I also dispute the notion that Gene Wilder's peformance is anything over than both warm and sinister.
I agree that it's both, but I kept feeling that one was a cover for the other. And you aren't supposed to be able to figure out which is which.
From the freaky mammajamma front -- I liked Forever Amber. Mainly because Linda Darnell is an excellent Amber (more because of presence than acting ability). But it'd be interesting to see what could be done with the story today -- because a lot of the novel just couldn't be put on the screen in the 1940s.
Gene Wilder's performance in the original movie is wonderful, there's no question. I'm still seriously looking forward to this new interpretation. Especially Wonka's clothes. The hat! The coat!! The cane!!!
WRT The Incredibles, I was not familiar with Edith Head, so a friend sent me this:
[link]
There's an Edith Head ref in
The Incredibles?
I can't wait to see it.
There's an Edith Head ref in The Incredibles? I can't wait to see it.
More than just a reference, daahhling....
There's an Edith Head ref in The Incredibles?
There's a whole Edith Head character. HI-larious.
Edna Mode, the Edith Head-inpired character:
[link]
I agree that it's both, but I kept feeling that one was a cover for the other. And you aren't supposed to be able to figure out which is which.
Gene Wilder's said as much. Up to the end of the movie, he didn't want you to know where his character stood. The first movie I ever saw Gene Wilder in (Young Frankenstein was the second - also brilliant), and one of those young movie-going experiences that marks (scars?) you for life. Sort of like seeing the original HAUNTING at age 9 when my parents were out and the lights were off, or SUSPIRIA at 13 when I'd never seen anything that stylized or violent.
I always loved the "pure imagination" song on the workroom floor, in
Willy Wonka,
and after that his flashes of creepiness didn't fool me. I mean, I thought they were a basically loving man being occasionally creepy, rather than someone about whom I shouldn't be sure. I didn't have a problem with the idea that good people can have mile-wide cruel streaks.
In other news, OMG! There is a new rerelease of
The Big Red One.
[link]
The original version is so cheerfully clunky and symbolic, it's lovable, but hard to respect. A. O. Scott seems to think that the restored version -- 40 minutes longer, but still more than an hour shorter than the original cut -- makes it a classic.
I was introduced to this movie via a documentary, in which Quentin Tarantino and Tim Robbins go rifling through Sammy Fuller's garage of old props. Tarantino holds up a helmet and describes the fact that Fuller cast Luke Skywalker to play one of the soldiers, and then had him be the one who opens up the still-hot oven at Falkenau Concentration Camp. "Here, Luke, I'll show you what
real
evil is," he says.
I always loved the "pure imagination" song on the workroom floor
Me, too, and he looks so blissfully happy when he sings it.
