Tears that Angels cry

Well I just saw 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' just the other day, and I will say (stepping out of my non-polorizing, anti-generalization shell for a sentence or maybe two) that the only way you leave the theatre hating this film is if you have completely driven your inner child into exile. Just another dream/melancholy adventure from Burton + Depp! It's like every one (Burton film) I've seen sprinkles this magic onto things that most times come off as ordinary in other movies. Like when you see Charlie's house way off in the distance of the town or the scenes where shops begin selling the candy with the golden tickets. How he shows machines, but as you remember or would see them as a kid, like the choco factory opening of the film, or in 'Edward Scissorhands' with the cookie machine or 'Big Fish' and the Gigantification machine. And just how he creates "moments": Willy Wonka opening the chocolate factory doors or in 'Edward Scissorhands', the dazzling ice sculpturing with the snowflakes or in 'Big Fish' where he falls in love with her at first sight and time itself freezes for them.

It was the bee's knees. Depp was just unstoppable, which seemed sort of funny also in retrospect since it seemed like it was more of a teamwork affair rather than him always in the spotlight, like a "whole greater than the sum of its parts" thing (hmm... I got that saying right too, totally was bracing myself for a "Justin-knows-what-a-Catch-22-is-but-cannot-use-a-proper-example-but-just-try-and-stop-him-anyway" catastrophe). Christopher Lee came in there unexpectedly, leaving his lightsaber at home, and held it down & Helena Bonham-Carter snuck into the 'Top 5 Justin School Boy Crushes: Actresses' list. But really I thought the kids were the win. They represented the moral beneath the adventure and I thought it was just great how they pulled it off; you got to see how all the children fell victim to or benefit from their character (or lack thereof). And the redemption at the end. And the Squirrel scene (to which no doubt anybody in our neighborhood upon seeing it made the mental joke "Yep... that's the 'Squirrel Lady's' favourite part!", I did and she's my Ma) and the entrance of Willy Wonka! Hahahhha it was classic.

Good old chocolate, everyone's guilty pleasure.


So then I was thinkins of guilty pleasures today as I sat outside on a lovely day listening to 'Architecture in Helsinki' on break. Of most of mine that I can reckon, it seems like most I dabbled into at the Walgreens: the painting of lipstick mustaches on the chic model displays, taking lunch/break in the stockroom, drawing my logo (stage left) on the dry erase board below the serious messages, my "unusual" reading habits, dashing and riding the back of the shopping carts...into infinitium basically. If there truly is a God, he/she is most certainly in the details.