Thursday, November 26, 2009

November 26, 2009

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
#52 on my Top 100 List
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And also happy 70th anniversary to the Greatest Year in Hollywood History. This movie was a huge part of why 1939 was so amazing. The burst of color when Dorothy opens her front door into Oz for the first time is enough to still take my breath away, even now in the age of computers when nothing is impossible. I remember watching this when I was little and my father pointing out a mistake toward the very end, in the scene where the Wizard's hot air balloon leaves. It's a shot involving the Tin Man that wasn't supposed to make it into the final cut - see if you can find it! And finally, I would be remiss to write an entry about this movie and not mention one of it's greatest gifts to pop culture - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I'm not a huge fan of the very end (when everything's back in sepia) - I think that that particular plot device is sort of a cop-out - but it's so much a part of this iconic movie that it doesn't bother me as much as it would in anything else.
My Netflix rating: 5 stars

2 comments:

  1. was it when he untied the balloon?

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  2. Correct! The shot of the Tin Man untying the balloon wasn't actually supposed to be there.

    ReplyDelete