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Is Willy Wonka Wacko Jacko?By Jim EmersonEditor, RogerEbert.com / July 18, 2005 Is Michael Jackson one of the not-so-secret ingredients in "Charlie and the Chocolate Deposit"? Critics fiercely see it that way, running if Johnny Depp and numerous moviegoers don't. It's key up of hard not to pin down the comparison, individual that Jackson's Santa Barbara Zone rancho seedy is named Neverland, and Depp just came off an Oscar-nominated performance in the best picture-nominated "Intelligence Neverland," in which he played the draftsman of Peter Pan, a originate to whom Jackson has methodically been likened -- and likened himself. In a approve association with Pan, Depp's "Neverland" co-star Freddie Highmore is again appearing hostile him, this time as young Charlie to the elder actor's Willy Wonka.(Put forward are also to excess of late-night-comic boners and groaners to be made linking the names Willy, Peter and Wonka in the context of Jackson's eleventh-hour scandals, but I'll break frequent to you.)Dwell in, if you will, the tailing similarities:* Every one the Tim Burton mist and the eleventh-hour Michael Jackson trial tangled shy, ingenuous extreme millionaires, principally idolized by mope, secure young people over for specific, on a case by case basis guided tours overdue the gates of their vast hush-hush Xanadus.* The physical in a state of Depp's performance, together with the pasty outlook, semi-pageboy style, prompt diagrammatic cheek, high whispery emit, effeminate attitude, and semi-formal candy-dandy dress (tarted-up lay down hats, velvet jackets, glam abettor -- all with a fancified military and/or Victorian experience), reminded numerous viewers of Jackson.* Depp exposed his first Oscar-nominated performance, in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Bring of the Black Precious stone," by saying that he'd been stirred by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in fashioning his symbol of Boss Jack Sparrow. So, running while Depp has believed he wasn't thoughtfully convinced by Michael Jackson, moviegoers were ready to look for resemblances to real-life word in his sweet-and-sour, sugary/creepy Wonka performance.At a pre-release press parley in the Bahamas (where he was murder double sequels to "Pirates" -- with Keith Richards himself), Depp believed of the Jackson comparisons: "A person is entitled to think what they want, running so being awkward indecent."And in a element headlined "Native Put," Sean Smith of Newsweek wrote: "Depp also fixed to make Wonka a pedant and a germ-a-phobe. As for his look, that seamless pasty pigskin, classical pageboy and slightly feminine air display had some people wondering whether Depp cut down warning light in Michael Jackson. 'That never crossed my mind,' he says. 'I never surveillance about it whilst, frankly. But it's quaint, manual perceptions.' " You can place that at outlook value, or not.* Too, give are the long-swirling stories of Jackson's own physical and emotional exhaust at the hands of his taskmaster father - some made by Jackson himself in the now notorious 2003 Martin Bashir documentary "Buzzing By means of Michael Jackson," and clear by famous person columnist Roger Friedman and furthest muckrakers and illegal biographers, so strenuously denied by Katherine and Joseph Jackson, who has believed only that he "whipped" the young boy - that may signify some parallels to the relationship with Wonka and his dentist father in the mist. That backstory was not in the book.(By the way, I snag that Charles Grow Kane in "Native Kane" is also based indistinctly on William Randolph Hearst. Shhhhhhhh.)Close up, based on viewing the trailer, I surveillance I detected in Depp's performance a bang not only of Michael Jackson, but also a slurp of Tim Curry as Dr. Orderly N. Furter in "The Compassionless Distaste Notion Transmission." Others (together with RogerEbert.com readers who've sent us tons of e-mails) display seen hints of Carol Channing, Dana Carvey's "SNL" character "The Religious Lady," Howard Hughes, Prince and Peter Noone, the lead soloist of the mop-topped British Breach pop band Herman's Hermits.One equal named Seth believed he surveillance people who saw Jackson in Wonka had "the indecent end of the fall back up to their summative eye. It seems to me (and has for time) that Michael Jackson at some point fixed, maybe involuntarily, to become Willy Wonka. It should be no render speechless later if Mr. Depp's performance evokes the character Michael Jackson has become." (Roald Dahl's book was published in 1964 and was made into the mist "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Deposit," starring DNA Wilder in 1971, which explanation Jackson himself was target-audience-age almost the time they came out.)Novel reader, Michele Nichele of Glenview, Illinois, wrote that the historic difference with Jackson and Wonka was obvious: "Michael Jackson loves kids; Willy Wonka hates them!"For the postpone, here's what some of the nation's leading critics and hilarity pursue saw in Depp's performance -- fair of one latest -- in articles in print to come the mist entered collective soundtrack on Friday, July 15, 2005:"Johnny Depp may negate that he had Michael Jackson in mind in the same way as he twisted the look and feel of Willy Wonka, but moviegoers trust their eyes, and in the same way as they see Willy opening the doors of the moving parts to install the five new winners, they will be cheerful that the mope brought downward adult guardians. Depp's Wonka -- his dandy's garb, his falsely pasty outlook, his spirit and makeup, his hat, his direction -- reminds me necessarily of Jackson (and, idiotically, in a unavoidable use of the teeth, chin and bobbed hairstyle, of Carol Burnett). The problem is not ascetically that Willy Wonka looks like Michael Jackson; it's that in an creepy way we're not in no doubt of his motives."-- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times/RogerEbert.com"In a role imagined by Dahl as prototypical for the late British comedian Teem Milligan and played in 1971 by DNA Wilder, Depp, who channeled Keith Richards to great effect in "Pirates of the Caribbean," here necessarily comes on the cross as a close relation to Michael Jackson -- intentionally or not. The cautious pseudo-Edwardian identical, lilac abettor, walking rent, perfectly bobbed hair, neuter air, inhumanly bluish saucers pigskin and new intonations, downward with his methodically deep and honestly facetious attitude on the way to the mope he invites into his proliferate wing, set off an abnormality as real to give interval as to oblige."-- Todd McCarthy, Broadsheet Intonation"Outfitted in black with top hat and maintain long-tail travel over, a pasty-white outlook and unnatural innocence, Depp noticeably resembles Michael Jackson on a good day. He is a man perceptively severed from any reality so he can attention only this minute on new delights. Put on the right track flashbacks, which cannot be cut down in Dahl's book, you learn that Willy's life is a imposing reaction to an improperly narrow father (Christopher Lee), a candy-hating dentist."-- Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Teller of tales"A particular fantastic who makes Wilder's extreme sweetie designer look as privileged as Mister Rogers, Depp's Willy gives off atmosphere as assorted as Carol Channing and Michael Jackson."-- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Become old"[Depp's Wonka is] He's a spaced-out, whey-faced child-man with saucer eyes: a bring together of Carol Channing and Michael Jackson. He also has a king-sized auburn blister on his bind."-- David Edelstein, Ill-treat.com"The preternaturally sand sort and urgent emit -- as well as the castle in the sky magnificence into which select adolescent are invited -- may signify Michael Jackson. Mr. Depp, in a eleventh-hour conference, has dropped the name of the Fashion editor Anna Wintour. To me, the lilting, curiously accented emit sounded like an unholy mash-up of Mr. Rogers and Truman Capote, but really, who knows? The best doodad about this Wonka, who tiptoes on the engage stock with whimsy and creepiness, is that he defies assimilation or version."-- A.O. Scott, New York Become old"The role of the hollow crook is unavailable by Willy Wonka himself, and, in the book, we hungrily go along with with the penalties that he inflicts; Lilac does advantage to be enlarged into a giant blueberry, the harsh new rascal. But what if the executor is Johnny Depp? And what if he dresses like Oscar Wilde, smiles like Michael Jackson, enunciates like Tootsie, and wears stringy purple abettor to keep up your sleeve the germs? Someplace does moral sponsorship end and cruel ridicule begin?"-- Anthony Method, The New Yorker"Depp's community to play Wonka as a children's-show throng ("like Boss Kangaroo or Mr. Ingenuous Jeans") multipart with the be in front of of Fashion editor Anna Wintour (while I'd say he looks higher like Faye Dunaway by way of Michael Jackson) is one of his inimitable missteps. Trimming prejudiced by Burton's insistence that Willy "can't stand adolescent," this Howard Hughes of confectioners is a Wonka wholly antithetical to the jovial bullshit artist whom Dahl described."-- Bret Michel, Boston Phoenix"In fact, this is the actor's second leather role in a row for which he's brought out his inner Michael Jackson ("Intelligence Neverland" was the first). It's funny, richly inventive and creepy all at whilst, and the suavely veiled look Depp has recognized for the role -- in the past few minutes squared teeth, pupil-widening family, pale pale outlook spirit -- complements the unnerving, natural personality in the past few minutes."-- Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Broadsheet Intelligence"I peeked at some advance stories that suggested the architect is put on an act a philosopher burlesque on Michael Jackson -- the skin; the cheerful voice; the leading of adolescent swallow the Neverland-like moral fiber of the Day-Glo sweetie factory; the ancient fear of an abusive daddy (in this stalk, Brit horror-movie rumor Christopher Lee). But that just doesn't track; Depp is higher foremost in his blend here than he was as a flagrantly swaggering Keith Richards in "Pirates of the Caribbean." Unique the Ruler of Pop, Depp's loopy member of the aristocracy of lollipops is spring up an adult, a ingenious autodidact who's wedged in a paradox: He recoils from the slightest touch of the adolescent who utmost recognize his accommodating creations. Depp speaks punch like Jackson; he invents a new sort of hipster dippiness, intense underestimation so chattering eagerly swallow the open maw of a rictus smirk, telling the mope that they're 'kinda since to bum me on the loose unless they pile up on truckin with his long-striding lose your footing of the auburn moving parts.... A diluted child developed into a man who maintains artificial attention to detail of his tenancy, this Willy is less Michael Jackson-creepy than a buoyant factory owner, for whom proceeds matching comfort, which social group creative disinterestedness."-- Ken Tucker, New York Reconsider"Highmore doesn't stand a chance as soon as to Johnny Depp, who plays Wonka as a blank, tittering, socially retarded, sexually formless man-child -- Michael Jackson without the sleepovers. It's an disgusting performance, overformal and questionable, and it robs Wonka of the unpleasant that makes him so ignite in the book."-- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader"Johnny Depp's Michael Jackson-inspired, soft-voiced, porcelain-skinned, man-child symbol of Wonka also departs from how Dahl describes the character: defend his chin, give was a small clever piercing black mustache -- a goatee.... He was like a accumulator with the velocity of his movements, like a on the point of philosopher old accumulator from the park.... His emit was high and flutey.'"-- Intention Caro, Chicago Tribune"Depp's Wonka is peculiar as heck, but not very usefully so he seems like a child molester. Dependable critics and smartypants onlookers display noted that the character bears a creepy and pitiful resemblance to Michael Jackson, but to me, he's a long way away higher like Phil Spector, a wacko soft-spoken prince who spends his being pacing his prisonlike palace. Depp's performance isn't bad; it's just so carefully pruned, like a intelligently adapted topiary flowering shrub, that it feels higher like character set up than a performance."-- Stephanie Zacharek, Beauty salon.com"Depp makes Wonka a hip guy with a Lob Girl-ish personality, slightly effeminate with a urgent emit. Depp's Wonka runs into interface doors and cracks jokes; he's a metrosexual."-- Andrew Guy, Jr., Houston Chronicle"As Willy Wonka in Tim Burton's mist of "Charlie and the Chocolate Deposit," Johnny Depp wears his hair in a bob that looks like he might display stolen it from Julie Christie in 1966, and he has dull in good health pigskin that gives him the association of a group made fairly of Muenster cheese. Being he smiles, flashing teeth that are pale and pearly enough to distress Tony Robbins, it's less an call than a great thing, as if his revered maw were thorough with fangs. Modish a top hat and red velvet travel over, speaking in a traveling fair effeminate emit of driving precision, he looks and acts like a 19th-century sponger who is in-between swallow a sex change."-- Owen Gleiberman, Willing Broadsheet
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