Willy Wonka and Other Theater News

 

Willy Wonka is being re-released to theaters for its 55th anniversary. I plan to see it.

Other upcoming re-releases: "Point Break" and "Terminator 2" in August; "The Passion of the Christ," "Transformers: The Movie," "Princess Mononoke" in September.

Also, one of the new episodes of MST3K (from the latest kickstarter) will be in theaters September 9th and 13th (and check your local listings for exact dates).

Willy Wonka Drums

Happy Golden Ticket Day!

 

Today is Golden Ticket Day - the prop used in the movie and the dialogue in the movie both agree that the day of the tour of Willy Wonka's factory takes place on the first of October.

Unfortunately, we live in an era where we can't celebrate any day without some sort of controversy and Golden Ticket Day is no exception, so let's address it.

Firstly, the book has the aforementioned events taking place on February 1st. But since "Willy Wonka" is one of the only cases where the movie is better than the book, I go with the movie.

Secondly, while the tour of the factory is October 1st, it's made clear that the day Charlie finds the golden ticket is September 30. Perhaps that's the better object of commemoration. 

Celebrating on September 30 would also make sense because of the ways you could celebrate that day. Golden Ticket Day could be a day for looking into sewers for coins and eating bars of chocolate. Celebrating the next day, what can you do? It would be difficult to schedule a tour of a chocolate factory for that day.

I could be convinced for either one and wouldn't mind celebrating both, but I think the weight of the printed object with the specific date means October 1st makes much more sense. So Happy Golden Ticket Day!

Willy Wonka Filming Locations

 

I don't know if this will interest anyone else but someone put together a montage of all the "Willy Wonka" filming locations and what they look like now.

This is so detailed and meticulous... Someone put a lot of research and did a lot of exacting work to make a video for no money.

Re:View - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

RIP Gene Wilder

The Late Late Show - Corden's First Episode

The new host of The Late Late Show is James Corden and his first episode aired last night. You can watch it here.

Although I've stated it many times, I'll mention again how a late night talk show can't be assessed based on the first episode - it's a marathon not a sprint, and boy is it a long marathon. He had the big comedy piece with loads of celebrities and it went well (see below) but he's not going to have that every night. And his first guests were Mila Kunis and Tom Hanks... he will also not have those guests every night.

That aside, how was the first episode? It was good. The monologue was short but heartfelt - he thanked his predecessor Craig Ferguson but didn't thank Craig Kilborn or Tom Snyder (more on that later). The guests were obviously good. He has Reggie Watts as his band leader. He has no desk and they actually had both guests come out at the same time. It's unclear whether that's going to be the norm or whether that's just for the first show.

The second comedy piece (see below) was also very good. One gets the feeling that they'll be going for the kind of comedy pieces that go viral on youtube instead of the usual "desk" routines (well, there's no desk, so...). Again though, you won't have Tom Hanks every night.





I love the fact that they went with a Willy Wonka/Golden Ticket reference, I'm a big fan. But there's something strange and coincidental about that. When Craig Kilborn's first episode as host was about to air, this is one of the commercials that aired:



And this wasn't the only one, it was a whole campaign of several different commercials. There was even one with Vince Vaughn that you can watch here.

It's the same show so why do I think it's strange and coincidental? Well Corden didn't thank Craig Kilborn for starting/continuing the show. Seems like if he was even slightly aware of the show's past, he would have done that.

Classic Roots Choice #26

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi was on the show the other night to promote the current season of "Jersey Shore". Her walk-on music? A segment of the Oompa Loompa song from "Willy Wonka...".

[Waaaaaa.]

That's classic.