"Free Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." Even saying those words cracks me up. ...
Can you imagine a cross between the killer-whale movie "Free Willy" and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"? It could be a movie about an idealistic boy trying to free eccentric chocolate-factory owner Willy Wonka — or perhaps his faithful Oompa-Loompa helpers. That cracks me up, too.
I got the idea for such a thing while conversing with a film-reviewer pal about an upcoming movie. He thought the film was so similar to "Free Willy" that he jokingly called it "Free Wilhelmina," though I offered "Free Wilma" as a shorter, more succinct version.
And that got the ball rolling on yet another batch of "movie scrambles," a word game I like to play that combines movie titles of films.
CASINO ROYALE ("Casino" and "Casino Royale"). OK, this one is a bit of a cheat. But anything that gets us a James Bond movie directed by Martin Scorsese is all right by me.
DEAD SILENCE OF THE LAMBS ("Dead Silence" and "Silence of the Lambs"). People seem to forget that Anthony Hopkins starred in an earlier killer-puppet movie titled "Magic."
LEGALLY BLIND DATING, OR LEGALLY BLONDE DATING ("Legally Blonde" and "Blind Dating"). Don't you think Reese Witherspoon's sweet-spirited law student and Chris Pine's independent, sight-impaired character would make a nice little couple?
I KNOW WHO KILLED ME LAST SUMMER ("I Know What You Did Last Summer" and ""I Know Who Killed Me") and SUPERBAD RETURNS ("Superbad" and "Superman Returns"). Actually, if they wind up making sequels to either of these films, the studios owe me royalties for these.
OF COURSE, NOT EVERY ONE'S A WINNER. I'm horrified at the idea of "Tyler Perry's Daddy Day Camp," a combination of the noxious "Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls" and the even worse "Daddy Day Camp."
And "Meet the Swiss Family Robinson" ("Meet the Robinsons" and "Swiss Family Robinson") was just too bizarre for words.
Others that didn't quite make the cut this time were "Amazing Gracie" ("Amazing Grace" and "Gracie"), "Miss Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"("Miss Potter" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"), "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte's Web" ("Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte" and "Charlotte's Web"), Piccadilly Midnight Cowboy" ("Piccadilly Cowboy" and "Midnight Cowboy") and "Reno 911!: Miami Vice" ("Reno 911!: Miami" and "Miami Vice").
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com