Disney
I can’t smoke pot at home anymore because I fear hallucinations about magical lands. So I do it at the movies! This week: Oz The Great And Powerful, featuring Sam Raimi journeying to a very strange place indeed.
Ask any stoner and they’ll tell you: Pink Floyd or not, Wizard of Oz movies are awesome to get high to. The first one is a candy-colored fantasia with just enough super-creepy stuff to put an edge on your trip. The second one (1985′s Return To Oz) is darker and creepier but just as fun. And I’m happy to report that Oz The Great And Powerful carries on that proud tradition.
This is basically a prequel that tells how the Wizard became the man behind the curtain and exactly why the Wicked Witches are so pissed-off (well, aside from Dorothy crushing one of them like a creepy fetish video). The Wiz is a low-rent magician from Kansas (in black & white, as it should be) who gets swept away by a twister and deposited in Oz, where the locals think he’s a fabled mage sent to save them from tyranny. Unfortunately for him, a trio of witches aren’t buying it.
Okay straight up one of the best moments in the flick comes right at the beginning when he gets to Oz. Not only does the black & white get replaced by color but the actual shape of the movie changes so the picture gets bigger and that really freaked me out for a second because I didn’t know if it was going to stop. Really cool effect, and then when you throw in the 3D it was even more intense.
I mostly don’t like 3D movies but the 3D in Oz is cool because it’s really overt and cartoonish in the old-school “let’s just make stuff jump out at the audience” way. I appreciate it.
Also Mila Kunis is super good in this. I’m not going to spoil her character for you but she really owns it hard. If you like Zach Braff he’s a flying monkey. The effects are all CGI but why even complain about that stuff now? It’s just how we do it.
Get high this weekend and see this movie. You’ll be glad you did. Now we just need to find an awesome prog-rock album that it synchronizes perfectly with.
Disclaimer: I fixed all the typos and grammar errors but left everything else in.