wizard of oz Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Well, I'm obviously all over this. The more I've thought about John Boorman's plans for a non-musical, CGI-animated Wizard of Oz -- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, to be more precise -- the more intriguing it has seemed. After all, it's a pretty damn good story, right? The 1939 musical is fine and all, but there's room in the world for a rendition of this story that does not involve anyone singing "Over the Rainbow" -- one that we can take a bit more seriously. Maybe one that's a little bit scary.

In that respect, this update from Ain't It Cool News is heartening. Apparently, according to their tipster, Boorman really does have a vision that's serious and that sticks to the novel -- down to the little-known fact that Tin Man is diminutive in stature. They also have some fantastic-looking concept art, with a scarecrow that looks like a scarecrow and a witch's castle that's just a wonderful, timeless image.

So now this is making a bit more sense to me: The Wizard of Oz as straightforward, classic fairy tale. I've put a couple of the images below the fold here, but you're going to have to visit Ain't It Cool News for the rest.

This was an is-it-April Fool's-Day moment for me this afternoon. First of all, I thought -- foolishly, I realize -- that we were safe from another straight-up adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. (I was open to the possibility of parodies, modernizations, rock musicals, etc.) This is a story that much of the industrialized world literally knows by heart. Can you really tell it these days to anyone but the littlest kids without some sort of wink or angle?

So needless to say I wasn't expecting the announcement that we'd be getting a full-on computer-animated Wizard of Oz in the summer of 2010. And I certainly wasn't expecting the man responsible to be John Boorman, who hasn't made a Hollywood film since the 80s. But, uh... It's coming, pitched not as a remake of the famous film, but as another adaptation of the original novel by L. Frank Baum. It won't be a musical, which might be tough to imagine for people raised on the 1939 movie, but which isn't too surprising: a musical remake would probably be painting itself into a corner.

Boorman, for the uninitiated, is the legendary director of Deliverance and Excalibur. More recently, The Tailor of Panama was excellent. He's never made an animated film, and I think he must have some sort of specific vision for this one. Otherwise it's a very strange late career move.

What appears to be a weird and wild little journey, artist Graham Rawle has illustrated a new version of The Wizard of Oz which brings to life a whole bunch of scenes and characters not featured in the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, but included in L. Frank Baum's book. Over on his website, Rawle explains: "Though many episodes are reassuringly familiar I was surprised to find L. Frank Baum's Oz richly populated with bizarre and wonderful characters not featured in the film: the Dainty China people, ornament-sized folk made from porcelain who are prone to breakages, and the Hammer Heads, armies of armless fighters with extendable necks and hard, flat heads. There are extra scenes, as well as back story, that reveal the origin of the Winged Monkeys, how the Tin Woodman came to be made of tin, and how the Emerald City only appears green because its inhabitants are made to wear green tinted spectacles."

It took Rawle two years to put together this new book, and what he did was craft miniature sets, characters, costumes -- all of it made from scratch, then altered in photoshop. I've never read the original Wizard of Oz, so hearing about these characters and seeing Rawle's freakingly cool images definitely has me wanting more. You can watch an animated trailer for the book after the jump, and check out some of Rawle's sweet imagery below. Oh, and buy the book over here or prints over here. Trippy stuff.

I don't know how I never saw these, but some old Canadian Filmmakers Festival posters are sailing through the web, and they show what spoofing should be like. Think Jaws -vs- a fisherman, the little Poltergeist girl swayed by hockey, Superman ready for winter, and Dorothy in a pair of sensible boots rather than slippers. But my favorite is above, because it would make one hell of an awesome comedic remake of The Birds. Canadian geese -- they're the real birdly foe. They take over outdoor spaces, attack you to mark their territory, and they're scarier than Hitchcock's mean feathered fiends. If only these were the sort of spoofs hitting the big screen these days.

Check them out in the gallery below, and read more about the festival over here.



[via Slashfilm]

Oz (as in The Wizard of) is just so hot right now. We already know about the Oz re-imagining in the works where DG (Dorothy) gets swept off to The Outer Zone and goes on a journey with some weird creatures. Now we're going to see another update of Oz in a feature film. Variety has reported that Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow Pictures are teaming up for a flick called Oz -- not based on that sparkly classic film, but directly from L. Frank Baum's books. Well, not directly, but a "revisionist take."

The idea comes from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, and was expanded on and pitched by Josh Olson, who adapted A History of Violence. McFarlane is also the guy behind the "Twisted Land of Oz" figurine series, featuring Dorothy barely-clothed and awkwardly bound while a creepy Munchkin snarls. Before you think of an S&M Oz, Olson has said: "I saw those toys, and Dorothy as some bondage queen isn't something I want to do." McFarlane says: "My pitch was 'How do we get people who went to Lord of the Rings to embrace this?' I want to create (an interpretation) that has a 2007 wow factor. You've still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she's much closer to the Ripley from Alien than a helpless singing girl."

While the plot is being kept under wraps so far, Olson describes it as a remake and says that while a lot of the characters are "all Baum," the plot is mostly his. It'll be interesting to see how the over-sexualized Oz eye of McFarlane and Olson's PG-plan come together. Will it be a mess, a masterpiece or something in between?

I haven't picked up an issue of Premiere Magazine in quite some time, but a friend of mine recently recommended I visit the publication's newly refurbished website. So I did. Pretty solid content across the board, I'm happy to opine -- but one particular article caught my eye, tickled my fancy, and squatted in my brain long enough to recommend it here.

Basically, a bunch of the Premiere writers were asked to come up with their picks for Most Overrated Film of All Time -- and while most of the sacred cows slaughtered here are pretty darn obvious ones, the opinions and explanations as to why each film was chosen, well, I thought they were fairly compelling. Frankly, I'm thrilled to see someone call Field of Dreams "just too on the nose," because it absolutely is.

Fully prepared for the onslaught of How Dare YE!! hate mail, the Premiere posse has wisely decided to add an equally pithy rebuttal in defense of each movie. So when someone has the audacity to impugn The Wizard of Oz, we sane people have a defender who'll say Dude, Please. I've placed the 20 titles under the jump, just to help spark discussion, but do not let that stop you from reading through the whole article. It might make you think a little differently about some of those Unquestioned Classics that everyone's afraid to admit they don't really dig. (Yep, 2001: A Space Odyssey is overrated; I said it and I'm proud.)

It used to be that movie collectibles only came to anxious audiences in special memorabilia stores. However, with the internet came eBay, and with eBay came a warehouse of collectible goodies at our fingertips. It's hard not to fall for the low-price lure that evilly reels you in and gives you a false sense of hope before ripping the dream away as people sail in with more buying power. But that's small potatoes. eBay is gearing up for a sale where I'm sure a thousand bucks will seem dirt cheap. The collection of items, which is valued at $3.1 million, contains some of the most memorable props and objects you can possibly think of. It looks more like a list of items from Planet Hollywood than a public auction.

Some of the stuff is a little newer. If you're a Star Wars fan, what would interest you? Perhaps the heads of R2D2 and C3P0? Not only are they two of the most recognizable pieces you could grab, but C3P0 would make one hell of a bookend. If you're looking for some older film pieces, you could put a bid in for the Wizard of Oz Cowardly Lion costume, or my personal favorite, James Dean's switchblade from Rebel Without a Cause. For something off-screen but just as noteworthy -- there will be the chance to bid on Elvis' wedding ring from his marriage to Priscilla.

The event will run on eBay from December 14 to 15, so you might want to start saving your pennies, or better yet, your gold pieces.

Firstshowing.net has Part One of a two-part guest post by Jason Kaleko on whether we are living in the Age of the Sequel, and if originality in Hollywood is dead as a doornail. Jason cites the AFI 100 and notes that only one film in the entire list is a sequel. True enough, but true also that a lot of them were based on existing source material -- they were not completely original ideas. Just looking at the Top Ten of that list: Casablanca was based off a play, Everybody Comes to Rick's; The Godfather was an adaptation of Mario Puzo's novel; Lawrence of Arabia was based off the writings of T.E. Lawrence, a British officer who spent time in Arabia from 1915-1918; and Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, The Graduate, Schindler's List were all book adaptations. The only truly original works in the Top Ten are Citizen Kane, On the Waterfront, and Singin' in the Rain -- which is not to say that the other films aren't good. It's certainly as much of an art form to adapt an exisiting work as it is to write from scratch.

I don't think there was really any more originality in Hollywood back in the "good old days" than there is now. Studios bought the rights to books, they hired screenwriters (or used underpaid screenwriting staff) to pen adaptations, they made the film. Perhaps it just seems more glaringly bad at the moment because of Hollywood's current love affair with comic-book adaptations and sequels of comic-book adaptations; that trend too, as all Hollywood trends must, will eventually have its end. In the meantime, there's still plenty of original film being made, even it most of it comes out of the indie world. We'll have to check back with First Showing next weeked to see what Jason has to say in Part Two; it feels like he's segueing into talking about indies.

In the meantime, though, what do you film fans and fanatics out there think? Is originality really dead in Hollywood? Or has the death of originality been greatly over-exaggerated?