Words from the Flick Filosopher about Johnny Depp, Michael Jackson and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: “Is Tim Burton going soft in the sentiment lobe? How did a cautionary tale about the bad things that happen to obnoxious little kids turn into a celebration of [tyke obnoxiousness]? How did a celebration of the exuberant spirit of a conscious nonconformity turn into a cautionary tale about the psychosis of reclusive oddballism? Depp’s Wonka, with his pale, pasty face and neurotic standoffishness, scarily invokes the Michael Jackson example of social deviance: this is our new idea of unconventionality, as debased and corrupt and possibly criminal. Where Gene Wilder’s Wonka in the 1971 original film was a philosopher — “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams,” he intones at one point, an enigmatic but fascinating non sequitur — Depp’s is a buffoon, walking into glass walls like a fourth, fey Stooge.”