The Wizard of Oz – 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition
Genre: Fantasy/Classic
Directed by: Victor Fleming
Run time: 102 minutes
Rating: G
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Witches, munchkins, flying monkeys, talking lions.

Seventy years later, it’s hard to believe that one of the world’s most beloved movies, complete with songs and sappy sentimentality, was actually one of the first live-action fantasy movies ever produced.

Would “The Wizard of Oz” even work today with the glut of such fantasy series as Harry Potter and Twilight and the infernal reliance of Hollywood to use CGI to mimic all types of fantastic situations? I like to think it would.

But back in 1939, it’s amazing to think about the risk that MGM took in creating a movie that was essentially a subversive take on an alternate reality not unlike the high-brow concepts of TV shows and movies like “Fringe” and “The Matrix.”

Even the makeup effects and low-fi technical wizardry of turning Bert Lahr and Jack Haley into a lion and a tin man, respectively, and having Margaret Hamilton fly and be crushed by a house, hold up much better than any movie as old as this one should.

Watching “The Wizard…” in gorgeous Technicolor high-definition, you can’t help but see the inspiration for some of our greatest visionary directors working today from Tim Burton to Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro to Steven Spielberg.

Director Victor Fleming and his screenwriters took great care to treat even the most fantastic creations as real from the flying monkeys to the munchkins. The mildly frightening scenes of the witch and the scary forest still resonate with a child’s fear of the unknown.

And the ultimate message, that there is no place like home, still rings true without slapping you across the face with Big Important Ideas, as Hollywood is so wont to do these days.

That there are still people who have never experienced this movie is a crime, but hopefully this deluxe rollout will have a significant hand in changing that. This is a movie made for today’s technology – widescreen, flat-panel TVs and 1080p pixel resolution combined with superior Dolby TrueHD sound.

One thing’s for sure: No one cut corners when it came to the goodies that accompany this 70th-anniversary set, which is limited to 243,000 copies only.

The collectibles alone – Limited-Edition Crystal Watch, replica 1939 Campaign Book, 52-page commemorative “Behind the Curtain of Production 1060” coffee table book and Movie Budget replica sheet – are a movie geek’s dream come true.

Combined with the 16-plus hours of bonus material, it’s almost overwhelming.

For anyone who ever followed the Yellow Brick Road, this is a fan’s ultimate destination.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Glinda the good witch or the Wicked Witch of the West, take your pick.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Wicked witches, tornadoes and flying monkeys.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – “The Life and Times of original author L. Frank Baum and early screen adaptations of the Oz books”; the early Baum-based silent film, “The Patchwork Girl of Oz” and the complete “The Magic Cloak of Oz”; documentary profile of director Victor Fleming; the television special, “The Dreamer of Oz,” starring John Ritter; footage from the 2007 Hollywood Walk of Fame salute to Munchkins; the six-hour studio chronicle “MGM: When the Lion Roars.”
Release Date – Sept. 29, 2009