The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Over the Rainbow -- "Oz: the Great and Powerful"
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote ---[I was] the only child in the audience that always wondered why Dorothy ever wanted to go back to Kansas. Why would she want to go back to Kansas, in this dreary black and white farm with an aunt who dressed badly and seemed mean to me, when she could live with magic shoes, winged monkeys and gay lions? I never understood it.
--John Waters
--- End quote ---
There used to be a t-shirt out there with the inscription:
"Aunt Em,
Hate you. Hate Kansas. Took the dog.
--Dorothy"
;D
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 16, 2012, 04:21:23 pm ---There used to be a t-shirt out there with the inscription:
"Aunt Em,
Hate you. Hate Kansas. Took the dog.
--Dorothy"
;D
--- End quote ---
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
TOoP/Bruce:
Thanks Jeff and Aloysius for all the info!
(God, you have to love the pithy John Waters quote. He's like Dorothy Parker in a blue pencil moustache...)
southendmd:
Has anyone seen the film yet? ***spoilers probably***
I recently went to a matinée, just to get out of the snow.
OK, fellow friends of Dorothy. "Oz: the Great and Powerful" is neither. It's big on 3-D effects and they're sometimes pretty stunning, but unlike the flim-flam man Oz, no effects can save this film. I know it's cliché but this film is witless, heartless, and nerveless.
Sure, it's either gutsy or stupid to take on Oz. The '39 film is such a part of our culture. So.....either pay homage or do something completely different. Sam Raimi seems to want it both ways. He does the black-and-white Kansas intro (not sepia, and surprisingly dull), whilst introducing characters that later appear in Oz in another form (sound familiar?). His garish Land of Oz includes familiar and bumped-up characters (for example, the winged monkeys are now winged baboons with big teeth. Hunh? And the winged monkey--in a bell-hop suit rather than a fez--becomes the typical Disneyesque cute companion). The poor Munchkins get short-shrift (sorry). The gee-we-had-it-in-us-all-along theme is there too.
Oz (that is, Oscar Zoroaster etc etc etc Diggs--known to his buds as Oz) ain't no Professor Marvel of the earlier film. He's a callow womanizer and a little too sure of himself without anything to back it up. It doesn't make sense that the sisters Theodora and Evanora, the future evil witches of Oz fall for him and his pathetic act. Are they using him? Or, do they "need" him? Oy.
Katherine posted (on facebook) an insightful article about the anti-feminism here. Baum himself was a staunch feminist and all his heroines are, well, female, the boys hanging out in supporting roles. Why do a film focused on the boy, and I mean boy?
James Franco is out of his league here. While I like him in some roles, he is too much James Franco here, mugging all the while. (I loved him in "Howl" where he completely disappeared.)
Mila Kunis starts out promising, meeting our charlatan as he finally touches down in the balloon. She's got huge, Bette Davis eyes, and a big red hat. But again, when it's so obvious he's inept, and she's supposedly a witch, why is she so deluded by his nothingness? Her later transformation--due to his jilting????--to Margaret Hamilton on steroids again makes no sense.
I had great hopes for Rachel Weisz, however, again, no there there. Sadism on parade.
Poor Michelle Williams. At least she tries hard not to look ridiculous. Her turn in the black-and-white beginning as one of Oz's exes, now betrothed to John Gale (hunh? Is she supposed to be Dorothy's mother?) confused me. As Glinda, she is patient of Oz's shortcomings, and rises above this lousy script.
The CGI China doll had more expression than some of the live cast. (Just like the magic carpet in "Alladin" acted circles around the other animated characters.)
Bad script, bad casting.
Danny Elfman did the score. Why not add some musical numbers? He did well in "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Why not make it a real musical???
Better yet, if you got a few hundred million dollars, why not make a film of "Wicked", a real juicy story of the witches of Oz, where the Wizard is pretty secondary. As he should be.
Shakesthecoffecan:
--- Quote from: southendmd on March 10, 2013, 09:24:48 pm ---Has anyone seen the film yet? ***spoilers probably***
I recently went to a matinée, just to get out of the snow.
OK, fellow friends of Dorothy. "Oz: the Great and Powerful" is neither. It's big on 3-D effects and they're sometimes pretty stunning, but unlike the flim-flam man Oz, no effects can save this film. I know it's cliché but this film is witless, heartless, and nerveless.
Sure, it's either gutsy or stupid to take on Oz. The '39 film is such a part of our culture. So.....either pay homage or do something completely different. Sam Raimi seems to want it both ways. He does the black-and-white Kansas intro (not sepia, and surprisingly dull), whilst introducing characters that later appear in Oz in another form (sound familiar?). His garish Land of Oz includes familiar and bumped-up characters (for example, the winged monkeys are now winged baboons with big teeth. Hunh? And the winged monkey--in a bell-hop suit rather than a fez--becomes the typical Disneyesque cute companion). The poor Munchkins get short-shrift (sorry). The gee-we-had-it-in-us-all-along theme is there too.
Oz (that is, Oscar Zoroaster etc etc etc Diggs--known to his buds as Oz) ain't no Professor Marvel of the earlier film. He's a callow womanizer and a little too sure of himself without anything to back it up. It doesn't make sense that the sisters Theodora and Evanora, the future evil witches of Oz fall for him and his pathetic act. Are they using him? Or, do they "need" him? Oy.
Katherine posted (on facebook) an insightful article about the anti-feminism here. Baum himself was a staunch feminist and all his heroines are, well, female, the boys hanging out in supporting roles. Why do a film focused on the boy, and I mean boy?
James Franco is out of his league here. While I like him in some roles, he is too much James Franco here, mugging all the while. (I loved him in "Howl" where he completely disappeared.)
Mila Kunis starts out promising, meeting our charlatan as he finally touches down in the balloon. She's got huge, Bette Davis eyes, and a big red hat. But again, when it's so obvious he's inept, and she's supposedly a witch, why is she so deluded by his nothingness? Her later transformation--due to his jilting????--to Margaret Hamilton on steroids again makes no sense.
I had great hopes for Rachel Weisz, however, again, no there there. Sadism on parade.
Poor Michelle Williams. At least she tries hard not to look ridiculous. Her turn in the black-and-white beginning as one of Oz's exes, now betrothed to John Gale (hunh? Is she supposed to be Dorothy's mother?) confused me. As Glinda, she is patient of Oz's shortcomings, and rises above this lousy script.
The CGI China doll had more expression than some of the live cast. (Just like the magic carpet in "Alladin" acted circles around the other animated characters.)
Bad script, bad casting.
Danny Elfman did the score. Why not add some musical numbers? He did well in "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Why not make it a real musical???
Better yet, if you got a few hundred million dollars, why not make a film of "Wicked", a real juicy story of the witches of Oz, where the Wizard is pretty secondary. As he should be.
--- End quote ---
Yeah but it has James Franco smiling. ;D I liked it. Nice little movie.
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