Dat wunnerful wunnerful wiz . . .

I know a lot of folks who put The Wizard of Oz up around number one on their list of favorite films.

For this one I must be the dissenting view. Let me tell you why.

For some reason back then (and even now, to a certain extent), film-makers seemed to think that if they were making a children's flick they needed to burden it with production numbers. In reality this always was a problem, for me--just as soon as the action finally got started it would grind to a screeching halt for five or six hours while everyone sang and danced to some idiotic or boring song. Then, the plot would have to overcome that inertia to finally start moving again, only to screech to a halt yet again while we have *another* couple of hours of singing and dancing. Boys--at least boys *I* knew, back then--hate singing and dancing. It's not just something we say. We mean it. Because it's boring. We were much more interested in the flying monkeys (which were scary and kinda cool) than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Trust me.

Not to say I personally object to *all* musicals. I really dig Les Miserable and Rent. You'll notice, though, that those are *through-composed* musicals. In other words, they are musicals from beginning to end. Not ten or fifteen minutes of action, then four hours of singing and dancing, followed by a couple minutes of action, followed by sixteen hours of singing and dancing . . .

But the worst sin of all, and this is something that Hollywood still hasn't figured out because they keep doing it--it was all a dream! None of it really happened! Sheesh! Go back and read Aristotle, people--he'll tell you that this is dramatically unsatisfying. When I was six years old and saw this thing for the first time I wanted to throw something at the TV when I found that out. I felt like the last seventeen or eighteen hours of my life had just been wasted! If nothing that occured on the screen was real to the people in the film it *certainly* wasn't real to me!

If you dig it, good, I'm happy for you. But, man! There are many more films that are much more satisfying. Some of them even have songs . . .