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Thursday, November 6, 2008
So they’re remaking Wizard of Oz … sorta
When I first saw “CG-animated Oz” in a movie headline I read today, my first instinct was to groan and say to myself something like “Hmf! I can cause accidents too!”
Then I read the story, and the prospect is actually sort of interesting. Yes, it’s a CG version of the Oz story, but it’s not based on the 1939 classic - this is a non-musical that supposedly sticks more closely to the book.
Even more interestingly, it’s being directed by John Boorman, who made such noteweorthy films as Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory and The Tailor of Panama.
So I don’t know … it COULD be interesting, but not even the Muppets could make a decent version out of Oz, so I’m dubious … what say you?
While we’re on the subject of Oz, I wrote a story for our GO section this weekend about my close encounter with the 1939 movie. Read that after the jump.
There’s little to write about the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” that hasn’t been written, but I had a close encounter with the movie that most people can’t claim.
And I almost missed it.
Back in 2001, I took a vacation to Hollywood, where I visited the Sony lot in Culver City. Before the mid-1980s, however, the lot belonged to MGM, once the crown jewel of movie studios. The studio liked to say it had “more stars than there are in heaven” and my eyes were filled with them as I walked around the movie factory.
I didn’t much care about the fact that the studio is now home to such movies as “Spider-Man” and the cinema of Adam Sandler. I was thinking about the legends that walked there, and I was following in their footsteps: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart — and a little lady named Judy Garland.
Sad to say, too little of that history is included in the tour. Sony owns the lot, so the tour naturally emphasizes their productions, but there is not as much mention of MGM as there ought to be.
Major case in point: My tour group was walking around one of the huge soundstages. We were looking at the set of “Family Law,” a legal drama starring Tony Danza that was on TV at the time. The tour guide was droning on and on about this show, and I thought to myself, “Yeah, yeah, so what?”
Almost as if she had read my mind, the tour guide chimed in as we were walking out of the building: “Oh, by the way: This is the stage where ‘If I Only had a Brain’ was shot.”
If I had been drinking water, I would have done a spit take right then and there. “By the way? By the way???? Umm … more about OZ, please,” I screamed to myself. I wanted to go back and just breathe the air for a little while longer . After all, “The Wizard of Oz” is only one of my 10 favorite movies of all time. It’s a classic movie that even people who don’t like old movies cherish. TV viewings of it are so ingrained in my mind, that even now, when I watch my DVD, I still expect a commercial break after the lion runs from the Wizard’s room and dives through the window.
“Oz,” along with MGM’s “Singin’ in the Rain” is a movie that can brighten my spirits even if I’ve had the most terrible day. From “Over the Rainbow” to the tornado to the lollipop guild to the Winkie guards, the movie may be the most transporting of all, if not the best.
This is my way of saying “You, and you and you, and you were there.”
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What’s opening Friday, Nov. 7?
It’s another relatively mild week for wide releases: There is one big-ticket animated attraction, and a couple of comedies of variable interest.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: The first one made a lot of money, even though it wasn’t that good, so here comes the sequel. Review posts Friday.
Role Models: The makers of Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten return with a new comedy starring Paul Rudd and the blessedly ubiquitous Elizabeth Banks. In this one, a pair of energy drink reps are forced to enroll in a Big Brother program.
Soul Men: What might have been a below the radar comedy suddenly gains interest due to the fact it’s the final film of Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes, who died within a day of each other earlier this year. Actually, this is something of a Bernie Mac weekend, since he provided a voice for the Madagascar sequel as well.
At the arthouses
The Neon opens Roman de Gare, a French thriller directed by Claude Lelouch, about a novelist (Fanny Ardant) whose famous works might have been ghost-written by a serial killer. Neon hangs on to the acclaimed Rachel Getting Married and will also play David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
The Little Art retains Reigulous and adds The Duchess, with corset queen Keira Knightley to its roster.
Hang tight, folks … next week, James Bond will return.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: In Area Theaters
