Rebecca's heading to the midnight party after she types this!
I was worried today would drag by , but fortunately it has passed rather quickly. The student newspaper, The Daily Revielle, carried a full half-page ad for the midnight party at the campus bookstore, and when I told Toi, who was working the register in front of mine, about my plans to attend, she said, "You're so excited you're makin' me excited, and I ain't never read those books."
After work, Sara and I went to the movies to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which just opened today. The movie is almost too perfect. Johnny Depp delivers one of his most bizarre roles ever: Even when his Willy Wonka is just looking at the camera, he is somehow both creepy and funny. One of the best and most unexpected things about the movie was Jordan Fry as Mike Teavee. His Mike was centered less around TV and more around the materialistic cynicism of his generation of "screenagers." He wins a ticket to the chocolate factory simply because he cracks the code that Wonka used to distrube the five golden tickets, and he cracks the code simply because he can, not because he wants to visit the factory (he doesn't even like chocolate). Once at the factory, he belittles every wonder he sees and asks Wonka, "Why is everything here completely pointless?" When he realizes that the Wonka-Vision TV is essentially a teleporter, he rages, "It's a teleporter! It's the most important invention ever! And all you care about is the chocolate!"
The point is futher emphasized by Charlie's initial reluctance to accept his golden ticket; he'd rather sell it for several hundred dollars, which his poor family desperately needs. But his grandfather finally persuades him to exchange one of only five golden tickets in the entire world for money that is printed everyday. Charlie begins to understand that having what you want can be as important as having what you need, and once at the factory, he responds to Mike's pointless question with, "Candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy." Wonka learns a lesson during the movie, too. When he offers Charlie his entire factory and the boy declines it to stay with his family, Wonka realizes that monetary success cannot compensate for not having a family, and he reunites with his long-estranged father, a dentist. By the end of the film, Wonka and Charlie both have all they want and all they need.
Candies and chocolates aren't essential to life. No one needs the, but life isn't about having only what you need. Everybody needs to have a little of what they want, too. So you have to care about the candy, you have to care about the chocolate, and you have to care about this movie.