Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Oz the Great and Powerful's cheap carnival magic
Yet another prequel
James Franco, self-proclaimed Mayor of Gay Town, sets out to become the original Friend of Dorothy.
Movie
Oz The Great and Powerful *
Insert sinking balloon joke here. James Franco mugs his way through director Sam Raimi’s candy-colored CGI wonderland as a carnival magician who finds himself called upon to rally the oppressed people of Oz to believe in him. Or at least, to believe in the power of their dreams? Anyway, belief is important. But the actor proves as insincere as his character, and it’s up to Michelle Williams as Glinda the Good Witch to keep things interesting as you follow the well-worn turns in the yellow brick road. (That she manages to do so without letting her sweetness turn saccharine is the real great and powerful thing here.) She gets dubious help from Zach Braff doing schtick as a flying monkey, and from Joey King as a spunky china girl who reminds the ersatz wizard not to be a cad. Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz play Glinda’s dark-haired sisters.
The production notes for Oz the Great and Powerful came with a heads-up: “Please note that this movie stands alone and shouldn’t be compared to any other versions of the Oz films.” I’m fine with the second part of that sentence; I’ll leave it to the Children of Today to decide whether they prefer the CGI fakery of this story to the plywood ’n’ paint fakery of The Wizard of Oz and whether they prefer the story of a flim-flam man who stumbles into the role of heroic leader over that of a girl who just wants to get home to Auntie Em.
However, the notion that Disney would spend a reported $325 million on a property that didn’t lean heavily on its connection to the most watched film in history is patently absurd. And the absurdity is only heightened by the film itself, which is littered with callbacks to the original (There’s a lion! There’s a scarecrow! There’s Glinda in a bubble! Etc. etc.) and uses its plot to bring Oz up to the point where it’s ready for Dorothy to drop in for a visit. Oh, and the transition from black-and-white Kansas to full-color Oz? Just something they happened to think up. Nothing to do with Dorothy’s story. And if you believe that, you’re a prime candidate for Oscar Diggs’s brand of cheap carnival magic.
Diggs is played by James Franco, or rather, by James Franco’s shit-eating grin. Franco is something of a flim-flam man himself — a couple of years ago, he sold a chunk of air for $10,000 under the title of Non-Visible Art — and so director Sam Raimi may have thought he could draw on the actor’s natural strengths for the part. But the role may have been too close to home: Franco seems unaware that it takes sincere commitment to perform well, even when you’re playing a guy who is neither sincere nor committed. Especially when you’re called upon to reveal the origins of your insincerity or to finally commit to something. Even if it’s something as amorphous as the Power of Belief or the Dreams of the People.
What happens is this: Diggs (everyone calls him Oz) gets caught up in a twister and dropped into Oz. There, he is mistaken by Theodora the Good (Mila Kunis) as the great wizard whose coming was foretold by a prophecy. Theodora is hot and there’s money on the table, so Oz plays along, but his callowness and greed bring dark changes to an already shadowy kingdom. Thank goodness there’s an adorable CGI winged monkey to keep Oz company with some well-worn schtick! And a spunky China Girl to put a crack in his hard little heart!
The real saving grace here, both in terms of story and performance, is Michelle Williams as the Good Witch Glinda. To maintain her level of purity and sweetness without slipping into saccharine inhumanity is as improbable a stunt as flying in a soap bubble. But she manages both and even outshines the normally dazzling Rachel Weisz, who plays her less-magnanimous sister Evanora.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Oz the Great and Powerful's cheap carnival magic
Yet another prequel
Oz the Great and Powerful's cheap carnival magic
Yet another prequel
James Franco, self-proclaimed Mayor of Gay Town, sets out to become the original Friend of Dorothy.
Movie
Oz The Great and Powerful *
Insert sinking balloon joke here. James Franco mugs his way through director Sam Raimi’s candy-colored CGI wonderland as a carnival magician who finds himself called upon to rally the oppressed people of Oz to believe in him. Or at least, to believe in the power of their dreams? Anyway, belief is important. But the actor proves as insincere as his character, and it’s up to Michelle Williams as Glinda the Good Witch to keep things interesting as you follow the well-worn turns in the yellow brick road. (That she manages to do so without letting her sweetness turn saccharine is the real great and powerful thing here.) She gets dubious help from Zach Braff doing schtick as a flying monkey, and from Joey King as a spunky china girl who reminds the ersatz wizard not to be a cad. Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz play Glinda’s dark-haired sisters.
The production notes for Oz the Great and Powerful came with a heads-up: “Please note that this movie stands alone and shouldn’t be compared to any other versions of the Oz films.” I’m fine with the second part of that sentence; I’ll leave it to the Children of Today to decide whether they prefer the CGI fakery of this story to the plywood ’n’ paint fakery of The Wizard of Oz and whether they prefer the story of a flim-flam man who stumbles into the role of heroic leader over that of a girl who just wants to get home to Auntie Em.
However, the notion that Disney would spend a reported $325 million on a property that didn’t lean heavily on its connection to the most watched film in history is patently absurd. And the absurdity is only heightened by the film itself, which is littered with callbacks to the original (There’s a lion! There’s a scarecrow! There’s Glinda in a bubble! Etc. etc.) and uses its plot to bring Oz up to the point where it’s ready for Dorothy to drop in for a visit. Oh, and the transition from black-and-white Kansas to full-color Oz? Just something they happened to think up. Nothing to do with Dorothy’s story. And if you believe that, you’re a prime candidate for Oscar Diggs’s brand of cheap carnival magic.
Diggs is played by James Franco, or rather, by James Franco’s shit-eating grin. Franco is something of a flim-flam man himself — a couple of years ago, he sold a chunk of air for $10,000 under the title of Non-Visible Art — and so director Sam Raimi may have thought he could draw on the actor’s natural strengths for the part. But the role may have been too close to home: Franco seems unaware that it takes sincere commitment to perform well, even when you’re playing a guy who is neither sincere nor committed. Especially when you’re called upon to reveal the origins of your insincerity or to finally commit to something. Even if it’s something as amorphous as the Power of Belief or the Dreams of the People.
What happens is this: Diggs (everyone calls him Oz) gets caught up in a twister and dropped into Oz. There, he is mistaken by Theodora the Good (Mila Kunis) as the great wizard whose coming was foretold by a prophecy. Theodora is hot and there’s money on the table, so Oz plays along, but his callowness and greed bring dark changes to an already shadowy kingdom. Thank goodness there’s an adorable CGI winged monkey to keep Oz company with some well-worn schtick! And a spunky China Girl to put a crack in his hard little heart!
The real saving grace here, both in terms of story and performance, is Michelle Williams as the Good Witch Glinda. To maintain her level of purity and sweetness without slipping into saccharine inhumanity is as improbable a stunt as flying in a soap bubble. But she manages both and even outshines the normally dazzling Rachel Weisz, who plays her less-magnanimous sister Evanora.
Comments