Today Royal Mail is celebrating one of the nation’s best-loved children’s authors, Roald Dahl, with its first stamp issue of 2012. The presentation pack of six stamps celebrate six of Dahl’s most famous books that children and adults alike came to know and love, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits and Matilda and we’ve been given ten packs to give away to lucky HeyUGuys readers.

The stamps themselves recreate the magic of the Dahl books, using the beautiful illustrations of Quentin Blake.

For the launch, Royal Mail Stamps is also running a competition on its Facebook page, facebook.com/royalmailstamps, to win Roald Dahl’s Scrumdiddlyumptious Story Collection featuring seven of his best-loved books, a pop-up book of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a Roald Dahl presentation pack.

The stamps are also available via the link here: www.royalmail.com/roalddahl, and also on the Royal Mail eBay store: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Royal-Mail-Stamp-Collections.

For your chance to win this great prize, simply click next to be taken to a question and entry form:

Roald Dahl has long been a rich vein of source material for cinema. The live-action adaptations of The Witches and Matilda are rightly well-regarded, as are the less conventional stop-motion versions of Fantastic Mr Fox and James and the Giant Peach.

There has already been a cartoon version of the BFG, Dahl’s tale of a Big Friendly Giant who captures and then delivers dreams to people all over the world. His talk of human beans, snoz-cumbers and the like is highly endearing, but the cartoon has aged badly, despite excellent voice work from David Jason.

It is therefore with guarded optimism that the news of a planned live-action adap is welcomed. DreamWorks are to produce the new film, working from a script on which Melissa Mathison is said to be hard at work. Mathison wrote ET and The Indian in the Cupboard, so is far from green and should be able to bring an assured touch to the script.

Needless to say, with the state of the art being what it is in the realm of CGI, a wholly believable BFG (along with the assortment of delightfully named giants he lives amongst – Bloodbottler, Bonecrusher, Maidmasher, Meatdripper) should not cause anyone at ILM, Weta or Digital Domain to break a sweat and if the right director can be found we might just wind up with a version of the film worthy of the impressive source material.

Source: Collider.

When I was offered to review one of my all-time favourite movies from my youth, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I jumped at the chance. The movie has been completely remastered and is released today on Blu ray. Me and my sister must have watched this movie 100 times and never got bored of it. How can a car that flies get boring?!

Chitty Chity Bang Bangs stars Dick Van Dyke, Lionel Jeffries, Adrian Hall and Hether Ripley in a film adaption of Ian Fleming’s book. The film was adapted for the sc reen by Roald Dahl and is directed by Ken Hughes and also stars Sally Ann Howes, and James Robert Justice.

Synopsis:  Award-winning Dick Van Dyke (Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Night at the Museum) stars as eccentric widowed inventor Caractacus Potts in this magical tale set in early twentieth century England. Caractacus is poor but happy, living with his equally eccentric father Grandpa Potts (Lionel Jeffries; The Railway Children, The Amazing Mr. Blunden), and two adolescent children Jeremy (Adrian Hall) and Jemima (Heather Ripley).

Jeremy and Jemima grow fond of a wrecked racing motorcar, and successfully plead with their father to buy it before it is sold for scrap. One scheme to raise money involves the unexpected assistance of a pretty and wealthy young woman named Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes; Fools Rush In, The Admirable Crichton); the daughter of confectionary factory owner Lord Scrumptious (James Robert Justice; The story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Les Miserables). After various money-making attempts including trying to sell a whistling “Toot Sweet” to Truly’s father, Caractacus manages to afford the car, and using his inventive abilities, he transforms the piece of junk into a beautiful working machine, which the foursome aptly name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!…

This marvellous motion picture based on Ian Fleming’s novel and adapted by Roald Dahl and director Ken Hughes will take you and your family on a magical, musical journey you certainly won’t forget when Chitty Chitty Bang Bang flies onto Blu-ray on 18 October 2010.

The conversion to blu-ray is just fantastic with the picture quality superb, little graining and a wonderful colour depth. Seeing such an iconic movie brought back to life was just wonderful. If you’ve never seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang before, then this is your chance to see it in all it’s glory.

The movie is a musical with many songs in there that you’d recognise since the m0vie has been around for so long. If you’ve never seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and have children, then this movie is one they (and you) need to experience.

On the other hand if this is a movie you’ve seen 100 times, then the blu ray version is also for you. Watching them sing toot sweet in the factory with all the colours and choreography working so well together was spectacular and I’m so pleased that such an old movie could be remastered for a new generation to enjoy.

The movie is released today, 18th October and you can order your copy here.

It’s also packed full to the brim with extras which includes:

Special Features – New to Blu-ray:

• Sing-Along
• Music Machine
• Chitty Chitty’s, Bang Bang, Driving Game – new to Blu-ray
• Toot Sweet Musical Maestro – new to Blu-ray
• Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke
• A Fantasmagorical Motorcar
• Sherman Brothers’ Demos
• Vintage Featurettes:

o    The Ditching Tinkerer

o    Dick Van Dyke Press Interview

o    The Pott’s Children’s Featurette

• Photo Gallery
• Vintage Advertising Gallery
• Trailers
• 5 TV Spots

This week sees the release of Fantastic Mr. Fox in the US, an adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl children’s story. Wes Anderson directs. Best known for adult themed, quirky comedy dramas, there is a question over whether he has been able to craft a movie with his unique style of humour that also appeals to a younger audience.

Whilst past Dahl adaptations like Matilda and James and the Giant Peach have been firmly aimed at children, it has been proved that his stories can be made to appeal to both young and old. The brilliant Gene Wilder stars, as we look at 1971′s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Willy Wonka opens with Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum). The youngest member of a truly working-class family, Charlie lives with his hard-working mother, and two sets of bedridden grandparents. The definition of paupers, they all struggle to exist on little more than cabbage water, with a simple loaf of bread considered a luxury item. Big hearted Charlie works a paper route after school, to contribute what little he can towards his families meagre existence. It’s an ordinary day at school for Charlie when word comes in that Mr Willy Wonka is opening the doors of his factory for one day only. The world famous chocolatier has been a recluse for many years, since a fallout with now rival Slugworth. No-one ever goes in or out of Wonka’s factory, and it’s a mystery how he manages to produce vast volumes of wonderful chocolate.

The whole world goes Wonka mad, as literally millions of bars of chocolate are bought up, everyone hoping to find one of just five lucky golden tickets that entitles the bearer entry to a confectionary paradise. Charlie is no exception, and dares to dream that he has a chance as good as anyone’s, despite not being able to afford more than a couple of bars of Wonka’s favourites. Four lucky children find tickets, could Charlie possibly be number five?

Willy Wonka is almost a game of two halves. Charlie’s under privileged existence, and his dreams of sampling just some of the luxuries others around him take for granted, is heart wrenching. His love for his family, and particularly his Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) are touching. Charlie inevitably finds his ticket, and the scene where Grandpa Joe staggers out of bed for the first time is genuinely moving, his song ‘I’ve got a golden ticket’ beautiful, despite his lack of a good singing voice. The first thirty minutes of Willy Wonka, the story of a poor hard working young boy achieving his greatest wish, are almost Dickensian.

Then Gene Wilder turns up, and the story is turned on it’s head. What starts off as a story of childhood innocence becomes a cutting look at what is wrong with the ‘youth of today’. Gene Wilder’s song, and the beautifully realised confectionary garden replete with chocolate waterfall are awe inspiring, a children’s fantasy land brought to splendid technicolor life. But despite the brightly coloured scenery, the tale takes a decidedly dark turn. Augustus Gloop’s gluttony, Violet Beauregarde’s passion for gum are their downfall, the greedy and spoilt Veruca Salt and square eyed Mike Teevee also get their just desserts.

Firmly a product of a more innocent time, Willy Wonka is none the less still relevant for our time. Ok, so the idea of the world coming to a stand still for a glorified Cadbury’s World tour is a little out of touch. And the wonderment of seeing people with brightly coloured hair and orange faces is now a mundane experience to anyone who frequents Essex nightclubs. But the concerns over greedy, overweight ASBO teens, obnoxious, addicted to TV are more pressing now than ever. Slugworth’s attempts at industrial espionage are an everyday occurrence in corporate America and Britain. And the idea of promotional chocolate wrappers was ahead of it’s time, today products of all kinds are subject to this style of marketing.

There are some good performances here. Peter Ostrum as Charlie Bucket is almost TOO sickly sweet, and most of the children and parents are passable. But Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe is wonderfully confident and understated. And the stand out performances by Gregg Kinnear and particularly Julie Dawn Cole as father and daughter Salts far outshine the other members of the tour party. But Gene Wilder owns the screen from his first appearance to the end. Known for great adult comedy roles, it’s perhaps ironic that his greatest performance came as a character in a children’s story.

A touching children’s story with wonderfully written songs, and a darkly comic undertone make Willy Wonka an amazing movie, with much for all ages to enjoy. If Anderson’s Mr. Fox turns out half as good as this, it’ll be well worth watching.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is on general release in the UK now, and opens in the US this Friday 13th November.

Bazmann

Here’s the second full length trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox. This trailer really shows off what the film is about and I cannot wait to see it. My one criticism is that Roald Dahl (author) isn’t mentioned once in the trailer. Wes Anderson (screenwriter/ director) gets a mention but the guy behind the original concept doesn’t get a look in which has frustrated me. I then got thinking that I don’t think J.K. Rowling gets a mention in every Harry Potter trailer so maybe I’m just being picky?

The movie is to premiere on opening night at the London Film Festival and is then in cinemas on 23rd October. Check out the new trailer below (or at Apple in HD) and let us know what you think in the comments.