Day 26: Pre-Halloween Part III

Okay, so it is Friday night.  On Friday nights we have been watching a movie with the kids.  This is mainly because I can't really go out to eat anymore, so we have nothing else to do.  Plus, staying at home saves a little money and Maggie can wear her pajamas (hey, she is a Merchant and has Indian heritage, so wearing pajamas as much as possible is to be expected). 

So, I thought I would let the kids choose a movie, which is always a risk.  Usually, the kids pick some inane Barbie movie.  Their favorites include:  Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, Barbie: Mermaidia, Barbie of Swan Lake (I had no idea that there was a Barbie that lived at Swan Lake, but you learn something new every day), Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses, Barbie as The Island Princess, Barbie in a Fashion Fairytale, and my personal favorite, Barbie Fairytopia:  Magic of the Rainbow.  As you can see, we have a large variety of Barbie options.  Amazingly though, as we were watching Barbie in The Princess and the Pauper once, I noticed that one of the characters is played by Martin Short, so somehow they get some big names to participate in some of their movies (I guess if you pay someone enough--or if someone is desperate enough--they will do anything).  The one good thing about the Barbie movies is that they usually last for less than an hour. 

So, much to my dismay, I was completely blindsided by the request to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I mean, come on, it's two days until Halloween, I can't have any candy, and they want to watch a show (which they have never had much interest in) that basically exalts candy (chocolate in particular) to divine status?  I really couldn't believe it, but, if you know our Mia (who has somehow had some lawyer gene from the time she was about a year old), once you make a promise, failure to live up to that promise is worse than just fulfilling the original pledge.  So, we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I was never really a fan of the old version with Gene Wilder.  Apparently, neither was Rold Dahl (who wrote the book).  Dahl was so infuriated with the screen play that he never allowed another version of the movie to be produced.  Luckily, though, whomever got the rights to the book after Dahl's death did not share his distain for the movie business.  I have to say that, having read the book, Tim Burton's version seriously captures the look and feel of the book (to me at least).

My favorite scene, of course, is when they go into that candy field, you know, where everything is made out of candy.  I have seriously always wanted to sit down by a river of melted chocolate.  For some reason, it has always been a childhood dream.  Of course, given that I look far more like Agustus Gloop than Charlie Bucket, I probably should never be allowed into such a place.  Nevertheless, I have to say that being able to pull a candied apple off of a candy tree that is growing in a candy field of candy grass next to a candy river is a pretty amazing concept.  I suppose the part of the story we never hear about is all of the negative health effects of all that candy.  I have no idea how Willy Wonka has managed to stay so skinny for all these years, but lets be honest, the Oompa-Loompas, despite their agility and small size, have all got to have diabetes.  Seriously, you cannot eat candy all the time and not get sick--and I just can't believe that they don't all go out to that candy field in the middle of the night and chow down.

Anyway, when we were done watching the movie, I realized that no amount of candy could satiate my desire for something sweet.  I have been on the diet for 26 days now, and no grand treats.  No candy, no cake, no cookies, no pie, no brownies, no blondies, no ice cream, no chocolate mousse, no cupcakes, no pudding, no whipped cream.  I have wanted to have something sweet so bad, I would even try that stuff in the Harry Potter books called treacle.  I have no idea what it is (other than it has to be some kind of sweet), but it just sounds disgusting (doesn't it sound like some kind of 18-legged arthropod?).  At this point though, I don't care.  In the end, as I was turning off the lights to go to bed, I realized how glad I was that, in the real world, we have not developed Wonkavision.  I simply don't think I could have resisted watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today with the knowledge that I could just reach into my television, like Willy Wonka could, and pull out a Wonka Bar.