The Movie: The movie: Now who doesn't love this movie? It's great! It's total psychedelic 70's wackiness mixed into a children's musical! What's not to love? The songs are great, and hey, it's got Oompa Loompas in it. Definitely one of the most creative movies ever made with awesome visual design. If you have never seen this movie as a kid (or at all, for that matter) you don't know what you're missing! But for now I'm going to assume that you've all seen this movie at one point or other and get on with...

The DVD: I rented the standard aspect ratio version from Netflix, and after watching it, ended up going out and actually buying the widescreen version. For all intents and purposes, both versions are exactly the same except one is a standard 4:3 pan and scan presentation, and the other is anamorphic widescreen. In other words, it's not like one is the "special edition" and the other one is a crappy version. Both versions are the same thing.

The film transfer is very clean and the colors are vibrant. I had previously only ever seen this movie on broadcast TV and lemme tell ya, I was seeing things on the DVD that I never knew where there before! This film has never looked so alive. The interactive/animated menus are spectacular, creative, and fully in the spirit of the movie, with neat great-glass-elevator themed transitions between the different screen.

Special features include the original featurette on the film, your usual bios and stuff, as well as some interesting things like Wonka "Sing-Alongs" -- musical selections from the film with "follow-the bouncing ball" type lyrics on the screen so you can sing along... and also the brand new 2001 documentary about the film -- holy cow Gene Wilder looks old. But there were some intersting insights into how the movie came to be (the director's daughter, aged 10, had just read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and suggested to her father that he make it into a movie), and you also get to see all the people who played the kids in the movie all grown up. I rate this DVD highly, and I think it's a worthy addition to anyone's DVD collection. The movie is great, and the DVD content is all top-notch.

Oompa loompa, doobity doo...