Wonka (2023)
Director: Paul King
Screenwriters: Simon Farnaby, Paul King
Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Olivia Colman, Matt Lucas, Matthew Baynton, Tom Davis, Hugh Grant

Willy Wonka is an enigma. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), the original adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” we don’t learn much about him, other than his desire to find an heir to his candy empire, as well as the cruel delight he takes in teaching naughty children a lesson. Wonka is charming and a little unhinged, paranoid from all of the years he has spent locked away in his factory, making sure no one gets their hands on the secret to his out-of-this-world sweets. With a devilish smile and a playful yet devious twinkle in his eye, actor Gene Wilder infuses Wonka with dimension, but we never dig too deep. He’s a nut that we never quite crack, and he works as a character because of that. There’s a reason why the original novel is called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” after all – at the end of the day, it’s Charlie’s journey. Wilder’s performance hints at the layers inside of Wonka that we don’t need to unpeel, but nevertheless know are there. Wonka, the spiritual prequel to the 1971 musical classic, helmed by Paddington director Paul King, does unpeel those layers, but what’s found underneath is a deeply disappointing origin story that lacks the magic and edge that the original (and even Tim Burton’s 2005 remake) has in spades. Touted as a fun-for-the-whole family Christmas classic in the making, Wonka simply doesn’t have enough sparkle to ever hope to achieve that distinction.

Despite its tagline, which insists we will find out how “Willy became Wonka,” Timothée Chalamet’s version of the famous candy maker and magician doesn’t actually become anything. He just kind of already is.

The film begins with Willy, bright-eyed and bursting with optimism, atop a ship mast, where he begins his “I Want” song, “Hatful of Dreams”. Willy arrives in an unnamed city, fresh off the boat, ready to share his chocolate with the world, as his mother (Sally Hawkins) always hoped he would. Willy is earnest and determined, living on nothing but a dream. But the Galeries Gourmet is not what Willy initially imagined it would be. Instead of spreading his creations, he faces opposition and sabotage from three greedy chocolate makers, including Arthur Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), who will soon become his arch-nemesis. Willy then gets tricked into indentured servitude because he cannot read and fails to read the small print on his contract with Mrs. Scrubitt, played by Olivia Colman doing her best over the top Madame Thénardier impression. Aided by Noodle (Calah Lane), a fellow indentured servant and orphan who becomes Willy’s assistant, as well as the rest of the workers, Wonka bids to outsmart the trio and earn the freedom of himself and his friends.

Timothée Chalamet might be the only saving grace in the film, contrary to early assumptions that he may have been miscast. At times he’s charming, funny and endearing, but his performance is constantly in flux and dependent on the material and direction he’s given. When his jokes don’t land, his performance falls flat, even though he is clearly committed to the bit. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to do an impression of Gene Wilder, but he also doesn’t make the character enough of his own to really stand out. This isn’t his fault; he isn’t given much to work with.

All of the obstacles Willy encounters are external. Whether it’s Mrs. Scrubitt’s dishonest business practices, the antics of the greedy chocolatiers, or Hugh Grant’s Oompa-Loompa hijinks, the plot is always happening to Willy. He is almost entirely a reactionary character, and this is a problem in a movie that is supposed to be an origin story, the story of how he became who he is. It would have been nice if he actively participated in the narrative…

Willy’s desire to share his inventions with the world just as his mother hoped is sweet and admirable, but it simply isn’t enough to drive what we see. The writers, King and Paddington 2 co-writer Simon Farnaby (who also appears in Wonka as Basil), were backed into a corner considering Willy Wonka is a recluse by the time we meet him in the original movie. Telling that story would certainly be more interesting, but not very uplifting, so the filmmakers sidestep it entirely. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between Chalamet’s Wonka and Wilder’s.

Demystifying a character that works the best when we don’t know everything about him is a non-starter (as proven in Star Wars spin-off Solo), but the filmmakers didn’t give much thought to the supporting characters either. Lane and Chalamet work well together, and their friendship is a bright spot in the movie, but most of the supporting characters are so thinly drawn they barely register as real people. As for Hugh Grant’s Lofty, an Oompa Loompa who has been stealing Willy’s candy because he was excommunicated from Oompa Land until he can get back all of the chocolate that Willy stole, he’s surprisingly in very little of the film. The motion capture is jarring and unconvincing, but at least Grant’s contempt for the role, which he has expressed in several recent interviews, doesn’t show on screen.

Wonka, like the original film adaptation, is a musical, but not a very good one. The songs, written by Neil Hannon, King, Farnaby, and Joby Talbot, are unremarkable and lack passion, which is a shame considering Hannon’s exceptional work with The Divine Comedy. The songs in Wonka, especially Willy’s “Hatful of Dreams,” pale in comparison to those written by Howard Ashman, the songwriting genius behind the iconic tunes of The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). By comparison, “Hatful of Dreams” lacks interiority or reflection. Perhaps the biggest faux pas in this regard is how Willy’s desire to sell chocolates in the hopes of reconnecting with the spirit of his late mother is barely mentioned. Songs in musicals should, in theory, take place when characters are so full of emotion that words no longer feel enough. And then, they must dance when singing doesn’t feel enough. But nothing drives the songs in this movie and they don’t feel needed. They are boring and directionless. Chalamet’s voice is fine, if a little weak and thin in places, but it’s worth noting that his best performance is when he sings “Pure Imagination”, a song not originally written for this film.

Wonka also strips away any of the melancholy or dark comedy found both in the 1971 movie and Roald Dahl’s overall work. The 1971 film feels a lot like “Alice in Wonderland” in that it is a dreamlike and slightly menacing descent into a magical world, but Wonka smooths all those edges out. As a result, the movie is sickly sweet and above all, nice. Which is ironic, because while the filmmakers were busy adding uplifting lyrics to “Pure Imagination” and simplifying the orchestrations, themes, and social commentaries of the 1971 film, they also made time to make several offensive and outdated fat jokes, aimed at Keegan Michael Key’s Chief of Police, who is dressed in a ridiculous fat suit and gets fatter and fatter the more he indulges in the sweets the greedy chocolate makers use to bribe him with. Using fatness as a shorthand for gluttony and greed, and having an actor who is not fat perform fatness, is hurtful and mean-spirited. It’s hard to believe such an antiquated trope is included in a film made in 2023 – especially one made about the wonderful taste of sweet treats – and it sours the viewing experience. For all of the niceness this movie tries desperately to exude, it makes sure to keep one of the only things from the original film that actually needed updating.

If Wonka is trying to say something, it’s hard to know what that something is. The film plays with themes of oppression, poverty, and greed, but doesn’t do much with them. It would be a losing battle to assume that Western filmmaking would trust its young audience enough to sprinkle in some adult themes, but it is equally weird to mention them in passing and not engage with them. Believing in your dreams and sharing those dreams with others should feel like magic, but the film doesn’t allow us to know these characters enough to genuinely care about them or their dreams.

The sets also leave something to be desired. When Wonka first unveils his factory in the original film, it’s a technicolor dream, calling to mind the reveal of the land of Oz in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. It is bright and colorful and a little surreal. Wonka feels like a step down in comparison, and the filmmakers’ decision to set a good chunk of the film in the Galeries Gourtmet makes the world of Wonka feel like it’s just floating in space surrounded by nothing. It is small and claustrophobic.

Prequels bait us with the promise that we will get to see some of our most beloved characters become the people we love and remember from our childhoods. In Wonka, Willy may be younger and brighter and less mad than he will soon become, but if you are counting on the film to show you how that happens, you will be very disappointed. Instead, Wonka is a barely passable movie musical that is so sugary it ends up choking on its own sweetness.

Score: 12/24

Recommended for you: ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ (1971) Earned a Spot in Joseph Wade’s 10 Best Films of All Time

The year is 1995, and the child is me.

I can never verify how much of the above tale happened, or which parts of it I have embellished over the years, but the story is true. I specifically remember being told that the flower Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka drinks from and then takes a bite out of wasn’t real food, and I consequently went through the thought process of wondering what else in the film wasn’t real and who made all of those things. I can’t remember if prior to that moment I thought everything in films was a historical document of a true story, or whether I had any thoughts about them at all, but I know that watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was my light-bulb moment, my transition from being a baby into being a child, my moment of consciousness. 

The wonderment I found that day has been one of the most lasting and rewarding aspects of my three-plus decades on this planet. Each time I feel like my flame for cinema has been extinguished (by life, by society, by corporatisation, by existential threats to the theatrical experience, by politics), it has been sparked back into life by miraculous feat of cinematic artistry after miraculous feat of cinematic artistry. As I’ve grown and learned and progressed, I have been inspired, have been nurtured, and have been guided by film. 

With so many life-shaping, existential experiences to recall, and so many lessons learned and viewpoints shaped by this wondrous moving picture art form, I find myself in the same place I began: wide-eyed and cross-legged, jaw agape, entirely present. 

In this moment of absolute consciousness, the following ten films are what I have long deliberated to be the best of all time. These films are form-shaping, movement-defining, genre-topping pieces, each from remarkable filmmakers who were able to capture lightning in a bottle by making something greatly artistic and intellectually rewarding, something emotionally and contextually resonant. These films challenged convention, rewrote popular thought, established rules and in most cases broke them, and together they are the thousands of films I have experienced, the entire historical context of the industry I have studied in great depth, the more-than a quarter of a century of consciousness I have dedicated to the form. These are the 10 Best Films of All Time by me, Joseph Wade.

Follow me on X (Twitter – @JoeTFM

10. Casablanca (1942)

Casablanca Review

The modern Hollywood blockbuster is a monumental part of the cinema experience, and one of the reasons you’re reading this article and I’m writing it. Some of the classics that have lit up the big screen and revolutionised the form are Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and The Dark Knight. While Buster Keaton’s timeless action-comedy The General (1926) has had perhaps the most direct influence of any film in history regarding contemporary studio filmmaking – many of its scenes still borrowed from and replicated to this day, its train scene being paid homage to in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in 2023 – it is Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca that can be found most prominently across many modern thrillers, actioners, and superhero movies.

Curtiz’s romantic drama is perhaps the most overlooked film of all time regarding the size of its influence on modern filmmaking. There are sequences, set in the markets of Casablanca, that are almost directly copied in Star Wars and the Indiana Jones movies, and the film’s themes of good, evil, and the people in between being forced to choose a side, is a foundational aspect of every successful modern studio blockbuster. While the romantic themes of Casablanca may be lost in most mainstream tentpole releases in the 2020s – a sorry loss that we should fight to get back – the foundational parts of its script, and particularly the way it is presented, shot, and constructed in the edit, are ultra modern and ever-present in our current day cinema. You can watch Casablanca more than eighty years after its release and experience the same pacing as modern success stories like Top Gun: Maverick, which given the releases of the time and the size of the equipment used to film and edit them, is a remarkable achievement. 

Beyond the technical achievements and revolutionary ideas that caused its influence to be so long lasting, Casablanca is a powerful and emotive film. Humphrey Bogart soars to new career heights as a romantic leading man, Rick Blaine, the owner of Rick’s, a jazz bar in the titular Moroccan city of Casablanca. To think that he wasn’t thought charismatic enough to be a romantic lead during this era is remarkable in retrospect, but this performance is one that corrected that mistake and laid the foundations for one of the great romantic careers in Hollywood history. His character is reunited with an old flame, Ilsa Lund (played with all the natural fierceness that Ingrid Bergman imprinted onto every single one of her characters – she is arguably an even more powerful screen presence than Bogart), and the pair accidentally set light to old feelings. As it’s World War II, the Nazi forces of North Africa are an ever present threat to the two leads and their romance as well as the way of life of the entire cast of supporting characters. The USA was just entering the 2nd World War during the events of Casablanca, and the nation is romantically presented as a distant beacon of hope in the film; the promise land that the Statue of Liberty so gloriously signified to the millions of refugees and immigrants that made their way to the shores of New York and beyond at that time. 

This film features a lot of what we’ve all grown to love about the golden era of Hollywood, and even the biggest movies of today, but it is unique for the very reasons that it remains memorable and iconic so many decades later. It is tragic with a small glimmer of hope, Hays Code era romantic but not asinine, and features two of the most legendary screen actors of all time in all of their transatlantic accented best. No matter what you’ve heard of Bogart and Bergman, they’re all that and then some. Better still, they’re presented in that sumptuous black and white of the era, through risk-taking and modern cinematographic techniques, through the astonishingly detailed set design that you can’t help but to marvel at, and scored to perfection in a composition by Max Steiner that could very well be included on a very short list of movie scores to have helped build the foundations of Warner Bros. 

Casablanca is the archetypal Hollywood movie, the very best of a list of classics that includes Gone with the Wind and It’s a Wonderful Life. It is everything that the myth of Hollywood represents, a pristine example of cinema that captured the anxieties and the hope of its time like few other films managed to do, and told it in such a universally appreciated way that we can still feel forced to the edge of our seats and moved to tears in an entirely new century. Even with our modern understanding of the United States having been shifted to better understand non-white perspectives of its past, as well as the global perspectives of its present, Casablanca’s romanticised outlook on its nation, war, hope, and love, ensure it remains a culturally significant and artistically monumental Hollywood movie release, a shining light of the cinematic form.

9. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Singin’ in the Rain is the epitome of Golden Era Hollywood: vast soundstages dressed beautifully by experts in the field, lit with all the glow of the sun; once in a lifetime performers offering timeless qualities that you just don’t see anymore; a self-reflective narrative that pokes fun at the studio system; a happy time at the movies that keeps the conflict manageable and the highs universal, so even the little ones can enjoy themselves. This is Hollywood cinema; romance, music, colour and beauty, projected for all to see. 

The film stars Gene Kelly in the midst of his decade of superstardom. He’s a unique talent – a ballet dancer with movie star good looks, the kind of smile that could steal a nation of hearts – and the only person who could take a combination of songs discarded from other productions and make it into something irreplaceable within the annals of cinema history. He is the anchor around which everything floats, the fulcrum of the entire movie, the superstar upon whose back this entire era seemed to rest. Watching the Gene Kelly of the 1940s or 50s in the 2020s will have the same effect it did seventy years prior: the magic will simply pour out of the screen, drowning the noise of your every day and lighting up your endorphins time and time again.

In Singin’ in the Rain, Kelly plays a silent era film star whose career is about to meet an unfortunate end due to the advent of sound. He meets Debbie Reynolds’ party performer with a voice of gold in a chance meeting and the two court for the duration of the film’s runtime, her rise to relative superstardom coming as fast as Kelly’s relative fall from it. It’s all singing and dancing and pursuing the one thing you’ve been told you’re good at just because you believe it might one day work out for you; a Hollywood story about Hollywood that inspired youngest-ever Best Director Oscar winner Damien Chazelle on La La Land and Babylon; a type of self-aware American Dream narrative that doesn’t yet seem poisoned by the lost wars, anxieties and terror of the decades to come. 

Perhaps best of all, it is so fist-clenchingly uplifting. You truly feel the ecstasy of each career-orientated achievement just as the characters do. The music is, of course, vital to achieving this, and so far as original soundtracks go there are few (if any) better. From “Good Morning” to the titular track “Singin’ in the Rain”, this film is as loaded with classic songs as the best films of the era, as any era that followed, an often imitated but never duplicated success story.

As an adult, there are few viewing experiences that can show you something new, or fresh, or better than before, but witnessing Gene Kelly at the height of his powers is one of those experiences. His presence in Singin’ in the Rain is the realisation of all he brought to cinema in the ultra modern On the Town (1949) and the classic stage ballet on film, An American in Paris (1951). He isn’t the only glowing aspect of this cinematic marvel, but he is breathtaking, astounding, simply incomparable. Unmissable. 

Singin’ in the Rain was made in-part in tribute to the classics of the early Hollywood musicals, such as those by Fred Astaire (Top Hat, Swing Time), and continues to serve as inspiration for a wide variety of films to this day, from the entire plot being the basis of Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) to the “I’m Just Ken” musical segment from Barbie (2023). But, as an artefact of Hollywood at its most sumptuous, timeless and expansive, it is perhaps even more special; arguably the greatest Hollywood studio movie of all time.

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Gene Kelly

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Director: Mel Stuart
Screenwriter: Roald Dahl
Starring: Gene Wilder, Peter Ostrum, Jack Albertson, Julie Dawn Cole, Paris Themmen, Denise Nickerson, Michael Bollner, Roy Kinnear, Nora Denney, Leonard Stone, Ursula Reit, Gunter Meisner

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is the rare non-Disney film that seems to have been a part of almost everyone’s childhoods. More than just a piece of family entertainment, it has become an institution – a staple of youth cinema and a pop-culture treasure trove echoed throughout music, film and television since its release 50 years ago.

Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) lives squarely on the poverty line, sharing a small, dilapidated house with his hard-working mother and four bedridden grandparents. Living off a diet of cabbage-water soup, a simple loaf of bread is a luxury. The one glimmer of hope for Charlie arrives in the form of a competition courtesy of world-renowned chocolatier and recluse, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder). Wonka will finally open the gates and permit five entrants to see the inner workings of his factory, and all they have to do is find one of five golden tickets hidden within the millions of Wonka Bars being shipped around the globe. As one spoiled child after another finds their golden ticket, things look bleaker than ever for poor Charlie, until a stroke of luck puts that final ticket in his hands, inviting him to a world of pure imagination.

Adapted by Roald Dahl from his own book, with an uncredited shine and polish from David Seltzer, there has perhaps never been a better blend of adult and child entertainment in live-action film – cheeky, Python-esque moments of humour here, other moments of pure, unadulterated wonder there.

For the first 45 minutes, we are teased and titillated for what lies in store. School classes are instantly dismissed upon announcement of the competition. Breaking news reports reveal the winners who will gain entry to Wonka’s marvellous and mysterious factory. Scientists build algorithmic computers to help find the lucky chocolate bars containing the golden tickets. It’s a wonderfully ridiculous notion that the world would stop spinning for a chocolate factory, but it’s one that you totally buy into by the time Charlie finds that last fortuitous ticket.

All that build-up pays off.

Iconic though almost every character has become, this is undoubtedly Gene Wilder’s film. From the moment he steps onto the screen, you cannot take your eyes off him. As Wilder had reportedly intended, his opening pratfall-turned-summersault leaves you guessing what twists and tricks ol’ Wonka has up his sleeve next. Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers were initially eyed for the role, but in their hands Wonka may have felt more like a larger-than-life character. With his sparkling blue eyes and untameable hair, Wilder is Wonka, at once disarmingly charming and full of sarcastic wit, but unpredictable in more ways than either we, or Charlie and company, would ever expect. He may be the very definition of eccentric, but behind it all is a warmth that keeps you following closely behind, even when uncertain danger lurks around the corner.

One of the film’s greatest and potentially most polarising qualities is also one of the reasons it has endured: it’s not afraid to get weird, and at times even scary. As sweet as it can be, Stuart’s film also has considerable bite. Who could forget Slugworth, the spy who always seems to be peering in on each of the golden ticket winners, or the infamous boat ride from hell designed solely to traumatise the characters and audience alike?

In a film full of candy, everything is sugar-coated but the danger. As in many of his stories, Dahl does not tolerate bad behaviour, and Willy Wonka serves as another cautionary tale for developing minds and personalities. As the tour progresses, the number of attending children is whittled down, like a slasher film for preteens. On separate occasions the kids almost drown, fill with enough juice to burst their bodies, narrowly escape being sliced up by a giant fan, plummet towards the factory incinerator, and, in one case, are shrunken down to the size of an action figure. And how does everyone react? The parents, of course, are hysterical. Wonka, on the other hand, dismisses them with a pithy remark and a “they get what they deserve” attitude. More than just a moralistic story for children, these lessons extend to the parents too – no one wants a Veruca Salt in the family, after all.

And then there’s Charlie. Charlie, who is everything these other children are not – quiet, thoughtful, generous and understanding – asking for no attention while the others demand it. Of course, he is ultimately rewarded for his inherent goodness, and in that moment it is as though Wonka is permitted to share in the audience’s joy, as happy as we are to see the underdog win out in the end.

Seltzer’s rewrite turned the story into a musical, which was one change too many for Dahl who baulked at the idea and stepped away from the production. Watching the film now, it seems unthinkable to remove the songs. Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s musical numbers are every bit as important as Helen Colvig’s iconic costumes or Harper Goff’s rainbow-splashed production design. The purehearted optimism of “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket”; those first twinkling notes of “Pure Imagination”; the ever-adapting earworm that is the Oompa Loompa song – without them, the film would be robbed of a special kind of magic.

50 years on from its release, it may seem easy to poke fun at Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory – it has been parodied and memed to death by American television and the internet alike. It’s the kind of good humour that comes around with the most beloved properties – the ones that were experienced early in a lifetime and have only had their appreciation grow as the years go by.

There is no doubt that Willy Wonka, Charlie and their fellow characters will continue to touch hearts and minds for years to come. “Pure imagination”, indeed.

22/24

Written by Scott Z. Walkinshaw

You can support Scott Walkinshaw in the following places:

Twitter – @scottfuzz
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Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

The film is to be directed by Paul King, who is best known for directing the recent live-action Paddington movies, both of which proved to be hits critically and commercially. Wonka will see King re-team with his Paddington producer David Heyman, who has produced a range of films including the Harry Potter franchise.

Not much is known about the story aside from that the film will focus on a younger Willy Wonka before he becomes owner of the famous chocolate factory. The film will therefore not be directly based on a specific Roald Dahl novel, as opposed to Willy Wonka’s previous screen appearances.

The script was co-written by King and Simon Farnaby, based on a draft by Simon Rich (An American Pickle). 

It is currently unknown who will play the role of the titular character. Previous incarnations have seen Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp portray the extravagant chocolatier. A source for Collider has said that Warner Bros. are currently eyeing either Tom Holland or Timothée Chalamet, with the hopes of creating a franchise. However, this is not confirmed.

Holland is best known for his role as Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the third instalment due to release in December 2021. Outside of that, fans can expect to see plenty more of the actor this year as he has three additional films schedule to release. First is the much delayed Chaos Walking from director Doug Liman (Swingers; The Bourne Identity). The sci-fi film will see Holland star opposite Daisy Ridley (Star Wars) and was originally intended to release in March of 2019. The film will finally hit cinemas in early March 2021. Shortly after comes the crime drama Cherry, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame), an Apple TV exclusive due to release in late March. Finally, Holland will play Nathan Drake in the video game based movie, Uncharted.

As Holland dominates the world of blockbusters, Chalamet has been appearing in more awards friendly films. Chalamet received an Oscar nomination for his role as Elio in Call Me By Your Name. He has also appeared in many critically successful indie films, like Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird and 2019 novel adaptation Little Women. As for upcoming projects, Chalamet will appear in Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up and will play music legend Bob Dylan in James Mangold‘s Going Electric. In addition to these awards centric films, the upcoming Dune remake will see the actor stepping foot into blockbuster territory, seeming to indicate that Wonka is not outside the realm of possibility.

While neither actor has expressed public interest in Wonka, both would seem like a good fit for the role if Warner Bros. do wish to spawn sequels due to their star power.

The film is currently scheduled to film in September, though this could change depending on permits, laws and licenses imposed by the pandemic.

In this list, the latest in The Film Magazine’s 5 of the Best Character Introductions series, I’ll be offering my selections for the 5 best character introductions in movie history…

1. Rufus T. Firefly

Duck Soup (1933)

The plot of the Marx Brothers’ movies are consistently bizarre but only really serve as the vehicle for slapstick antics or devastating jabs and insults. All their cinematic efforts are distinctly “Marxist” but the brothers still manage to keep their films fresh. In Duck Soup, this approach resulted in one of cinema’s greatest ever entrances…

The wealthy and influential Mrs Teasdale agrees to help out the tiny nation of Freedonia with her inexhaustible funds, but only on the condition that Statesman Rufus T. Firefly is appointed as the new leader. His reception is a great affair with ambassadors and representatives from all over the world, and excited chatter paints the image of a noble man of decorum and decency. Ballerina flower girls litter his intended path with petals and decorated soldiers draw their swords to form a glorious steely arch to the thunderous notes of the Freedonia National Anthem… but his “punctual” excellency doesn’t turn up.

Only after the third reprise of “Hail, Hail Freedonia” does Rufus (Groucho Marx) leap out of bed in a baggy, crumpled suit and sneaks into the reception via a conveniently placed fireman’s pole – drawing his cigar alongside the solidiers after his query of “Are you expecting someone?”

It’s such a silly joke with way too much effort put forward to land it, but the timing is perfect. It sets the tone for a 68-minute long scathing political satire and solidifies Groucho’s place as the head of the troupe and as cinema’s greatest and most beloved bastard – his ridicule of pomp and circumstance is often imitated but never bested.

2. Ebeneezer Scrooge

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

When Charles Dickens’ festive novel’s most memorable adaption stars furry Muppet creatures, it’s certainly a weird universe we live in. As strange as it sounds, it’s absolutely true: The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the most popular Christmas movies and greatest book adaptions of all time.

Much of the film’s success can be owed to Michael Caine’s stellar performance as the main character Ebeneezer Scrooge, who receives one of The Muppets’ most memorable musical numbers as his introduction. The scene is set with a sweeping shot of a snowy Victorian London and Charles Dickens himself (well, in the incarnation of Great Gonzo) begins the story with lines straight from his novel:

“The Marley(‘s) were dead to begin with”

Spines now tingled, pangs of anxiety are induced within the audience as Dickens announces Scrooge’s imminent arrival:

“You will meet him as he comes round that corner.”
“Where?”
“There?”
“When?”
“Now!”

Ebeneezer Scrooge appears cloaked in darkness and ice…. holy crap!

With this being a Muppet flick, the resulting number “Scrooge” is full of gags and fourth wall breaks; typical of Jim Henson’s patented light entertainment. The song is incredibly catchy and the most memorable from the whole movie, but this is more than a mere diss track. Heavy hitting lyrics combine with Scrooge’s arrogant shoves past the Muppet cavalcade to establishe the man as a cold, greedy and utterly irredeemable character. Finished off with Caine’s characteristic hard stare, Scrooge chills the blood.

The genius of pairing Caine’s straight performance with Muppet madness creates an adaption which boasts the most believable transformation of literature’s most famous miser to a genial grandfather figure. For certain generations, Caine will forever be immortalised by his pimp walk in the snow.

Recommended for you: The Muppets Movies Ranked

The colder and darker evenings are perfect for getting cosy on the sofa in front of a film with a cup of hot cocoa or mulled wine. For those of you who are stuck for something new to watch, we have compiled a list of some of the best vintage and classic films that are sure to warm you up in the Winter months.

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

This 1955 drama starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman will have you dreaming of being in a quaint little log cabin in the woods with that special someone. The thought of a warm fireplace on a snowy night, love overcoming all obstacles, and the beautiful final image of a deer walking through the snow. Could you ask for anything more?

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

This classic musical starring Judy Garland has taught generations that ‘there’s no place like home’. A wonderful family film that brings everybody together, The Wizard of Oz is timeless.

Modern Times (1936)

Directed, written by and starring the iconic Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times is relevant to its pre-WWII era but remains identifiable to this day. The highly-rated silent movie presents a strong lead character getting through rough times in life and pulling through all of his struggles with love. The setting of the industrial revolution gives a ‘stick it to the man’ attitude that radiates a feel-good tone.

City Lights (1931)

Charlie Chaplin movies will never feel outdated, yet while City Lights can be watched any time of year, the warmth that Chaplin’s character presents and the love in his heart is sure to make you feel fuzzy like we all wish to feel in the coldest of months. This silent slapstick movie will also have you belly-laughing throughout.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

A rib-tickling comedy starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, a dinosaur and a leopard. I know what you’re thinking, but trust me, it works. Ridiculous and hilarious, if the laughs don’t warm you up, the endearing lead characters will.

I guess we all have.

Cinema is a strange old thing.

As an academic of film studies and a critic of sorts, I often find I’m caught in two minds regarding what constitutes a great film within my own mind. So much of my reception of a movie comes from my own tastes, themselves dictated by my background, my every viewing influenced at least in part by what’s going on in my life at the time or even the mood I’m in when I sit down to watch whatever it is I choose to consume. Therefore, like many a cinephile, I call on historic precedence as a means through which to judge whatever it is I’m watching in the fairest manner possible, trusting the fact that if the movie I’m witnessing looks, feels or is constructed like something else, I can judge it accordingly; my understanding of the language of cinema always being the starting point to any such an analysis; the altering of usual genre-specific, story-specific and filmmaking-specific tropes and languages often being an indicator as to where a filmmaker has surpassed expectations or offered something new (or not recently witnessed) in their work. This isn’t even to mention how cultural significance can play a large role in the critique of a movie – Get Out and Annihilation being examples of how this can benefit the reception of a film – but isn’t this a result of any critics’ environment just as their mood is, only more cultural and therefore grandiose in scope? Take this year’s Oscars for example: the anti-Trump, left wing critic circle was more likely to board the pro-love, positivity train of The Shape of Water, than the pro-Trump, right wing critic circle, which seemed more often to prefer the individualism on offer in the modern Western Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. By no means were these allegiances exclusive, but the discourse existed nonetheless.

The lesson here is that film is subjective. Full-stop. 

In my own work as a critic, a role in which I hold the responsibility of remaining as objective as possible – judging art from the least personal space I can afford myself – I still remain tied to everything that has come before those few hours in which I’ll witness any given film. As such, there are movies I rate to be higher than others despite enjoying them on a visceral level much less.

Take my selection of the Top 10 Films of 2017, for example.

In the list (which is based on UK release dates and didn’t include my 2017 favourite Call Me By Your Name as I hadn’t had the opportunity to see it by the article’s release date), I placed Wind River at number 10 despite having a more enjoyable experience watching the film than I did watching Get Out, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight and Dunkirk, all of which rank higher in the top 10 list, with the latter of the four movies reaching as high as number 4 in my selection of films of the year. For whatever reason, Wind River just hit me on the right day at the right time, and my experience of watching it in a cinema – the outside world encouraged to leave my thoughts – as opposed to on a smaller screen as was the case with three of the four films mentioned above, meant that I was able to immerse myself in such a way that was clearly needed at the time, and as such I found more value in the Taylor Sheridan movie than I did in its four Oscar-nominated counterparts.

Clearly, in judging the films side by side and understanding the cultural significance and artistic exploits of each piece, I chose to rank Wind River in the most fragile spot on the list, below each of the films I found to be less compelling upon first glance. Had I seen Call Me By Your Name in 2017, Wind River – the film I’ve most wanted to re-watch out of all the films not placed in the top 5 – wouldn’t have been listed at all, owing mostly to the sensible movie critic within me that understood the quality of other films to be incredibly high despite not connecting with me so greatly.

Comparatively, there was not a point in which I even considered ranking Blade Runner 2049 in my top 10 list because I simply didn’t connect with what I felt to be a laborious story that missed the magic of some of Villeneuve’s earlier work – and, indeed, the original release – yet my good friend and fellow The Film Magazine writer Jason Lithgo ranked the movie as his number 1 film of the year.

Within two viable selections for the top releases of 2017, each of which featured many of the same films, we still disagreed so strongly on Blade Runner 2049 that it was included on Jason’s list at number 1 and yet didn’t even feature on mine, with Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! similarly reaching as high as number 3 on my chart despite not breaking Jason’s top 10.

These are, of course, just the opinions of two people, but they illustrate the difference in opinion that can occur regarding any given film at any given time, even when those two people are of similar ages, backgrounds, political allegiances and levels of experience within the study of film.

So, why the rant about subjectivity in film criticism? 

The answer to this is two-fold…

The first is that the increased diversity amongst film critics as a result of the internet and social media platforms can be a positive as regards growing a consensus around the idea of quality within the art form as it ensures that a more rich canvas from which to draw sociopolitical viewpoints and cultural readings is wider than ever before, though it of course remains problematic.

The second is that we should simply stop trying to live up to the expectations of pretentious peers or indeed our own ideas of ourselves and embrace what we like as what we like without shame. We’re allowed to like bad movies and still understand what makes a great movie – Citizen Kane is arguably the greatest movie of all time from a technical standpoint, hitting almost every element of the filmmaking process out of the park and rewriting the rules of the medium, yet it doesn’t have to be the favourite of every film scholar, critic, filmmaker and fan. The mere idea of such is simply ludicrous.

As a masters graduate in film theory and related studies, I can honestly claim that I’ve been as heavily influenced to get into this field of study by Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as I have by The Thin Red Line, and that my enjoyment of Ice Age is somehow comparable to my enjoyment of Alien. My very own 50 Favourite Films of All Time list on my Letterboxd account is forever changing, often as the result of a change in mood or a developed understanding of the films I’ve long appreciated.

In my time, I’ve had emotional connections with movies I know aren’t “good” like Game Over, Man or have grown a level of fondness towards films like What If? and Garden State, despite each being problematic in its portrayal of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope that has been the subject of much controversy in recent years. Even as a person who should supposedly know better, there’s something in these films, just like there is in many a more typically well considered film like a You Were Never Really Here or a Badlands that grabs me and keeps me hooked, allowing me to take all I know into my experience and learn about the world, or simply experience it from a different point of view for a few hours.

All of that told, I do still hold the somewhat contrasting view that the more movies a film critic or fan watches, and the more often they engage with said movies critically, the more value their opinions can hold because of how such opinions are coming from a greater base of knowledge, which in of itself is the foundation for sophisticated commentary. While this remains problematic, especially in terms of the film industry which has been pushed forward by white males for the majority of its history, the fact remains that if someone understands a reference to a classic filmmaker’s work or the way in which a contemporary filmmaker has taken a classic trope and turned it on its head, there will be more value in the sharing of that opinion (for educational purposes if nothing else).

The point here is that nothing in film is sacred and nor should it be the case in film criticism, and especially film fandom. Even those with the most knowledge are projecting their opinions from a very personal space and the knowledge base from which these opinions are formed is largely made up from a history of capitalist, western, often male-led filmmaking, and as such holds room to be challenged and/or disposed of. Bear this in mind the next time you read a review you agree or disagree with, and pay especially close attention to the fact that largely white, middle-aged, American males contribute to the average score of a movie on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead, find critics you feel you can relate to. Let these critics challenge your opinions, enlighten your viewing experience and help to develop your love for this great art form.

Cheers.

I’m really interested to know of your so-called “guilty pleasures” and would love to hear you outline the “classics” you never enjoyed or the bad films you watch over and over again, so state them loud and proud in the comments! I’ll look to answer to as many to as many as possible!

Read Exploring the Great Empathy Machine: Blog 001 – An Introduction here.

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As with any of our countdowns, we set some criteria when making our decisions and for this list there were a lot of rules. We therefore felt we needed to share them with you:

1. It is as it says in the title the musical numbers had to come from Films classed as Musicals.

2. The list was judged on the song itself and its overall performance, so if you don’t see some of your favourite dance numbers here don’t worry that is for a different list.

3. There are no entries from Disney on this list whether live action or animated that is also for another list.

4. We stuck to once entry per film in order to keep it a fair fight.

That’s it, all you need to know. We hope you enjoy our count down. Let us know what you think.

Number 30: Getting To Know You – The King and I (1956)

Director: Walter Lang

Number 29: And I Am Telling You, I’m Not Going – Dreamgirls (2006)

Director: Bill Condon 

Number 28: Anything Goes – Anything Goes (1956)

Director: Robert Lewis 

Number 27: Dentist! – Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Director: Frank Oz

Number 26: The Man That Got Away – A Star Is Born (1954)

Director: George Cukor

Number 25: Keep It Gay – The Producers (2005)

Director: Susan Stroman

Number 24: Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? – My Fair lady (1964)

Director: George Cukor 

Number 23: Elephant Love Medley – Moulin Rouge (2001)

Director: Baz Luhrmann 

Number 22: Oh What A Beautiful Mornin’ – Oklahoma (1955)

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Number 21: Please Mr Jailer – Cry Baby (1990)

Director: John Waters 

Number 20: The Phantom of the Opera – The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Director: Joel Schumacher 

Number 19: Falling Slowly – Once (2007)

Director: John Carney 

Number 18: A Little Priest – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Director: Tim Burton

Number 17: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Number 16: One Day More – Les Miserables (2012)

Director: Tom Hooper

Number 15: You Can’t Stop The Beat – Hairspray (2007)

Director: Adam Shankman

Number 14: I’d Do Anything – Oliver! (1968)

Director: Carol Reed 

Number 13: Mein Herr – Cabaret (1972)

Director: Bob Fosse

Number 12: Don’t Rain On My Parade – Funny Girl (1968)

Director: William Wyler 

Number 11: Jailhouse Rock – Jailhouse Rock (1957)

Director: Richard Thorpe 

Number 10: All That Jazz – Chicago (2002)

Director: Rob Marshall

Number 9: America – West Side Story (1961)

Directors: Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise 

Number 8: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

Director: Ken Hughes 

Number 7: Pure Imagination – Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971)

Director: Mel Stuart 

Number 6: Don’t Cry For Me Argentina – Evita (1996)

Director: Alan Parker 

Number 5: Summer Nights – Grease (1978)

Director: Randal Kleiser

Number 4: Sweet Transvestite – The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Director: Jim Sharman 

Number 3: Do-Re-Mi – The Sound of Music (1965)

Director: Robert Wise 

Number 2: Somewhere Over The Rainbow – The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Director: Victor Fleming 

Number 1: Singin’ In The Rain – Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

Directors: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen

Going to the cinema:

I think I spent most of the pocket money I ever got on trips to the cinema. Whenever I go I make a day of it: usually meeting up with friends for a meal either before or after the viewing, going to a shop with cheaper sweets beforehand to stuff into our coats once we get to there, and the inevitable avid conversations that would fly around the group afterwards. I have seen friendships made and broken in such moments when the movies are all fresh in our minds and emotions haven’t dulled from the passage of time: I got into an intense disagreement after seeing “The Lovely Bones” (2009) which left both parties in massive strops for a good few weeks afterwards, and; I saw an explosive argument between a science and a philosophy student after “Looper” (2012) which caused a massive division in that student house until all went their separate ways and never spoke to each other again… let’s give that a bit of a moment to mull over.

Let’s face it, in the cinema you see the film as you were meant to see it, in the dark with immersive surround sound and dazzling super high definition pictures. I feel that in such an experience the emotions you feel whilst watching the movie are far more heightened and sharpened compared to watching it whilst streaming it in on your laptop, for example. I know this to be a fact for me personally from the times I have tightly clasped my friends’ hands, clawed at my sister’s side, flapped my hands at my own face, shrank down in my chair and tucked my feet under my legs. In the cinema there is no distraction or escape from the onslaught of sounds and images being hurtled at your face and I LOVE IT! Also, and this may be slightly annoying to other film goers, friend to friend commentary is the absolute best: I almost suffocated in my seat when me and my sister both came up with the idea of Thorin sliding his bare arse against the hole in “Battle of the Five Armies” (2014); I won a lot of laughs when I compared Gru’s driving from “Despicable Me” (2010) to my friend’s; and nothing beats pointing out the ugliest Character and whispering in your friend’s ear “That’s your boyfriend”. As a result of all this, I will always have a bias towards films that I have seen in the cinema over any other movie that I have seen, most likely due to my sub-conscious link to grandeur of the viewing experience itself.

Sneaking in underage:

You all know that I am bit of a sucker for kid’s movies but, in reality, I am of the opinion that a lot of movies become better with an X-rating. No, not every film of this rating is amazing but they have the potential to be: there are barely any barriers in the violence, drugs, debauchery, sex, controversy and downright depravity to prevent you from making harrowing, hard-hitting masterpieces. However, once you are of age you lose the totally unique and really fun form of film viewing that is lying your way into a film underage. Ooh watch out everyone, we’re gonna find out how much of a badass I was when I was kid. Ha, I wish. But, seriously, for a total square like 12 year old me, this was the most thrilling thing ever. I am a terrible liar so when it worked I was a smooth criminal, and I’ll tell you now, most of the time it didn’t work: “When were you born?” “Uhhhhh…1991?” “Do you have any proof of age?” “Erm got a buspass?” “GET OUT!” “…awwww.” I tell you, I was really looking forward to Black Sheep. So, why do I miss it? Because watching comedies and horrors underage gives it that amazing illegal feeling. Everything is funnier and scarier and the more disgusting the film, the cooler you are. To be honest, looking back on these experiences makes me appreciate why the rating system exists, some of the movies I watched when I was too young really pierced through my innocence. As an adult I find “Borat (2006)” funny and cringe at the offensive bits, but as 13 year old watching Sacha Baron Cohen’s practically eat out a bloke’s arse, bringing a pile of poo to a table and conversing with racists, appalled and horrified me. And, was that a bad thing? To be shook to my core like that at such a young tender age? God no! I ran down the school halls the following week screaming “EAT MY ARSEHOLE!” none the worse (I’d like to believe). The death count and gore in “Hot Fuzz (2007)” was far more hysterical as a kid than for a hardy adult (and I know because the only people laughing in that scream were the blatant 12 and 13 year olds) and I think I consider it to be one of my favourite movies because of the after-awesome feeling from when I first watched Adam’s buxton head being splattered by a huge rock and an old lady get done-in by her own shears. I will probably never have as much fun in cinema as an adult – the danger is lost to my hardier, old, cynical adult soul. Enjoy it while you can kids.

Family Favourites:

There are some films which are considered cults, but there are those films within your family circles which will have the ultimate cult status that far exceeds the opinion of any high-flying film critic. These are the films that were probably originally used by your parents as effective dummies but have now become your blanket of comfort that reminds you of home. In our house we were a big fan of The Muppets; my brothers, sisters and I could probably reconstruct all of their movies word for word and re-record all their soundtracks in a group effort. Yeah, I could waffle on about how awesome my family is or whatever but I actually feel very strongly about these movies. They are more than just inside family jokes. It basically all started when I first moved out whilst I was at uni. It was a great time and you make really close friends but there is a sort of lost plain of reference and if you have a slight accent of any kind, you are mercilessly ripped to pieces. So yeah, I got home-sick: people back home understood my weird sense of humour better and blah-blah-blah. I actually got to the point where I was watching clips of Ant and Dec (a pair of local celebrities come good) just so I could hear someone who spoke like me. As any student or graduate will know, the day your loan money comes in you blow it and then you spend the rest of term living off super noodles because you’ve never had access to money in quite the same way, and personally I have always been really bad at wasting my money on music and DVDs so I had a pretty steep learning curve when it came to my finances. So, as my course progressed, the more and more I bought movies that we used to have recorded on blank VHS at home. These movies kinda became my own private therapy for me when student life became too much. The fact I watched them so much as a kid and then as a lonely adult means they don’t just serve as reminders of home anymore. Forgive the cheesiness but stuff like “Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Family” (1971), “The Secret Garden” (1993), all of the Muppet Movies, “Ghostbusters” (1984), and even the odd one like “Some Like it Hot” (1959), feel almost like an extended part of my family and home life as I have viewed them at such a young age that they have imprinted on me. Certain moments from those movies like the World of Pure Imagination sequence, Mary’s dream about the garden and The Rainbow Connection sequence are so ingrained in my head; the wave of nostalgia is like being hit by a car… in a good way. It’s equivocal to when smells transport you to the past. And, the best part is it takes me back to my mindless, worry-free childhood days when I had not a care in the world. By that I mean that they can make you forget about your problems for an hour or two, making them priceless.

Late Night Movies all on Your Own:

This is kinda my favourite movie experience but it is the most devastating. It’s basically those moments when you’re the only one who is still awake and you’re watching whatever is on TV after 1 in the morning, or you’re in bed with your laptop at your chin and you’ve wound down into the weird part of the internet. And, basically you are prey to whatever fucked up shit heads in your direction because they don’t put happy films on at that time of night. So yeah, you’re curled up on the sofa, with a now empty cup of tea in your hand, and basically either a door is shut on your head or you’re punched in the stomach repeatedly over 3 hours by whatever flickers on to the screen, with no-one there to wipe away your tears. I watched “Empire of the Sun” (1987) in such a way and all I can say is thank God good old sentimental Steven Spielberg was at the helm because it could have been so much more brutal. His depiction of the Japanese invasion of China during WW2 from the perspective of a British boy turned out to be gritty viewing indeed. Pestilence, imprisonment and cruelty seen through the eyes of a child was hard viewing, especially with a child’s hopeless lack of perspective. Life in the prison camps was turned into games of who’s in whose gang; the lack of understanding that with some people, no amount of CPR will revive them and that the light from an atomic bomb is not souls going to heaven. Another one that comes to mind is “Choke” (2008) starring Sam Rockwell as a nymphomaniac who makes a living by pretending to choke in restaurants. The plot develops by the protagonist’s attempts in trying to save his mother’s life by getting one of her doctors pregnant with his child, and then twists and turns towards his discovery that he may be the offspring of Christ, conceived from the holy foreskin itself. This leads to some existential crises and journeys of self-discovery which accidentally involves murder and some stray anal beads. Moments like this are almost spiritual (can’t believe I just wrote that immediately after anal beads, oh whatever), as it acts like your own pilgrimage through the most immersive form of art. You make new realisations about yourself and the world. It gives you an insight into the heads of some of the most imaginative and creative people on this planet. And, the next day you ask if anyone has seen the film and NOBODY EVER FUCKING HAS! So often, the price of these amazing movie experiences is that you’re left carrying the film in your pocket forever with no suitable vent for the awful cocktail of emotions that coursed through your being.