The elephants have moved on to a new stomping ground and all has been quiet since the departure of the car during the last entry. But, in retrospect we really should've called the apartment manager as soon as we worked out how many people were staying there.
Nathan said he hasn't seen the girl who actually lives up there, or her car, for the same amount of time the herd was there. His suggestion is that she left and asked somebody to collect her mail and water her plants while she was gone, and they went wild. He also thought that, even though the white chick's car is here a lot, she doesn't actually live here either.
But, they're gone now, all is quiet, and if it ever happens again we'll be on the phone like that.
In other news, last night I went to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's cute, but at the same time kind of creepy. The creepiest thing of all, though, are not the Oompa-Loompas, or the factory, but Johnny Depp's incredibly perfect looking teeth. I'd never noticed them before, but they're rather prominent in the movie because of the extra plot line they threw in to give Willy a backstory.
I didn't think the backstory was necessary, but if they hadn't put it in, the movie would've been about 45 minutes long and hardly worth the seven bucks. I think there must be something completely anti-climactic about Dahl's ending because no one has used it, even the play versions I've read have to do other things. Maybe it's because Dahl is so suggestive of the sequel, and directors don't want to get involved in that.
The Oompa-Loompa songs, however, are fantastic. Compared to the creepy-assed songs that took forever in the Disney movie but all pretty much sounded the same, these all pick a different musical genre and they're very fast-paced- a little hard to catch every word, but as long as you know they're berating the dead kid and the morals of the parent, it doesn't matter.
The kids are all vivid, even Augustus who has less screen time than anybody else- Grandma Georgina gets more screen time than he does. I would love to see Violet (I dunno actor names) in something where she's not quite so vile because she seems like a clever, talented kid. And Mike Teavee, I swear I've seen him before, but I've no idea where.
All in all, it's a lot of fun, it's better than the Disney version as far as scale goes. It's more good creepy than creepy creepy and it's going to make the play up here look like gummi bears in the park. (But for all that, most of the parents are going to see their kid look adorable onstage, so they won't care.)
Saw the trailer for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I want to see the movie because it's visually stunning- it looks just like it does in my imagination, which is delightfully creepy (especially for Disney, who has never yet been able to match or improve upon my imagination). But I hold dear to my heart the old BBC movies I saw in the early nineties. In fact, with the actual title of this movie including The Chronicles of Narnia, it suggests that they're going to do the rest of them too. Based on what I'm already seeing, that bothers me a little bit. Right from the beginning of the trailer, though, I feel that they're misrepresenting professor Kirke, which could potentially screw things up seven movies later.
A funny thing about the timeline, though, is that for years Wardrobe was the first book, and then in about 1998 they re-sequenced them starting with The Magiacian's Nephew. I was outraged, because when I read the books I thought it was quite clever not to learn everything in sequence. But apparently, CS Lewis was asked in a letter by one of his fans whether they ought to be read chronologically, or as published. Reportedly, Lewis wrote back to the boy and said he would read them chronologically, but he was sure there were people who would enjoy them more in the order in which they were published. I maintain you can read them all in publication order, but skip Horse and His Boy entirely. I always thought that one was the most boring, probably because nobody from our world is really featured in it, except the Pevensie kids who are all grown up and, therefore, no fun.
The other thing about the movie that strikes me is just how young Lucy looks, but that's an entirely personal judgement. I was in second grade when I read the books so Lucy and I were both eight. Consequently, whenever I read the books, I'm Lucy. This does not quite jive with the little girl in the film who looks about six and definately nothing like me.
And... after that I've sat here for twenty minutes trying to think of something to write and coming up with nothing. Sorry. What did you want me to write about instead?