~The Weekend Review~

Part One: JOHNNY DEPP IS MY GOD AND PERSONAL SAVIOUR

I went in to CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY with mixed feelings. TIM BURTON’s last remake (PLANET OF THE APES) was horrendous, like BATTLEFIELD EARTH horrible. And I like the original CHOCOLATE FACTORY flick (even if they changed the name and didn’t stick very closely to ROALD DAHL’s book)—GENE WILDER was pretty damn cool as the eccentric Willy Wonka. Who could top him?

Enter the best actor of our generation, the incomparable JOHNNY DEPP, whom I thought for sure was losing his touch with the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN performance that everyone loved but me. Sorry but it was just a mix of HUNTER S and KEITH RICHARDS to me. From the get-go, I was enchanted with this updated version, from BURTON’s glorious and goth style of portraying sad city streets, and even the most colorful settings are tweaked in some way, a surrealist fantasy or phantasm…depending on how you look at it. But it offers even more than that—the dialogue and story is brilliant—from songs that are the actual lyrics written by DAHL and brought to musical life by DANNY ELFMAN—to the amusing and deeply satisfying acting of DEPP, the scary plastic children (I refuse to believe any of them were real besides the kid that played CHARLIE BUCKET), CHRISTOPHER LEE as DEPP’s father, and DEEP ROY as about 5 million Oompa-Loompas. I was cracking up and embarrassing my sister and mother, but damn was it worth it! I want to see this movie again and again and again. No longer a need for GENE WILDER, sorry sir, but when I make mine WONKA, it’ll be the DEPP/BURTON update. The question is: Have you accepted MR. DEPP as your personal saviour?

Part 2: THE FAINT AREN'T FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

I happened upon THE FAINT’s “agent suicide” video while perusing my latest ON DEMAND options one morning before work. I was like “ooooo…album is called DANSE MACABRE” but they’re electronic? Goths with Synths? I can dig it. Not so much goth as just delightfully dark electro-tech, THE FAINT quickly wormed its way into my regular rotation of activities…that is until I bought WET FROM BIRTH.

10 songs, under 40 minutes, punk-aesthetic mixed with dark synth riffs and strange lyrics about various aspects of reproduction, WET FROM BIRTH gets under your skin and stays there. Fast enough to dance to with lyrics that aren’t repetitive like many tech groups, THE FAINT is more fun that a barrel of sharps (that’s medical speak). I just bought a DANSE MACABRE song on vinyl for mixing purposes. As I’m new to the game of DJ’ing, DJ STEFAN FRANCOIS will be having his hand at this one. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Recommended if you like: JACQUES LU CONT, MISS KITTIN, AFI, DRESDEN DOLLS

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