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marcadamweiner
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Closed for Storm (2020)
Decent documentary with a couple issues
I decided to buy this documentary both because I'm a huge fan of Bright Sun Films and because I'm a hardcore roller coaster enthusiast. I have had a huge interest in Jazzland/Six Flags New Orleans in the past and I couldn't pass this up when I found out it was being made.
Closed for Storm is an expertly made documentary with absolutely stunning drone footage of the abandoned park and the surrounding area. The cinematography is on point and the interview segments are very well done. I greatly enjoyed the storytelling of how the park was designed, built, operated and ultimately destroyed, and the historical footage provides a glimpse of the past and complements the interviews perfectly. Once we get to the Hurricane Katrina section it did tug on my heartstrings, with the footage of flooded homes, blazing fires and livelihood in ruin; I really felt for the people of New Orleans even though I was fairly young when the hurricane actually hit. I enjoyed the accounts by previous employees as well; they gave life to the park in a way that I had not considered before. This park employed hundreds of people and served as an escape for thousands in the area before Mother Nature came to remind everyone who was in charge. The soundtrack is also fantastic and it gave me chills on multiple occasions. I was really impressed overall by the documentary and I'm glad I pre-ordered it, if only to support one of my favorite YouTubers with his filmmaking endeavors. This documentary does not feel like an extended Bright Sun Films video, by the way - it's its own thing.
However, I do have a couple of issues with it. Number one is length - I feel like the documentary could have been 30 minutes shorter had some of the cinematic footage been cut; the footage of the theme park is great, but I found that there was a ton of unrelated footage that padded runtime and made the film unnecessarily long. At times I felt that this footage even took the place of a story, as it cut in at seemingly random times. This also goes for a few snippets of interview; although the vast majority of interview footage was necessary and interesting, there were a couple of times that I questioned if what I just heard was really needed to effectively tell the story.
This leads to my second issue, which is the story itself. The first half of the film is fantastic; it's essentially a chronological retelling of everything that happened with expertly filmed drone footage, historical video and interviews with people involved in the development and operation of the park. However, at about the halfway point or a little after, it started getting a bit messy. The timeline became unclear and it started getting into the nitty-gritty of two separate redevelopment plans that weren't ever finalized. Although this portion of the documentary did express how complicated the whole situation is and how indecisive the City of New Orleans is, I don't entirely think it was necessary to get into such detail with both of the plans; I think it would have been better to simply highlight any and all plans that have been proposed and/or rejected and make the documentary far shorter, ending it on a much stronger note than what was actually achieved.
Overall though, Closed for Storm is great. It's filled with breathtaking aerial footage of the abandoned park and interesting interviews that tell us the story of the development, operation and ultimate downfall of Six Flags New Orleans. The documentary does a superb job at conveying this through a mix of cinematic shots and urban exploration footage, similar to what you'd normally see on the Bright Sun Films YouTube channel. The urban exploration footage is very neat (although most of it was filmed at night with a flashlight for some reason) and I'm glad it was included as a supplement to the film. For the first attempt at a documentary by filmmaker Jake Williams, Closed for Storm is fantastic and I'd highly recommend checking it out.
PS: It would've been cool to see footage from on top of the rides or climbing up them, but maybe Jake is saving that for his YouTube channel ;)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Fantastic and criminally underrated film that's true to the original story
Note: I'm not a child. I've watched the original film far more times than I've watched this film. I'm sitting here reading reviews and getting so angry at the people who review this film solely as a "remake" of Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory. Their nostalgia goggles are glued to their face and they can't seem to understand that this is an adaptation of a BOOK and not a remake of a movie that had nearly nothing to do with the book.
Guess what? I have nostalgia for the '71 film too. But guess what else? I don't base my opinion of THIS movie off a movie that's almost completely unrelated. The only similarity between the '71 movie and the '05 movie, and really between the '71 movie and the BOOK, is the general plot and the characters. That's pretty much it. With that being said, stop comparing this movie to that one without even taking into consideration how this one stands as a film by itself, or as an adaptation of the book. So from now on, I will not be comparing this movie to the '71 movie. That movie doesn't exist from now until when I finish typing this review.
First of all, I was an extreme fan of the book as a kid (and really all of Roald Dahl's work). I've read it probably 50 times at this point and I know the story inside and out. This film is really, REALLY accurate. And I love that. Of course, you'd expect tat considering Tim Burton literally studied the book's original illustrations when making this movie, and that Felicity Dahl (Roald's wife) was executive producer of this film. The only aspect of this film that isn't accurate is the whole backstory regarding Wonka's past. Say what you want about the execution of it, but I really enjoyed the efforts of Burton to flesh his character out. It's tough to gauge a character that we know virtually nothing about, but it's neat to see why and how Willy Wonka became the way he is. His motivations make more sense when we see his tough childhood. I don't mind the backstory at all. Throwing in some character development for Wonka was a good move in my book.
The music in this movie is remarkable. I do not for the life of me understand the criticisms some people are making of them. I mean, what more can you ask for: varied and catchy music styles WITH Dahl's original lyrics? It's perfect. I genuinely cannot choose a favorite song in this movie. They're all THAT good. And as for the criticisms about the Oompa Loompas all being played by Deep Roy, I personally don't see an issue with it. It was done really well, and I would personally have every Oompa Loompa played by the same person and cloned digitally than only have a few Oompa Loompas.
I really do enjoy the grand and modern appearance of all the sets in this film. Burton deliberately made as much of the film real as possible, and it's just fantastic. The grand scale of the chocolate room, inventing room and nut room are just spectacular, ESPECIALLY the nut room which has a very neat modern vibe to it. I especially love during the Oompa Loompa's Veruca Salt song when they dance around the garbage shoot. Even the television room, which is essentially just a white box, has a cool modern vibe to it with the design of the lights and cameras. The factory itself, in fact, has a great design. It reminds me almost of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining: how it's so grand and gigantic and easy to get lost in, and once you go inside you really can't escape. As a kid I always wanted to look at a floor plan of this monstrosity and just see how all the rooms and movie locations were laid out relative to each other and the outside world. The factory is so large in fact, that it doesn't even seem like it can exist in the same universe as the rest of the film (Fudge Mountain, as an example).
A common criticism of this film is Depp's performance and interpretation of Wonka. I personally find it PERFECT. I don't think he's creepy, just a social recluse that doesn't really know how to communicate with people. He spent so many years talking to only the Oompa Loompas and himself that he's gone crazy, which is also accurate to the book. Wonka is an introvert and an extremely bizarre man, but very eccentric. He's also a genius, but has disturbing thoughts and ideas, and acts on them in strange ways.
Random things:
>The chocolate river scene. How that scene was always meant to be portrayed.
>The performances. All fantastic. Perfect casting all around.
>The CGI. Very convincing and used as CGI should be used (to aid with telling a story, rather than telling the story itself). Also, I mentioned this before but Burton made the effort to make things real whenever possible, even training squirrels and building the inventing room out of old plane parts.
>The puppet fire intro. Indicative of Wonka's crazy mind and very funny.
>The tone. Accurate to the book and delightfully eery at times.
>The "show don't tell" mentality many of the scenes had.
>Grandpa Joe actually working for Wonka instead of just magically knowing everything about him.
Now for some comparisons to the original. These don't have any effect on my rating but I thought I should throw some in for the sake of people reading:
>The music is far better in this film than in the '71 film. Sorry, but it's true. The "Oompa Loompa doopedy do" song makes no sense. Although I do like it, it's not fitting to the story and somewhat lazy in my opinion to have essentially the same song over and over again with one changed verse. With that being said I do enjoy the other songs in the film (with the exception of Good Luck, Charlie).
>Wilder's Wonka. Extremely comforting and caring guy, but Willy Wonka in the book wasn't. He was disgusted by the children who didn't win. He had a disturbing and strange, but genius personality. Depp nails it.
>The stupid subplots introduced to show the craze around the Wonka competition such as the fraud ticket and the computer that would guess the ticket locations. They were way too drawn out and felt pointless.
>The dumb scenes that weren't in the book such as the fizzy lifting drink scene, the car wash scene and the ending scene in the office (no spoilers). One review I read had the AUDACITY to criticize the '05 film for NOT having the fizzy lifting drink scene. Sure, let's just go ahead and include a scene that shows Charlie breaking the rules for no reason and makes him just as bad as the other kids! That'll make us root for him! I won't criticize the golden egg scene since that was solely out in for technical limitation reasons.
>The Wonkavator. Who thought this was a good idea?
>THE TUNNEL. I have no words for just how pointless and out-of-character this scene is. Y'all call Depp the creepy one?
>The Slugworth subplot. Honestly, who thought this was a good idea? Why even give anyone a tour if you're just going to give them an everlasting gobstopper and see if they return it?
Just for the record, I love the 1971 movie. But come on people, the 2005 movie is better. It just is.