From aweful to fantastic?

I am probably going to get booed for saying this, but I really do not like the movie Wizard Of Oz. It was melodramatic and distasteful in its design.

Last year when I bought my iPad I rediscovered The Wizard of Oz when I downloaded the book for free. For those of you who are unaware, this book is a classic about an ordinary man who keeps up a facade to protect his people from the witches. He is not a wizard, but everyone believes that he is, including his enemies. The story is charming to say the least and ingenious on many levels. I greatly admire the work.

Recently I reviewed the new Spiderman movie and one thing I forgot to mention is that I really missed James Franco's portrayal of Harry Osborn. So yesterday when I watched the trailer for next year's Disney re-imagining of Oz and saw Franco as Oz, I was pulled in. This movie looks like a classic.

So now we have two big fantasy movies on the horizon: The Hobbit Christmas 2012, and Oz the Great and Powerful March 2013.

The Amazing Spiderman -a review

The reincarnation of the popular superhero is now out in theaters and left quite an impression on me. I will begin by saying that the prior trilogy of Spiderman movies was enjoyable, but they lacked something that I think this movie doesn't. Warning: The Amazing Spider-man is quite a bit darker than the prior series, so I recommend you not bring your younger viewers. The villain is dark in a vicious way.
Relationships are portrayed in a refreshing manner, instead of the constant "I can't be with you anymore because" kind of lines. Was anyone else getting tired of Peter's attachment games with Mary Jane? The guy had very little guts.
The new Spiderman attaches himself to the viewers on an emotional level in a more realistic way, and the actors played their parts smoothly.
In some ways I found the storyline predictable as it rehashed some of the incidents we've come to know in Spidey's past. But the writers did a great job keeping the story on track with clever dialogue and snippets of original humor.
The only things that kept this from a five-star rating, for me, was some language and a bit of suggestive material. I do not recommend this for kids.
*****