CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: PICK

(2005)

CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS: PASS

(2004)

PICKPOCKET: PICK

(1959)

New on DVD this week, Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is enough to make any fan of Roald Dahl's most beloved novel cry with delight at all the film gets so magically right, and with frustration that the film is still nearly ruined by Burton's obsessions and a spectacularly miscalculated performance by Johnny Depp.

Only Burton could have nailed Dahl's blend of whimsical fantasy and withering comeuppance, or the Dickensian glee of its morality-play tableau, with poverty and decency lavishly rewarded, and excess and decadence mercilessly punished. And only Burton could have thought it would be a good idea to give candy-maker extraordinaire Willy Wonka (Depp) unresolved issues from childhood stemming from a traumatic relationship with his father.

Yet take out Wonka, and what's left is little short of brilliant. From young Charlie Bucket (Freddy Highmore) — along with his extended family and their crazy ramshackle house — to the wonders of Wonka's factory, to the over-the-top rottenness of the other four children, this Charlie is both faithful and inspired. It has the makings of the dark childhood fantasy classic that all the Harry Potter films and Lemony Snicket are trying to be. That's good enough to warrant gritting one's teeth and looking past Depp.

Also new this week is Christmas With the Kranks, yet another alleged holiday comedy from one-man holiday-season lousy-movie machine Tim Allen (the Santa Clause movies, Joe Somebody). The premise: A suburban couple decides to abandon their empty nest and go on a cruise in lieu of the usual Christmas hoo-hah. Naturally, they must be punished.

Allen's so cranky he wants to “boycott” all Christmas activities — even charitable donations, despite the fact that the cruise is cheaper than typical seasonal expenditures. The neighbors are worse, browbeating the Kranks into submission before coming together in a heartwarming display of how communities support erring members after pummeling them into the ground. The film's big mistake is making the Allen character's obsession an almost valid protest against ugly enforced conformity — then giving the neighbors the moral high ground over Allen's character. Instead of the Kranks skipping Christmas, can't Allen skip future Christmas movies? Please?

Finally, long out of print in VHS, Robert Bresson's celebrated, confounding Pickpocket comes to DVD from the Criterion Collection, which already includes Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, A Man Escaped, and others. Inspired by Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Pickpocket brings Bresson's stylistic rigor to a meditation on a bland, disaffected young intellectual named Michel (Martin La Salle) who takes up stealing, theorizing that ordinary rules don't apply to an elite class of supermen and that morality and final judgment are absurd concepts.

Bresson examines actions but doesn't clarify motives, perhaps suggesting that the protagonist's actions are a mystery to him, his theories only rationalizations. The subject matter, like Man Escaped, offers an ideal case for Bresson's insistence on naked actions devoid of acting, since for Michel visible emotion would be fatal. Redemption, as always in Bresson, is enigmatic but evocative. What changes for Michel at that critical moment when another hand meets his? Why is his relationship with Jeanne transformed by his ultimate circumstances? Bresson asks but never tells.

CONTENT ADVISORY: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory contains unsettling images, mild menace to children, and an instance of minor profanity, and might be a bit much for sensitive kids. Christmas With the Kranks contains crude language, suggestive humor, and slapstick violence, and could be watched by teens. Pickpocket contains skeptical discussion of morality as well as much petty theft, and could make provocative viewing for thoughtful teens.