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The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 52

Publication:
The Boston Globei
Location:
Boston, Massachusetts
Issue Date:
Page:
52
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, JULY 12, Vintage Films if- Willy Wonka' can cater to modern tastes 'I tr1 i I i i 1 it a I lmfnntrmwiir "Tr I 'Si WWW 1-', -C-L IjU'1 envy as a waitress in "Heavy." Liv Tyler attracts attention and Movie 'Heavy' is loaded with potent charm and sloth. It seems an eternity before we meet Wonka at his factory. The first half of the movie introduces us to Charlie (played by the bland Peter Ostrum), who lives in Dickensian poverty with his mother and grandparents, and details the search for five golden tickets hidden in Wonka bars. The winners will be treated to a day at the factory, where for years no one has gone in or come out, and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Screenwriter Dahl and director Mel Stuart wittily portray the worldwide frenzy to win and the media's blanket coverage of the search.

After nearly giving up hope, Charlie finds a golden ticket in a bar he buys with a coin he has found. His Grandpa Joe (played with wonderful exuberance by Jack Albertson) gets out of bed for the first time in 20 years to accompany Charlie on his big day. They meet up with the other winners: a frightful collection of brats and the parents who have indulged them. Wilder's reclusive Wonka has a wounded look in his blue eyes that suggests he's the Captain Nemo of confectioners. He's utterly unpredic-tible, spouting Shakespearean sequiturs and taking a sadistic pleasure in orchestrating set-pieces in which the four naughty children get their just desserts.

The irony is that the four bad kids have a lot more spunk than our Charlie. Anyway, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is ever tart and tangy, after all these years. By Betsy Sherman GLOHE C'OliRESPONDENT J.fjts production values may be Cjwf sy by today's standards, but the foj "Willy Wonka and the Choco-lafcj Factory" remains a piquant and fantasy film, boasting a (Unarming performance by Gene 'iljler as the eponymous candy mo-guijand inventor who captures the Hold's attention with a publicity stynt worthy of our own PR-domi-Nled era. jThe movie is back on the big sXreen in a limited theatrical release $r-the occasion of its 25th anniversa-jV'T(at Sony Copley Place, Allston Ciltemas and the Community Theater in Dedham). This adaptation of jfeald Dahl's "Charlie and the hocolate Factory" resurfaces, not jjoiiicidentally, in a year in which the Author's "James and the Giant 3Peach" and "Matilda" (coming out later in the summer) have also been mftoie into movies.

Willy Wonka" wasn't a hit on its initial release the live-action musi-(Jal genre was at that point on its last but has subsequently found ijaJ life on TV and video. Perhaps ijs most famous offshoot is the song 'he' Candy Man," as covered by Smmy Davis Jr. (The fine score by Anfiiony Newley and Leslie Bri-(Sisse contains the even better song 'Jpure though viewing "Willy Wonka" ojftjhe big screen today isn't a revelatory experience on the order of kfc Wizard of Oz" or "The 5,000 his guests through his famous Willie Wonka (Gene Wilder) leads magical chocolate factory. Fingers of Dr. the dark edges of Dahl's story give it a rewardingly sophisticated feel.

Some reviewers have called the film mean-spirited, and there are certainly jarring flourishes that make the movie perhaps unsuitable for very young children. (The boat ride on the chocolate river simulates a bad acid trip, and the punishments of some of the bad chil 111111! By Jay Car GI.OHK STAFF James Mangold's "Heavy" is anything but. It's a small gem of a debut film that specifies a world and populates it with unerring authority and a sure instinct for character. The proof is that it never slides into folksiness or cute eccentricity as it draws us into the sleepy Hudson River Valley backwater of Pete and Dolly's, a roadside tavern from which Pete has long departed, to leave Dolly running it with a matriarchal presence that matches her matriarchal bulk. She's also got a lonely and equally hefty grown son, Victor, played by Pruitt Taylor mm ilil Review HEAVY Directed and written by: James MunytM Stalling: Pruitt Taylor Vinee, Shelley Winters, Liv Tyler, Deborah Harry, Joe Grifasi Evan Dando Playing at: Kendall Square Unrated.

Vince. He's so paralyzed by shyness, that he hardly ever stirs from the protective haven of the pizza kitchen behind the bar. Possibly this is why Shelley Winters' Dolly hires a pretty young waitress named Callie. Played by Liv Tyler as an unschooled teen-ager who is as easy in her own skin Victor is uneasy in his; she's a beauty who seems unaware of the effect she has on the place Victor, who is instantly smitten, then binges out on chocolate doughnuts when he calculates the odds of Callie ever having anything romantic to do with him. "Ya not fat ya husky," Dolly shouts.

Victor is not reassured. He's so obviously resigned to enjoying Callie solely on the fantasy level that the fantasies, when Mangold films them, look like fantasies. But while "Heavy" demonstrates that Mangold is clear-eyed, it also reveals him to be a believer in the notion that love can catalyze change though not in predictable ways. Mangold believes 1 in the notion that -love can catalyze wi change though not in predictable ways. Mangold is also possessed otjn ironic humor.

Callie's boyfriend, amusingly played by Evan Dandols as pedestrian as Callie is sublime. He's possessive and she's compliant, but he seems to have no idea of what she is. Victor has, but he's apparently doomed to futile yearning. Even 411 her reticence, Callie is captivating. As she also demonstrates in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty," Tyler is an actress with whom the camera is in love, too.

She's fresh, natural, lovely. And Vince's Victor grows almost comically morose. They have very few line's, but they don't need lines. Mangold sees that they do more than enough with their faces, their stances, their body language. Sometimes there's too much mood, too much sensitivity to the particulars of their shared world.

But "Heavy" is a muted film and a quietly potent one with a wonderful eye for telling detail eggs on a plate, speaking of morning ritual; the mix of calculation and desperation in the eyes of a long-time waitress who isn't getting any younger and is reminded of it by the arrival of the pretty newcomer. Worlds swirl around Vince and Tyler, alone in their microcosnjs. The other actors say a lot by leaving a lot unsaid, too. Winters is refreshingly subdued, convincingly embqdy-ing a mother used to working things out in her head before giving her little universe its marching orders. Deborah Harry is excellent too, as the older waitress who concludes she's being punished when Winters hires the younger one who would never think of herself as competition.

And as one of the regulars, Joe Grifasi contributes a more fihe'lv tuned character bit than he usually is handed. But Vince is the reason "Heavy" stays with us. You're never quite sure, as crisis enters his fife, whether he'll go the route of Paddy Chayefsky's Marty or of Alfred Hitchcock's Norman Bates. But you never stop earig. dren are bluntly presented.) The Wonka factory is, after all, a manifestation of its owner's probably warped psyche, here painted using a groovy early-'70s palette.

It's definitely a cautionary tale, with our hero Charlie rewarded for his good-hearted honesty and his fellow contest winners punished for their respective greed, gluttony, vulgarity till: i iff KiiWiiilili feiiiiiv i i Lli ii.ll: mmn rsw mmwn li vj I I m)m Mill flpOiOliiii iliilyyliyiil "Hillflilf! Ill i mi tmm mm hi iiii if it 'f si iilfy: liiiiHlyiiiijiiiiiuiiHiiiLy anifliiiinyi lliiiilii' 'afii kum "Ihuw i MP Mites i i RESTftiCTCO PREVIEW NIGHT SONY THEATRES CHERI mtimimmum 333-FILM 002 POO! IR SPECIAL SNEAK I TOMORROW niunHH amuaiufl TzOOIIVI SHOWCASE CINEMAS I I HOWCASI CINEMAS I I GtNHAl CINEMA I I GENRAl CINEMA iWnfPn jE DEDHAM REVERE BURLINGTON 10 FRAMINGHAM 14 DANYERS 6 m. exit isa rte. ci squire rd. rte. exit 32b msshshopfhswosld 326-4955 II 286-1660 II 229-9200 1 1 508 628-4404 1 1 333-FILM 009 Openp July 24 at Theatres Everywhere.

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Pages Available:
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Years Available:
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