Arthur Freed (1894–1973)

A witch and a lost girl fight to the death over a sparkly pair of heels.

Whenever I watch this, I try to imagine what it would be like to see it for the first time. I can never tell, but I do usually notice things that have previously been invisible-due-to-familiarity. One thing I managed to pull out of it this time around was just how good a song and performance "Over the Rainbow" is. I mean, yeah, I've always known it's great, but this time it struck me how much it probably would have show more floored me if I'd never heard it before.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: A
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: A

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.6/4 show less

This movie is a classic for a reason, although a few parts of it have not aged well, especially with Miss Gulch. She's portrayed as a villain because... she didn't want Dorothy's stupid dog to bother her? I know that it was the 1930s and it wasn't uncommon to have dogs running loose on farms and etc but Dorothy was not a very responsible owner if she let Toto bother Miss Gulch multiple times.

Like millions of others, I watched this every year growing up--and it was something I looked forward to for weeks. I've never read the Oz books--my daughter, who devours everything, wasn't impressed by them--but this film can stand alone as a singular magical moment. Actually, many magical moments, all of which are still magical 80 years later.

The Wizard of Oz has always been one of my favourite movies, as long as I can remember. But this is, I think, the first time that I've read the book. It's pretty good, really. I read it over one day, not wishing to have to spend a long time reading it. And I ended up dropping it off at a charity shop (I bought so many books last year in the UK, and really needed to reduce weight bringing them over to Japan).

Honestly, though, I think the movie is better. The book has a few more adventures, show more but they weren't missed in the movie. Sometimes it's a bit flat by comparison. show less