Johnny Simmons

I’m generally cagey about my birthday. I’m not wary of revealing my age, I just don’t like birthdays generally and mine specifically. I’ll agree with Ron Swanson and say that birthdays were a conspiracy created by Hallmark to sell cards. Still, I’m all for increasing productivity on the blog at the moment so I’m celebrating that impending day with a blogging marathon – 20 days of cinematic reminiscing ending on my 20th birthday. It’s really just a series of non-chronological vicissitudes from yours truly in what will just function as me at my most unhinged – which is all the time. Who knows? I might end it all with that notoriously overdue review of The English Patient. Maybe.

            

So, what for today? I was ruminating on cinematic firsts and I’m still not absolutely certain as to the veracity of the forthcoming statement but I’m generally sure that The Wizard of Oz was the first feature that I saw. As I said, I’m not 100% certain but I’ll stick with it simply because I seem to have it on a loop when it comes to childhood memories and even if it wasn’t the FIRST movie I saw I like to think of it as a perfect encapsulation of that tenuous bond between childhood fantasies and adult realities. 

I remember when I had that musical blog-a-thon last year (it seems so much more recent, though) Reuben wrote a hilarious piece on the underlying sinister nature to the film and it made me think of how important perspective.

         

When I watched it again, earlier this year, with my nephew the cynicism of it all seemed to leap off screen. Now, I don’t know if it’s because reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the East is begging me to look at it all with new eyes but Burke’s Glinda’s saccharine nature is all the more off-putting now that I reconcile her with that almost condescendingly sweet smile. It’s probably proof of age making me more jaded, but I’m also less willing to buy the logic of her plot (yes, plot) to keep Dorothy in Oz until she realises that she can leave whenever she wishes to.

          

I’m wont to keep nitpicking until we turn to Dorothy because, like my childhood counterpart, I’m still wholly enamoured with her. It’s another reason I’d buy the possibility of it being my first film, because Dorothy Gale is sort of imprinted in my memory; no, not the image of her and her shoes but the image of her first act of theft which is terribly arbitrary.

       

It’s impossibly random, but that image of Dorothy’s first theft act has stuck with me for some time. Not bad as far as cinematic firsts, I suppose.

            

        

             

       

As you should know by now, it's the seventieth anniversary of The Wizard of Oz - one of the most beloved films. I'm not sure if this was the first film I saw, but I know that Judy Garland was definitely the first woman [girl?] on TV I fell in love with. Anyhow, I felt bad that my nephew had never seen it. He likes music, he likes animals and he loves color. So, since I'm usually the one that gives him movies [he's five] and he has watched some stuff that was definitely not meant for a five year old [Sweeney Todd, Chicago, bits of Howards End, Big Fish etc]...he's a good sport but I really don't think it's appropriate cinema... but I digress. Today I went to the DVD store...well the one closest to me to get a copy of The Wizard of Oz. A young girl [she's probably about 18] asked me to repeat. Thinking "WTF" to myself, I did. She did some typing into her system and then asked me if I meant, The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. You know that cringe inducing crap with that wannabe singer Ashanti.

"No!" I said, annoyed. "The movie Wizard of Oz, the musical, with Judy Garland, from the 30s."
She frowned, then said "Sorry, we don't have that."


Don't think I'm making this up because I ain't. I wish I was. I'll just go downtown and get it somewhere else tomorrow. But I think that girl has to mentally ill. How can anyone not know about this movie? Tsk. Tsk.

Anyhow...check out these posts.
Movies Kick Ass Blog takes a look at the reception to the film in 1939
Movie Mania wishes it happy birthday [and I must say straight men love Judy Garland just as much]
In Contention gives ten Top Ten Lists it should be on
Film Experiene takes a look at that one iconic song