Sweet Tooth Movies on DVD
Chocolate: it conjures up instant feelings of desire and indulgence, one of the
most sensuous of foods. With cinema the most sensuous of art forms they are a
match made in heaven.. And while there haven’t been that many films made about
chocolate obsessions those that have left an indelible mark on audiences – and
with good reason.
Surely the chocoholics' dream movie has to be
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971), also remade in 2005 by
Tim Burton and renamed
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. The big screen adaptation of Roald
Dahl's most famous children's book, Willy Wonka was the "candy man" to a
generation of Gen X-ers and then some. To this day it is one of the best kids’
movies ever made, filled with magic, morality and oh yeah – stacks upon stacks
of luscious gooey chocolate, including a chocolate river to die for.
Gene Wilder played eccentric old Willy as a remote recluse, meting out
various punishments to the greedy kids who got behind the iron gates of his
famous sweet factory with their hard-won golden tickets… There is so much
chocolate, so many lollies and so much sugar in this film you can get diabetes
just by looking at it.
By comparison,
Tim Burton's version may not endure so well over time but it still has
lots going for it, including wildly psychedelic sets, some hilariously hip
Oompa Loompas and of course –
Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. Whereas Wilder’s Wonka was a reclusive
paternal figure, Depp plays him as an enigmatic Peter Pan; a little boy who
never grew up and moreover, a wildly famous celebrity trapped inside a
playground of his own making. There he can make anything happen it seems,
except gain the love of his father. (No wonder debate surrounded claims that
Depp had in part based his eccentric performance on that of real life celebrity
Peter Pan, Michael Jackson). English child actor
Freddy Highmore (who had co-starred with Depp
In Neverland) was a terrific Charlie Bucket, perhaps even an
improvement on American Peter Ostrum cast as Charlie in the first film.
Depp also appears in what could be considered the ultimate chocolate movie for
adults,
Chocolat (2000). Swedish director
Lasse Holstrom adapted Joanne Harris' romantic novel to the screen,
turning it into a magic realist box office hit and an Academy Award contender.
It won five, including Best Actress for
Juliet Binoche. Binoche is "Vianne", a modern day "gypsy" who town-hops
her way through Europe young daughter in tow. Her mission is to spread passion
and pleasure through her hand-made chocolates. She settles in a small French
village but the local mayor and nobleman Comte Paul de Reynaud (Alfred
Molina) is threatened by her free wheeling ways. A minor revolt is
sparked as the town takes sides over Vianne's chocolate and permissive ways..
The only other movie to put chocolate so famously on the map has to be the
Tom Hanks-Robert
Zemeckis collaboration,
Forrest Gump (1994), one of the biggest Hollywood movies of the 90s.
Love it or loathe it (most loved it), Forrest Gump also won a swag of Oscars,
including Best Picture, Best Director for Zemeckis and Best Actor for Hanks in
the titular role of Forrest Gump, a slightly slow man with fast luck, living
his life under a heavy-handed metaphor handed down to him by his dear old mum:
“Life is like a box of chocolates… You never know what you're gonna get".
Profound? Well, maybe not. But as far as the box of chocolates goes, I’d like
to the hazelnut praline please..
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
