For your juxapositioning pleasure: A moment of silence for the Wonka that was.

Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Lemme get tutorial here for a moment....I wanna talk Wonka. I saw it last night. I've gone to Slate and the Times and Ebert and on and on. I don't understand how reviewers of the Burton film tend to repeatedly point out that his version is more sinister than Stuart's. Herein I have read the 1971 film described as mellow, even - holy crabcakes, Batman! - dinner-theater-esque.

Ok, so how is such a reading possible, I ask. Here's my take: Wilder's Wonka is more overt in his disdain for the brats. He knows what tools their parents are (Depp's does too but he's so distanced from everyone that it's almost a nonissue). Wilder's Wonka is clearly eccentric but you can tell he's anchored somewhere. Wonka's gravitas is so expertly revealed in the third act in his Half-of-Everything Office with the Gobstopper Theft/Slugworth subplot, wherein we see The Unveiling of Charlie Bucket's Integrity.
Then there is Depp's Wonka. Essentially he seems to cringe and then snap; his velveted man is all over the place and therefore, nowhere in particular. Please note that I do, however, love the braces headgear and Saruman wringing his latex gloves in a moment of angst..

Additionally, Wonka's Wilder drifted off into poetic reverie and when he did so, he was creepy because he seemed omniscient. Depp's Wonka relied on a generic sense of oddity combined with mood imbalance as the source material for "creepy". I think that's a bit cheap. His Wonka is inconsistent and I dont think he ever reveals himself to be someone that Charlie would admire. Weak, but that's just me.

Not everything demands comparison. This I know. In some instances, a work of art requires no contrast in order to make it relevant or revelatory. However, in this case I cannot hold back.
Let us just review some of the juicy wonder that littered Mel Stuart's less-in-accordance-with-the-source-material film of 1971, shall we?

Wonka: "Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?" (Shakespeare + candy = jazz hands! Merchant of Venice)

Veruca Salt: "Snozzberry? Who's ever heard of a snozzberry? "
Wonka: "We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." (Irish poet Arthur O'Shaughnessy)

Tinker: "Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we dare not go a'hunting, for fear of little men. Nobody every goes in, and nobody ever goes out." (Irish Poets Represent! William Allingham of Ballyshannon, Co. Sligo)

Wonka: "The suspense is terrible... I hope it will last." (Irish Trifecta! Wilde, Importance of..)

Wonka: "Not a speck of light is showing / So the danger must be growing / Are the fires of hell a-glowing? / Is the grisly reaper mowing?"

Wonka: "So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it."

Mrs. Gloop: "My son. He'll be made into marshmallows in five seconds!"
Willy Wonka: "Impossible, my dear lady. That's absurd. Unthinkable."
Mrs. Gloop: "Why?"
Willy Wonka: "Because that pipe doesn't go to the marshmallow room. It goes to the fudge room."

Wonka: "Wrong, sir. Wrong. Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if - and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy - "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera..."Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum," et cetera, et cetera..."Nemo bis punitor delicatum". It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal. You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing. You lose. Good day sir."

Wonka: "All I ask is for a tall ship and a star to sail her by. All aboard everybody." (Irish Poet Tetrafecta?! John Masefield )

Charlie Bucket: "Mr. Wonka, they won't really be burned in the furnace, will they?"
Willy Wonka: "Well, I think that furnace is only lit every other day, so they have a good sporting chance, haven't they?"

Mrs. Gloop: "Don't just stand there - do something!"
Wonka: "Help. Police. Murder."

Mike Teevee: "Look at me. I'm gonna be the first person in the world to be sent by television."
Mrs. Teevee: "Mike, get away from that thing."
Willy Wonka: "Stop. Don't. Come back."

Mrs. Gloop: "Aye. Mr. Wonka help I'm getting squooshed!"
Wonka: "Is it my soul that calls me by my name?" (ShakeySpeare: Romeo & Juliet)

Wonka: "For some moments in life there are no words."

Wonka: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." (Keats, Endymion)

Wonka: "Around the world and home again, that's the sailors way." (William Allingham, second prop)

Wonka: "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker" (Ogden Nash)

Wonka: "Bubbles, bubbles everywhere but not a drop to drink." (nod to S. Taylor Coleridge)

Mrs. Gloop: 'You boiled him up, I know it"
Wonka: "Nil desperandum, my dear lady. Across the desert lies the promised land."

Wonka: "So shines a good deed in a weary world." (Merchant of Venice)

And now we have:

Chewing gum is really gross. Chewing gum I hate the most.

Let's boogie.

Ha ha ha ha. You're really weird.

Everything here is eatable. I'm eatable, but that my children is called cannibalism and it is frowned upon in most societies.

Mumbler! (this one is acceptable))

Here we have the Puppet Hospital and Burn Center! (also ok)