Film · Prime Video · 1971

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Charlie is the point. The factory is a test of children, and it is a fair test.

Each child is a vice with a parent who has given up correcting it: greed, gum, television, spite. The tour removes them without killing them, and the songs are the indictment. Charlie is poor, polite, and tempted, and he puts the gobstopper back. That return is the whole film. Wonka is a moralist disguised as a showman, which is better than a showman disguised as a friend.

Some of the boat ride is truly frightening. Sit with a small child. Do not apologize for the lesson. The lesson is that a poor boy with a grandfather can outrank a rich child with no limit.

The eight

Industry
7/10
A factory of actual craft. Charlie's family has real poverty and real work.
Household
8/10
Grandparents in one bed, a mother, a boy who brings the paycheck home.
Piety
4/10
A moral test in the shape of a tour.
Courage
8/10
He gives the candy back, alone, when he could sell it.
Republic
5/10
A factory as a little kingdom of rules.
Temperance
9/10
Each eliminated child is an appetite. Charlie's restraint is the victory.
Truth
8/10
Wonka tells them the truth about themselves. They hate him for it.
Stewardship
8/10
The factory is handed to the boy who would not steal it.

Live historicallyOne piece of candy is not worth a promise. Practice that before you need it.

Film · Walt Disney · 2018

Black Panther

A nation owes the people it hid from. A king still has to keep the nation.

Killmonger is not a twist. He is what happens when a nation saves itself and leaves a child in the other place. T'Challa's answer is not to hand him the weapons. It is to stop pretending the border was innocent, and still not to burn the country down to pay for it.

Watch the argument, not only the suit. A house can ask the same question at a smaller size: whom did we leave outside, and what will we open without giving the place away.

The eight

Industry
7/10
Wakanda's craft is the point. The metal is not a magic trick. Someone mined it and someone refused to sell it.
Household
7/10
A father, a sister, and a cousin. The wound is a child who was not brought home.
Piety
6/10
The ancestors are treated as a court he has to face, not as a costume.
Courage
8/10
He fights for the throne and then changes the policy that made the fight.
Republic
8/10
A hidden country has to decide what it owes the world without becoming an empire.
Temperance
6/10
The combat is long. It is not the lesson. The lesson is the border.
Truth
7/10
The father's choice is told, and it does not stay noble once the son is in the room.
Stewardship
8/10
The end is an open door: the knowledge will be shared, and the country will still be kept.

Live historicallyName one person this house has not made room for. Make a specific room, not a speech.