Doomp-aty-do

Here's a really interesting story. The picture on the right is of a neighbor of mine, Ezzy Dame. He lives about a block up the river, in Artist Loft Apartments. I see him riding his scooter around the neighborhood quite a bit. He also works at the local movie theater. But it wasn't until today that I realized he was one of the Oompa-Loompas in 1971's "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." You can read the Reno Gazette Journal's story about it here, which is where I got Ezzy's picture. I loved the book and the movie when I was a kid, and the latter has become something of a stoner classic over the years. I'm fairly sure Ezzy is one of the Oompa-Loompas that can be seen in the picture below, but I'm not sure which one. I'm just looking at that picture again now, and man, those Oompa Loompas are kind of scary. In fact, now that I think about it, there was a lot about that movie that was mildly disturbing. What was up with that boat-trip scene?

Of course, the Tim Burton version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" has just come out in theaters. I'm going to try to see it at some point, although it does bring to mind a rather disturbing trend in movies. Now I know Hollywood has probably never really been much on real originality, but has anyone else noticed the sheer volume of movies that are released these days that are really just adaptations or sequels or "re-imaginings" of some earlier work? Think about it; pretty much all the big movies that are being released this summer are sequels to sequels (Revenge of the Sith, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Land of the Dead), remakes of old movies (The Longest Yard, The Bad News Bears) based on imaginative novels (War of the Worlds, The aforementioned Chocolate Factory, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), old TV shows (Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched), or the latest seemingly endless source of inspiration, comic books (Batman Begins, Sin City, Fantastic Four--which by the way was not as bad as a lot of people are saying). It seems like what people really want these days is a slightly new take on something that they're already very familiar with. The lack of genuine creativity is somewhat disappointing; rarely is a genuine blockbuster based on a truly original idea anymore, and most that are tend to be kids movies (Madagascar) or Frat-Pack comedies (Wedding Crashers). And don't talk to me about horror movies; every single one of them that comes out these days looks like a sequel to The Ring.

You really can't blame the studios for this, however. They're in business to sell tickets. The blame for this over-indulgence in nostalgia lies with the public. We are the reason that Transformers is going to be made into a movie--and I'm not making that up. We will buy the tickets, and we will encourage more of this sort of thing. I'm not against making movies based on well-known sources in general, but wouldn't it be nice if original ideas had a real shot, too? I have to wonder, are we really that reluctant to embrace anything that is creative and different?