Grendel’s Kitchen

Johnny Depp as Mr. Rogers/Michael Jackson/Carol Channing as a mad genius in an even wackier Tim Burton Magical World than ever seen before. I’m an admitted Depp-aficionado, and so I’m biased towards anything he touches — even Kate Moss. Same with Tim Burton. Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — my very first IMAX experience — is truly wonderful, amazing, and totally freaky. While I have a great affection for Gene Wilder and the old Oompa Loompa song from the Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory of my childhood, just a moment — any moment — clipped from this film is enough for my imagination to chew on for hours, days.I loved having the living daylights scared out of me as a child, and although we’re missing the lurking Slugworth (aside from a brief glimpse at the start) and the barely mentioned Ooompa Loompa slave trade history of the first movie (which gave me nightmares), Johnny Depp as Wonka and Deep Roy as multitudes of Oompa Loompas provide a whole new dark side … made even creepier as I tried to decide whether Depp was channeling Mr. Rogers or Michael Jackson … or Carol Channing, maybe?Charlie’s beyond-poverty-stricken home life is wacky and delightful — classic Burton, Noah Taylor, Helena Bonham Carter, a quartet of cozy bedridden grandparents and … that house hovel! I think the Wonka family backstory is a little off-putting, but redeemed by the distinct contrast between Wonka’s flashbacks and the brief glimpse of young Willie’s photo seen in his father’s (Christopher Lee) displaced brownstone.I love the mingled innocent fantasy and cynical harshness of this film, and the vivid and unearthly production is beyond imagination. Depp’s performance is at right angles to the direction of the film, but so what — it’s as disorienting as the flying glass elevator and necessary to this whole magical world. See it. And despite the rumbling and vibrating chairs which felt like a small child kicking the back of my airplane seat, I can’t imagine a better venue than a massive IMAX theatre — find one. Definitely not one to put off until the DVD comes out.[August 22 update: Johnny Depp produces ashes-to-fireworks sendoff for friend Hunter S. Thompson. Oh Johnny, how could you? Think of all the starving children in America that $2M could have gone to. It never got weird enough for me.]