Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Happy New Year everyone!

Recently NBC aired their live broadcast of the Wiz.  It got me thinking about how many versions of the Wizard and Dorothy's story are out there.  It also made me long to see the original version.  I will admit, with the holidays and all, I've been a bit of a short attention span viewer so I was worried that I wasn't going to make it through the whole film without picking up my iPad or pausing it to do something else.

Well, I couldn't have been more wrong.  There are some films out there which absolutely suck you in and make you feel like a kid again.  All the wonder and amazement are still there for me when I watch that film.

So here's to 2016, my friends.  May it be a year filled with wonder and amazement.

The Wizard of Oz - released in 1939

I'm not really going to revue this film.  If you haven't seen it (which would shock me), I strongly urge that you do.  It's really wonderful and completely holds up to the test of time as long as you remember it was made in 1939 (some of the dialog is a bit dated).  I really watched this more so I could have some context for revue-ing the films below.

I've read so much about the lore of this film over the years.  I went on a mission to find some things I didn't know (and relay some of the more interesting ones that I did).

First, let's just mention that EVERYONE who wore some kind of makeup or extreme costume had major issues.  On the "not so serious" side, Ray Bolger (Scarecrow) had creases in his face from the prosthetics that were so deep they supposedly took a year to go away entirely.  And poor Bert Lahr's (Lion) costume weighed ONE HUNDRED pounds.  Apparently he sweat like a total pig because the lights for early Technicolor were so bright and hot that often the temps rose to 100 degrees.  Bad combo.  On the "serious" side, Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch) suffered burns on her face when her makeup caught fire after one of the explosions (her makeup was also made of copper so she couldn't eat anything when she had it on because it was toxic. Yum!). Jack Haley (Tinman) got a severe eye infection from his silver makeup and Buddy Epson (Beverly Hillbillies) was originally cast as the Tinman but suffered a severe allergy to the makeup and had to leave the film.  Where was Maybelline when you needed it??

This film was directed by Victor Fleming, who also directed Gone With the Wind.  They released THE SAME YEAR.  WTF??  Fleming was brought on both films as someone who would "save them".  He was a highly respected director, yet seemed to consistently be overlooked by many critics.  This may have been because of the rumors that he was "pro-Nazi" and he was also a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (think black listing in Hollywood, McCarthyism, etc). Not great for the image.

Either way, he was brought on to fix the issues with both these films and ended up with two of the most iconic, quoted films of all time. 

The other thing I want to talk about for a moment is the editor of The Wizard of Oz.  HER name is Blanche Sewell.  Back in the day, many of the "film cutters" were women.  Often they only had high school educations (like Blanche...she got her job 3 years out of high school).  They were also (and not surprisingly) unsung.  Often they were truly just technicians, for lack of a better word.  The directors were really making all the choices.  But many of them became true artists, understanding the rhythms needed for film editing as well as knowing what would resonate with an audience.  I was pleased to discover that Blanche was the first editor at MGM to edit a "talkie".  So, so cool.  

Finally, I'd like to do a little shout out to Toto and the Munchkins.  I LOVED Toto when I was little.  Apparently so did Judy Garland, who wanted to buy the dog after the movie (Toto was actually a female named Terry).  Terry's owners said no.  Considering how Judy turned out, maybe it's for the best.  In my opinion, Toto was also the hardest working character in the film.  I think little Terry should have had an Oscar nomination.  Toto gets ALL the jobs done. 

The Munchkins are credited as a group...at the beginning as "the Munchkins" and at the end as "The Singer Midgets" (their manager was named Singer...trust me, at first I was like "they are called WHAT??").  Seriously?  Many of them were also foreign so much of the voice work was dubbed over.  I was wondering about that when I watched it.  Because honestly the Lollipop Guild sounds like they wear their pants a little too tight.  And is it bad that I continually thought "CALL ME ELF ONE MORE TIME!" during that whole scene?  Cuz I did.

(My drink pairing for this film is a Hurricane (call it a Tornado!))

The Wiz Live - aired December 2015

The first thing to know about me is I've never been a fan of The Wiz.  I don't feel any connection to the music (with the exception of Ease on Down the Road, cuz that's a fun song) and Diana Ross was frankly too old to play Dorothy back in the day.   

Additionally I've watched all of NBC's experiments - I mean live broadcasts of musicals - and I've been severely underwhelmed.  The first one was  Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood and Vampire Bill from True Blood.  Everyone looked a bit horrified to even be in it and Carrie slid or tripped or something when she was high on a hill, like a lonely goat.  Yodel-ay-hee-hoo. The second year they put on Peter Pan with Allison Williams as Peter and Christopher Walken as Captain Hook.  Walken could not have looked weirder in his makeup and costume and there was all sorts of strange, homoerotic dancing.  Plus, Allison Williams just wasn't that good.  Both of these had a high mockability quotient.  So I had really high hopes for The Wiz.

In the end, it was pretty meh. In general, the performances were solid enough to not be able to fully mock them.  Shoot.   The girl who plays Dorothy seemed to have a good voice, but was drowned out in the audio mix.  The guy who played the Scarecrow was a good dancer and had a sweet, melancholy expression on his face, but he was no Ray Bolger (that man really danced like he was made of straw) or Michael Jackson, for that matter.  I thought MJ was a bit...fey, I guess...to be Scarecrow but there is no denying the dude could dance.  Ne-Yo as the Tinman was probably my favorite, he was the most heartfelt, but again, doesn't hold a candle to Jack Haley.  And David Allen Grier as the Lion was again just meh.  And that's SUCH a great role!  I don't even think he did one "grrrrff!"  Even Queen Latifah, who I think is awesome, didn't really do it for me.

I think what I always miss in any production of The Wiz is the heart that is in The Wizard of Oz.  By the end you really believe that Dorothy is going to miss the Scarecrow most of all.  You know that she just loves the stuffing right out of him.  I don't ever get that feeling from this show - film or play version.

I'm sure it's super hard to do a "live" show with no audience, but NBC really needs to figure out how to make these more appealing.  Or just keep them ridiculous and shitty because that's WAY more entertaining!

(My drink pairing for this show is a Cape Cod (vodka and cranberry).  Let's call it a Ruby Slipper!)

Oz The Great and Powerful - released in 2013

When I rented this film, the tagline on Amazon was "The never-before-told fantastical adventure with an all star cast!"  Well, they were right about how it's never been told before.

This film is directed by Sam Raimi, which gave me some hope at the outset.  Bruce Campbell is even in it, but his facial prosthetics are so garish that I could barely tell it was him.  Plus, he was a bit part - one of the Wicked Witch's Winkies.  But let's get the to the heart of the matter.  This movie pretty much sucked.  Apparently it was a box office success, but I have a hard time believing that.  First, it sucked.  Second, I barely remember it being in theaters.  And third?  James Franco plays Oz.  And he's really terrible.  Now, I'm not a fan of him, per se, but I'm also not a Franco hater.  I've never seen 127 Hours (can't stomach the thought of the arm!) so I'm not well informed about his acting chops.  But in this, he's wooden and smarmy and I just can't fathom AT ALL why the women fall all over him.  Ick.

The quick story is that Franco plays a magician in a traveling circus about 20 years before the Dorothy events happen.  He beds like EVERY woman in the Dust Bowl and gives them all this p.o.s. music box as a parting gift.  They also all see each other's music box (that sounds dirtier than it is), so he's not so good at the misdirect.  Anyway, he ends up in Oz by the usual means, and it's gorgeous and hyper-colorful.  He meets 3 witches, two are wicked (played by Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis) and one is good (Michelle Williams).  There is a prophecy in Oz about a Wizard coming to rid the place of evil.  Franco gets into some stupid shit with the women and has to magic himself out of trouble.

Sam Raimi does some major nods to the original, which I appreciated.  The first 20 minutes are in black and white and Franco is swept away from Kansas by a tornado. One of the women he's had a fling with turns out to be (or we're led to believe) Dorothy's future mom.  Most of the people he meets in Oz have counterparts in Kansas.  He also creates a walking army of scarecrows at one point and there are Tinkers he befriends who I assume later create the Tinman.  Mila Kunis plays the witch who eventually turns into the green one we all know.  She starts out as a sweet, innocent witch, has a fling with Franco and thinks its love.  This leads to her becoming a bitter, green hag.  Raimi, I think you could have been a bit less obvious with that storyline.  

Franco makes a couple of friends along the way.  One is a nice flying monkey dressed like a bellhop.  He's voiced by Zach Braff and he's pretty cute.  Another is a small china doll who's family was destroyed by the original Wicked Witch (Rachel Weisz).  I know this is going to shock ALL of you, but I think she's my favorite character in the whole film.  She's charming and she's beautifully animated.  I know.  It's like Backward Day.

But maybe my favorite thing in the film (and I even saw that the Hollywood Reporter review mentioned it) is that even though Weisz and Kunis play sisters, they have different accents.  Weisz is British and Kunis couldn't be more American.  This really fucks with my suspension of disbelief.  Well, really it all does.

(My drink pairing for this film is a Dark and Stormy. Let's call this one Transportation.  And have a few, because you really don't want to watch this sober.)

My takeaways:

#1 - Why have I never named a cat Toto??

#2 - James Franco was the third choice to play Oz (Robert Downey Jr and Johnny Depp both turned it down).  This does not surprise me.

#3 - I think what I learned most of all is to find a classic movie you really don't have to look further than your own backyard.

xoxo...hashtagSueslife