Movies

The theater in our little town is quaint but they have modern equipment and a great sound system. Monday night is half-price so they get a good turn out. Best of all, they serve real fresh popcorn! I'd say the theater was about 3/4s full. It was a mixed audience, as usual for this location, with a wide age range and generous mix of generations.

No one was dressed up and no one sang, thankfully. But the score seems kind of chopped up. "Popular," "Defying Gravity" and "The Wizard And Me" were well done but the rest of the songs seemed truncated or cut up. It was kind of weird and because there's so much dialog, (the film has the same songs as Act I of the play but the film is an hour longer than Act I), it doesn't really feel like a musical. I think this was partly because major plot points are usually highlighted by songs in a musical but with so much dialog and exposition, many of the plot developments are spoken not sung. Like I wrote, weird.

Also, this is not the Oz you think you knew.

The film and its sequel/Part Two are obviously giant hits so my criticisms are just because I'm a curmudgeonly snob!