Let's begin...

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
IMDb; Movie Tome; Rotten Tomatoes; Warner Bros.; Wikipedia

Well, I've never read the book, though I think I must've read the sequel many years ago, but I don't really remember it. And I've seen the original movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which I think was better than this movie. I dunno, this was okay, I guess. It looked nice, lots of bright colors and interesting visuals. Veruca was disturbingly pretty. I dunno. But I was actually rather disappointed, I was looking forward to the movie because I've always liked the work of Johnny Depp (who played Wonka) and director Tim Burton. It just wasn't as good as I expected. I didn't really care for the songs, and the story... meh, it felt sorta "been there, done that."

But in case you haven't been there, here's a little bit about the plot. There's this chocolatier named Willy Wonka who became a recluse long ago because people were stealing his secret candy recipes. But now he's got a contest, there are five golden tickets hidden in random candy bars, and each kid who finds one (and a guardian) will win a tour of his chocolate factory, and one of them will win something extra special in the end. There's a poor kid named Charlie Bucket who gets a ticket, and he's the last. Before him were Mike Teavee, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Augustus Gloop. They each have their own ways of being particularly annoying and undeserving children, and the same goes for their guardians. Willy Wonka himself is also quite weird, and we get some glimpses into his tragic childhood, or whatever. And other weird stuff. I dunno. It all has a very sugary ending, of course.

Napoleon Dynamite
Fox Searchlight; IMDb; Movie Tome; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia

There's this weird high-school-aged guy named Napoleon Dynamite. And he has some weird friends, Deb (who we like), and Pedro. And some weird relatives, his older brother Kip, and Uncle Rico. And they all do weird things. And it's all kinda random and pointless. Y'know, I sort of vaguely wanted to see this for some time, but it wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities. But I guess someone recommended it to my sister, so she rented it (and I probably enjoyed it more than she did). I didn't catch the very beginning cuz I was doing stuff online, but I saw most of it. I'm glad to have done so, now. Don't feel the slightest interest in ever seeing it again. It's not bad. It had some mildly funny bits, but mostly it was just weird. I can like weird, but this I thought was mostly sort of boring weird. Not boring in a bad way, though I usually hate boring. Just boring in a weird way. Y'know? It was sort of interesting in a boring sort of way... or vice versa.... Oh, and I just read a bit of the Wikipedia page on the movie. It says the characters' behaviors border on Asperger's Syndrome, which doesn't surprise me, since while watching it I found myself hoping I'm not too much like them. But I probably am. And I have that, sort of, maybe, so... whatever.... *sigh*

Punch-Drunk Love
IMDb; Movie Tome; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia

Okay. This guy named Barry Egan owns a small business. And he grew up with a bunch of sisters who have never been very nice to him, I guess. And he occasionally freaks out and breaks things. And one day he meets a woman named Lena Leonard, who works with one of his sisters, and she likes him. But before they start seeing each other, one night he calls a phone sex line just for like a conversation. And after that the woman he talked to starts calling him everywhere and threatening him and demanding money. And some guys come to force money out of him. But once he and Lena get together, and he falls in love, he gains strength and confidence from this love, and threatens the people who stole from him, and when they show up to hurt him and end up hurting Lena, he channels his destructive energies against them instead of running in fear as he normally would. Eventually he even tracks down their boss to demand an apology. And that's about all I can say. I didn't care that much for the movie overall, it was really weird and didn't have much of a plot and was kind of boring I thought, even though I felt for Barry all along. And I'm glad he found love. But I probably wouldn't even mention the movie if not for the latter part, after he started fighting back. That, I thought, was cool.