Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory 1971

Haven’t seen the Charlie and the chocolate factory films for so long but rewatched this one because of grandpa Joe.  Probably my favourite thing about this film was the guy that played Willy Wonka, he was quite a good actor and gave a good performance. No one else really stood out for positive reasons like he did. But I was pleasantly surprised by how funny this film actually was, it wasn’t hilarious and some of the jokes felt a bit dated, but it really has that dry, 70s/ 80s humour and it made me laugh a couple of times. Some of the jokes made me think of “aeroplane” in their delivery, which came out like 9 years after this I think.  I also think some of the music was quite good. “The candy man can”. (Thought this was from Madagascar)   “I’ve got a golden ticket”  “In a world of pure imagination” (thought this was from wizard of oz)  And of course the Oompa Loompa song. Haven’t seen this film for so long that I was really surprised to find that I somehow remember the words to all the songs. Really like some of them and a couple are still playing through my head hours later.  Watched this film with my friend Jennifer, who I’ve been watching most of my films with recently. She is a “grandpa Joe hater” which is why we watched this film because apparently that’s a thing. There’s like a small community online of people who despise grandpa Joe which I found funny enough to watch this again, seeing her get annoyed and rant about him was pretty funny. The other day we even watched a detailed video essay on why he’s an awful person.  I do agree with a lot of their points, but for others it does feel like they are clutching at straws a little just looking for reasons to hate him.  He was a little annoying, I do think he cared about Charlie at the start of the film with the whole tobacco thing, but the fact he stayed in bed and complained that the floors too cold and as soon as Charlie wins a golden ticket he jumps up and starts dancing and singing “I’ve got a golden ticket”. It is annoying that he probably could have walked the whole time and Charlie’s mum was having to work hard to take care of him, but I do think the whole point is supposed to be that his joy of him being able to go to the chocolate factory with Charlie was enough to give him the energy to get up again. Though I can understand both arguments to this.  On a side note, why’s everyone getting so obsessed with this golden ticket thing when the prize was free chocolate for life. Surely you’d get sick of chocolate after a while and it’s not worth spending so much money on chocolate that you could probably could have just instead bought a life supply of chocolate. Yet it seems like all the world cares about at the time are these golden tickets, with all the updates being on the tv and in the papers and the teacher ending class early to go look for them and teaching about them in lesson. I get that part is just probably for comedic purposes, also this is kinda a kids film. People spending money on the chocolate did lead to some of the funniest jokes in the film however, such as lady who’s husband has been taken for ransom who said she’ll do anything to get him back except give up her chocolate bars.  Sorry I’ve still not finished this tangent. If the reason everyone wanted the tickets so much was to go meet wonka and visit the factory, then why did every single character just complain the whole time. It got really annoying and it made me like Willy wonka a lot coz of how he dealt with it by basically getting a bunch of spoilt kids nearly killed.  Back to grandpa Joe.  People also get mad over him and Charlie stealing the floating juice. But they were just having fun the whole time and we’re less complainy than everyone else, who all also broke the rules and nearly got themselves killed, hating on grandpa Joe for being the same as everyone else yet bring the only one who doesn’t complain about it as he knew he did something he wasn’t supposed to, seems silly. I mean he did complain at the end but I think that’s mostly because he cares about his grandson and wants Charlie to get the prize he was promised.  A lot if the other points I agree with though, him calling wonka a crook and then telling Charlie to steal the gobstopper, yet Charlie proves he has a good heart by not listening to joe for which he is rewarded, and grandpa Joe is quick to jump in and claim the reward alongside Charlie after he had just proved he is the opposite of the pure heart Charlie showed, so probably shouldn’t be rewarded for it.  Anyway I wrote way too much about this I just found the whole weird obsession with his character interesting. I’m supposed to be doing an essay for uni currently that’s due 16:00 today. It’s 5:49 am right now. I haven’t slept. Was supposed to do a quick little review and go to sleep. I just wrote 870 words on Willy wonka and the chocolate factory. My essay due today is also 870 words.  7.7/10 935 words