in theatre and we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then Batman Begins. (Sorry, Laura!) It was the first drive-in experience for Candace and Grace, so that was fun. I'm always surprised at how people have never gone to a drive-in theatre.

I've seen Batman before and I find that it lost a little bit on the second viewing. In particular, the last twenty minutes of non-stop action was fun but obvious. That part was like the usual summer action movie or comic miniseries and it bored me a bit. Willy Wonka was fun. Johnny Depp had his usual fun with the role, playing Wonka as the eccentric that he must be rather than the cooky-yet-personable character that Gene Wilder played in the original movie. And the songs were left to the Oompa Loompas, thankfully.

Since Tim Burton was the director, this new version included more backstory for Wonka that related to his father, as played by Christopher Lee. (You all remember him as Saruman in Lord of the Rings, right? Legend of numerous classic horror films from the '50s?) The twist at the end of the movie veered in a completely different direction from the original movie and the undertones was more subversive and self-deprecating. I find that I prefer the twist at the end of the original movie more, so this new movie felt pretty flat at the end. I certainly enjoyed the movie as a whole. The characters of Charlie and Wonka kept me invested in the movie.

And now for other movie trivia: Ever notice how Star Wars doesn't have any railings? It's a very serious question, as discussed here.

Y'know how Windows comes with the card game Hearts? I prefer Solitaire myself, but this blog post has a couple of interesting bits of trivia. That post links to this blog post, in which one of the original Windows 95 developers helped fix a bug in the program and as a reward one of the computer opponents in that game was named after his wife. It also references an old article by Dave Barry that refers to these computer players by an unfriendly term. Heh.