Book-reading has never been part of my lifestyle, so I’ve never read Dahl’s paper version let alone come close to it - but nevertheless I was looking forward to this showing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The story is quite simple : weirdo puts golden ticket in chocolate, kids find them, kids get tour of the factory. Ah well no maybe that easy but this was as much as I knew of the movie.. So lets
be surprised.
What I did knew however is that I like Tim Burton, and if he’s feeling good : Johnny Depp as well. So this was maybe something to look forward to.
What I noticed imediately is that when you take your time, and know how to limit everything to just the right level, digital effects really can look good. Just look at the scenes wih all the Oompa Loompas… The same actor all over the frame and yet it’s not overcrowded and it justs looks natural… Compare that to the umpteenth battlescene from any Star Wars movie made in the last 15 years (yes, the prequels) and you quickly see that Uncle George should know how to limit all the digital gizmo’s.
For me the Oompa Loompas clearly steal the show with the parodies of all the musical styles its just plain hilarious. Add to that the witty responses Depp’s Willie Wonka from time to time and its good fun all the way through… The other characters are a wee bit forced and typecasted but probably its the way its supposed to be, so nothing negative about that.
Very nice movie, lets hope hat Burton and Depp do another co-op really soon.
Not wanting to get into a Kraftwerk theme that seems to be going on here during the last week but what the heck.. The Tour De France came to an end today and Lance Armstrong won it for the 7th time.
An absolute record that many people think will not be beaten for decades. Not that Lance is the ‘best ever’, this title still remains with our very own Eddy Merckx. Next years will see if a new champion is able to stand up or if we get some different winners and we’ll get a new 3/4 straight win from a new talent after that. Nonetheless, to quote Robin Williams : Vive Le Lance !
Well, I guess there will be no more beaming on the NCC-1701. Today is the day that James Doohan got beamed into Sto-Vo-Kor (if he were a Klingon but just stay with the spirit here). Not much else to say…
-Happy Dance- !!! Finally got my hands on “Minimum-Maximum” the new live album from Kraftwerk… With the Werchter performance still in memory this should sound even better… Sadly enough the cd’s are copy protected (fuck you EMI !!) but I copied the mp3 version last week so I can burn those for my car and enjoy it on the road as well.
The cleanup is finished and all people have gone home. Yesterday RBBS celebrated the unoffical summer start and it was quite memorable.. The inventory of the emptied bottles will have to be made but as far as I can tell I’m out of Gin, Vodkda and only half bottles of Blue Curacao, Cachaca and Kahlua are left. Will have to walk by te store to refill the supplies… and get some Tequila as that was a wee bit missing.
Back from Werchter in one way of the other. Had some allergy problems in the end but overall it was quite ok, altho I only watched a selection of the available bands. Thursday started of with New Order (thats Joy Division minus one suicidal member), who set the tone of their show by opening with “The last time we stood here Boy George was number 1 with ‘Karma Chameleon’” as a welcome line. Not sticking to just a greatest hits set material from the last albums was played as well.
Nevertheless the floorfillers of the 80’s were present as well at then end - so no need to panic. Next for thursday was Kraftwerk… Let me repeat that KRAFTWERK KRAFTWERK KRAFTWERK… The godfathers of electronic music, robots, german highways and french cycling. I have no other words to describe their set as fucking memorable. These guys usually dont move a finger on stage but here they were jamming and shakeing along to the crowd, that totally got ‘Zee Geermanz’ by surpise when the chorus for ‘The Model’ was screamed along. Never saw this Watskbeurt look on their faces, and probably never will again. And yes people cheer and shout for 4 automatons moving to an MP3 during ‘The Robots’ but who cares. Also giving lots of songs from their latest Tour De France Soundtrack album this was not a historical look back over 30 years but a message of what was coming. While walking back to our tent in the rain the Chemical Brothers started on the main stage - it shows how things can be different.. They have to get the audiance by using huge lightshows, fireworks, video’s and whatnot. Krafterk does it with 4 quasi non moving guys behind a laptop. Look and learn, o Chemical Brothers.
From the 2nd day (friday) I have to remember Green Day the most. Fucking great show, fucking hard and fucking entertaining. I may not know all their songs but it all sounded good, loud and was all presented by a charismatic lead singer - who’s only downside was that he sometimes went too much crowd entertaining but hey, if you’re in the moment you might as well enjoy it. After Green Day it was Faithless’ turn. Well I didnt watch it.. Nothing could top Green Day and it would just be the same stuff all over again with all the singles and hits with a huge show around it. Let me refer back to the Kraftwerk vs Chemical Broters note here.
On to saturday. Started very hard with Therapy who had a magnificent show plaing stuff from all their best albums. Very happy to see that during the signing session at the Humo stand a lot of young kinds were lined up - so we should see some more from these guys. Basically the wait then started for Rammstein to close the evening. Before that I checked out Audioslave wich totally is not my cup of tea.. Sorry. But we were here for more Germans ! I’ve seen the guys from Rammstein on 2 previous occasions and well, this was the least impressive show. If you were not used to their things it may have looked impressive but they can do better and louder… Oh and with more pyrotechnics. Nevertheless the show was complete with all the usual stuff you can expect from them so no complaints there.. Just a bit more next time please.
And day four ? Totally missed it.. Had some kind of allergic reaction to who-knows-what and had to go home, so nothing to report except that I slept very well ;-)
Links:
Rock Werchter
Kraftwerk
New Order
Greenday
Rammstein
Movies | FRaNKy | 
July 30, 2005 1:00 am | 
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