Well, looks like I can do a young Fairuza Balk film festival now: I have Worst Witch and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever committed from VHS to DVD and yesterday I bought Return to Oz with a coupon. This latter has always received mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it; will be nice to see a widescreen version, which I never have. The Oz purists complain because several books were mixed together and those expecting a sunny little musical like the 1939 film were upset as well. The shock treatment business at the beginning was more frightening than the Oz portions and must have given them real pause.

(I think the main reason people have problems with this film is that they consider it a sequel to The Wizard of Oz. It's not. It's a sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—the book!—complete to how Dorothy is actually younger in Return to Oz because the Dorothy of the books was younger.)

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:20:00 AM

Comments:

I remember when Siskel and Ebert reviewed Return To Oz. They found the scenes in the asylum(?) to be too scary for children, but as the review went on the crux of their arguments was clearly that they were both expecting a sequel to the Judy Garland movie, probably with songs. It also seemed as though they had never in their lives read the Baum books or if they had it was only The Wizard Of Oz.

# posted by  Brent McKee : 1:16:00 PM

 

Part of it may have been the way the movie was promoted: if I remember the ads they made you think this was another light and frothy Disney fantasy movie. I wouldn't be surprised if neither Siskel nor Ebert had even heard of the Oz books. Many people don't even know they exist.

# posted by  Linda : 2:25:00 PM

 

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