Victor Fleming, 1939 (7*)
The GOOD news: the remastered colors will blow you away, all fans should see this new dvd version. Otherwise, everyone's favorite children's fantasy just could be the most overrated film of all time. Can you imagine this film if they made it today, with the technology used for Lord of the Rings? My problems begin with a giant-sized kid, even bigger than the witch - doncha think they had good enough child actors to have cast this movie appropriately? Judy Garland was in her 20's, this was supposed to be a little girl, maybe ten years old. Was Shirley Temple unavailable? Plus the whole thing is obviously shot on a big sound stage, and it always seemed to me that "Over the Rainbow" was just thrown into this movie, didn't fit the rest of the film's music, and seems like it should have been in Meet Me in St. Louis instead. and Buddy Ebsen was supposed to be the tin man but had a reaction to the metallic makeup and dropped out. Could't they get Donald O'Connor?

All that aside: Toto and the creepy flying monkeys were terrific, having a seemingly gay lion (Bert Lahr's only memorable role) was a stroke of genius, Margaret Hamilton was the perfect evil witch, Frank Morgan the perfect wizard, and I hope everyone got the reference to poppies putting them to sleep and snow waking them back up. This is mostly for kids, with lame humor and very slow scenes. In fact when the film came out, Harvard's awards dubbed it "the worst film of all time". Of course, that was 1939 and they didn't have many films to choose from. For kids and fans only, you know who you are!