Loompaland

I don't know if it's Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, or just nostalgia for my childhood, but I am in such a mood lately for The Nightmare Before Christmas and the remix of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Believe it or not, I hadn't seen the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory until just a few nights ago. I can't believe how much better it works without the clunky musical numbers weighing it down. It felt a lot tighter, a lot more streamlined, even with the backstory for Wonka. I loved the interior of the factory, though I missed the musical lock. I liked the updated Oompa Loompas. Johnny Depp is no Gene Wilder, but he did a very good job with his new interpretation of a socially-inept Wonka. I think Dahl and Burton go very, very well together. The sendup of the morality fable in a pretty and dark fashion is perfect for Tim Burton. And I LOVED. THE. MUSIC.

Perhaps now is a good time to state that I have a deep and abiding love for the music of Danny Elfman. I linked his name with his work with the first Spiderman movie, though long before I had seen The Nightmare Before Christmas. (which my brother had his own little obsession with) Until I rewatched Nightmare Before Christmas as an adult, I hadn't realized that Elfman is the singing voice of Jack, which is entirely enchanting. I know Nightmare Before Christmas is a tweeny goth staple. But it's delightful. The story is sweet. The music is wonderful. The animation is lovely. And it's all terrifically twisted in the slightest kind of way.

I loved, loved, loved Roald Dahl when I was younger. The first book of his I got ahold of was the classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I finished it in one fell swoop and turned right around and read it "circularly"--as soon as I finished, I'd start over and not quit until I was called upon to do something else, so I never stopped at the end. It was my first qualified book obsession. I read The Twits. I read Matilda. I read The Witches. I read The Great Glass Elevator, sub-par as it was. I read The BFG. I read Danny the Champion of the World, which was my favorite and is now rather hard to find. When I got a bit older, I read his Henry Sugar collection of short stories and loved them too. I loved Quentin Blake's itchy-scratchy drawings and later made my mother buy a book of his for her class just because he was Quentin Blake. Perhaps it's my early obsession with Dahl that turned me into the slightly twisted black comedy-loving person I am today. I don't know.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, because all my other childhood staple books were incredibly wholesome. I grew up on Anne of Green Gables, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, and as many fairy tales, fractured or otherwise as I could find. (maybe the fractured part makes sense) I read a lot of Lousia May Alcott and Frances Hodgson Burnett. I was very attached to some random series: the Five Little Peppers and E. Nesbit's Five Children books (Five Children and It was a particular favorite) I was as Victorian-girly as it was possible to be in my reading.

As I got a little older my mother continued on her quest to make me well-read and I started in on the classics. And now here I am. I will probably always be obsessed with Roald Dahl. But somehow, somewhere along the way, I developed a passion for books that take me on a ride. Books that make me not care about plot holes or tiny writing quibbles. That's why I love Lolita--the story and writing is so good that you forget you're talking about a pedophile and the keeping of a juvenile sex slave. House of Leaves is the ultimate reader-interactive experience I've found yet. And Harry Potter is as enjoyable a ride as I've read in a long, long time.