Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

When you hear about Roald Dahl’s famous 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, chances are that you will instead think of one of its many adaptations, most likely either the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka) directed by Mel Stuart or the 2005 film directed by Tim Burton that was named after the book (Charlie), if not the more recent 2019 film Wonka that serves as a prequel to the 1971 film. As someone who grew up with Willy Wonka and had read the book maybe once at some point, I was curious about the 2005 film and saw it in a theater when it first came out, only to generally dislike it in favor of the original adaptation. Following a theatrical screening of Wonka that was followed by another rewatch of Willy Wonka, I more seriously considered giving Charlie another chance, even reading the book shortly beforehand since it was meant to be more accurate, and finding that the preceding film was not quite as inaccurate to the book as some people make it out to be. After streaming the 2005 film on Max (formerly HBO Max), since I no longer owned a DVD copy, I appreciated it a little more for its attempts at book-accuracy, but still found myself overall preferring the 1971 version.

Fantastic Four (2005) + Extended Edition

Following the merger between Disney and 20^th Century Fox, several Marvel properties and characters previously licensed by Fox are now scheduled to make their way into the MCU. Following Deadpool & Wolverine, 2025 seems dedicated to reintroducing the Fantastic Four for the third time, with Dr. Doom appearing in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, followed by the team’s first solo film in 10 years, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Though our interest in the MCU itself has waned, in anticipation of this upcoming release, we still thought it appropriate to look back the first attempt to bring the Fantastic Four to the big screen (not counting the shelved 1994 film) in 2005, simply titled Fantastic Four. While the film generally holds up pretty decently after 20 years, it still shows its age in some respects.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x

The first two entries in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series have seen a fair share of remasters, including the amazing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 and the unimpressive Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD. What fewer people may know about is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x, an original Xbox launch title and port of Pro Skater 2 that also includes all of the levels from the original Pro Skater plus five new ones. While I didn’t initially pick this up when seeking out the main titles in the series, it was on my radar, and so decided to pick it up upon finding a copy in the wild so I could check out the new content. I’m glad I did play it, since it turned out to be superior to the original release in just about every way.

Stubs - Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels (1939) Voices by Sam Parker, Pinto Colvig, Jack Mercer, Tedd Pierce, Jessica Dragonette, Livonia Warren, Lanny Ross, Cal Howard. Directed by Dave Fleischer. Screenplay by Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Ted Pierce, I. Sparber, Edmond Seward. Based on the book Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver by Jonathan Swift (London, 1726). Produced by Max Fleischer. Run Time: 76 minutes. USA Color Animated, Fantasy

While Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the first animated feature, animation rival Fleischer Studios’ Gulliver’s Travels was the second. The brothers Fleischer left Bray Studios to found their own company Out of the Inkwell, Inc., in 1921, changing its name in 1929. In the beginning, the studio produced novelty films called Out of the Inkwell, which used the Rotoscope, invented by Fleischer. Rotoscoping is an animation technique used to trace over live-action motion picture footage, frame-by-frame. It produces a realistic animation. Out of the Inkwell also used live-action footage mixed with the animation in such shorts as Modeling (1921).

to a T

I will admiT I haven’T kepT ThaT close aTTention to Keita Takahashi’s career since The original Katamari Damacy, so I hadn’T heard much abouT his oTher non-Katamari projecTs aside from Noby Noby Boy and Wattam. His mosT recenT game, to a T, was someThing I had noT heard anyThing abouT unTil The YouTube channel Mega64 released a sponsored video promoTing iT, aT which poinT I boughT and played The PS5 version as soon as iT was made available. While The game is an unconvenTional experience by The sTandards of Takahashi’s past work ThaT I had played, I still ThoughT he delivered while keeping his whimsical Touch.

Sonic Lost World

As part a three-game deal on Nintendo’s ill-fated Wii U console, Sega released Sonic Lost World (Lost World) in 2013, as a follow-up to Sonic Colors (Colors) on the Wii. Although the game has since been released on PC, I opted for the Wii U version (specifically the Deadly Six edition with a code that no longer works) when that console’s storefront was being shut down. While going back through Sonic’s back catalogue of games after watching Sonic the Hedgehog 3, I decided to finally play Lost World, only to not quite finish the game due to a number of factors stemming from the game design.

Jaws Unleashed (PS2)

Although the 1975 film Jaws has had a lasting impact on pop culture (for better or worse), the film has had a number of product tie-ins over the decades, including in the video game space. While a handful of home console games exist, one that had caught my interest in particular was the 2006 game Jaws Unleashed, as while I wasn’t quite old enough to actually play it at the time, the idea of playing as the shark had always intrigued me, in spite of its reception. In the years since, I was reminded of this game by the existence of the game Maneater, which features a similar concept, and was recently lucky enough to find a wild PS2 copy of Jaws Unleashed. While I had been wanting to play the game anyway, this year being the 50^th anniversary of the original film provided motivation to finally boot it up for the first time. Although I found the expansion on the Jaws world interesting, the game unfortunately shows some age with the flawed execution of its gameplay.