WITCHES OF OZ BD [Blu-ray]

I am a rabid Wiz of Oz fan and have been so since I was tiny. I have almost the entire library of the Oz books, both from Baum and many other later authors (quality varies with authors). This is an extremely well made movie (unexpected by me) and very enjoyable with standout visuals and special effects. I thought this was better than that Disney tripe about the Wizard; this is a bit more faithful to the original stories. There are oddities in this film, especially with much of the action taking place in NY, not Oz. They do, however revisit part of the original story, including the mashing of the evil Witch of the East by Dorothy's house; OUCH! The nasty Witch of the West wants revenge on Dorothy and also a key she has to unlock a book of magic which will give the evil green face monsterous powers. The Wizard who is still around tricks her. Dorothy is sent back to Kansas and the story goes on from there. The regulars are there, though I thought the Tin man was ridiculous; he looked like something from TRANSFORMERS. But the action is good and Fun and Evil is trumped at the end. If these paragraphs or sentences are out of line it is this crummy keybd I am typing on. Though there are a few weird things here, I give it 5 stars for production quality, cast, costumes and high production values. And no Dr Sweets or Martha. Oh yes, there are the flying Monkeys too..very neat!! This too from Amazon. I think all fantasy fans and Ozoids will enjoy this one.

I am a huge fan of anything Oz related so I may be a little biased from the start but I can also be objective in my review. After waiting more than 6 months to see this I was very pleased with the movie. I read a lot about this movie online and watched the trailer many times before I actually saw it. Going into it I knew that it was made as a tv mini-series and was not big budget Hollywood movie. I felt it was very well made and I was very entertained throughout the whole movie. It was an interesting twist and very different from Tin Man (which I loved). This movie may not be for everyone but for me it was well worth the wait! I would love to see the full length mini-series and compare the two. In the end I gave it 5 stars not because it's an Oscar worthy movie but because I felt it lived up to my expectations and because I was genuinely entertained.

loved it......excellent story...way better than that horrid well known movie "Oz the Great" with James Franco and Mila Kunis which sucked so bad! I found the last seen in this movie with the Wicked Witch of the West so touching and moving....i will always remember it....no spoilers though......while it does not have all the dazzling special effects of an large studio movie...it has something more important...a good story and good acting..give it a go!

I didn't know there had been more movies made of the Frank Baum books. Stumbled across this one looking for movies to watch with my nephew. This is an excellent movie. We loved it. The acting is a bit stilted but it's a really fun story and we enjoyed it enough to buy it so we can watch it again.

Witches is an old story with a new take. Witches stays true to the OZ books. Eliza Swenson is amazing as the witch, loved Dorothy, both very talented. Overall I was very entertained. Reminds me of the 80s movies I grew up watching. The only reason for 4 stars vs. 5 is because parts of the movie are a little choppy. Overall as a OZ fan I loved it!!! Best part is the acting!

This film is almost an exercise in how to make a bad movie, but this isn't the kind of bad movie that's enjoyable. Needlessly time-consuming, it borrows from every cliche in popular fantasy (particularly the "something we know as a story is actually another universe"). While there's some knowledge of the extensive Baum works at play, it's such an unbelievably disjointed movie. Rarely have I seen a film where literally everything was so bad. The editing, for one, would be bothersome to even audiences who don't really notice that sort of thing so much. We are constantly reminded of the plot, but these reminders change things in a convoluted way so that there's no sense of continuity. The "surprise revelations" are either so obvious that it's understandable to become impatient and angry with the film's persistent ignorance that the viewer is still in the dark regarding so many obvious attempts foreshadowing that are in no way subtle. It also makes the huge mistake of many post-LOTR fantasy films by trying to force in an epic fantasy battle...repeatedly. There is little to no understanding of tone or scene transition ever established. Money is spent on the strangest things: larger special effects that don't really contribute to any element of the story run rampant (establishing no sense of wonder) while tiny prop details, costuming, and practical effects are so uneven that it's hard to take them seriously as fantastical, realistic, or even important. I think one of the film's cardinal sins is how is loses sight of its already ill-defined and amorphous intent. You'll find a good deal of material stolen from the Tin Man mini-series, Tim Burton's awful version of Alice in Wonderland (don't ask; I don't know why), and when all is said and done--if you can make it to the end (though I don't blame you if you turn it off way before then)--you'll see that a huge portion of the film poorly steals from the wonderful 2007 film Stardust. I don't know which is worse: "re-envisioning" The Wizard of Oz in such a cheap way or blatantly lifting so much from a great movie like Stardust (which the writer and director watched in a very poor way so as to forget that the 2007 film from which they so shameless steal from had logical plot structure). I can't really overstate the great Stardust theft at work in this clunky film: the score, "composed" by one of the lead actresses/writers/director's bff is just the shameless changing of a few notes and key signatures from Stardust's breathtaking original music. Speaking of the actors... Don't be fooled because the film features Lance Henriksen, Christopher Lloyd, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Jeffrey Combs, and Mia Sara. Literally all of their parts are poorly written, easily forgotten, and re-appear for convenience rather than being integral. Boyd and Sara are the only actors of that pretty good list of actors who have notable degrees of screen time. The focus is unfortunately placed on Paulie Reddings's absolutely atrocious Dorothy, a character whom I dare you to try and connect with, and Eliza Swenson's very odd (and not at all endearing) performance as Billy Westbrook (I won't "spoil" that surprise, but guess what Wizard of Oz character she is?). Billy Boyd is shoe-horned in as a love-interest for Dorothy. Sara is wasted as an nonthreatening antagonist drawn from the Baum books named Princess Langwidere. While they actually do appropriately assign the character with the right name from the books, she essentially occupies the place of a substitute Wicked Witch of the East and is an obvious cash-in on the disturbing Mombi character from Return to Oz. Though Langwidere is actually the name of the princess who steals heads, her inclusion is without a doubt a poor attempt to recapture the legitimate horror of the aforementioned headless princess plot from the effectively disturbing 1985 film. There's very little homage to the 1939 film that isn't trite or forced. The acting is just so terrible, almost as though there was a rule set to avoid believably appropriate reactions to situations. The rendition of Glinda is godawful both visually and acted. It's a digressive film to say the least, boiling over with so many flashbacks and dream sequences that the " secret truth of the plot" is consistently obscured. I'm finding it hard to think of a movie that has so desperately--at times often aggressively towards its viewers--tries to force chemistry between actors like it does with Reddings and Swenson. The film's sense of time is terrible for both the story content and the actual pacing, and one of the desperate attempts to trick viewers into believing that relationships have developed while avoiding showing any of this supposed development are small bits of dialog like "Well, it's been four weeks." Out of these little "reminders," the film with some degree of hostility quietly screams at its audience "LOOK, THESE RELATIONSHIPS HAVE FLOURISHED! TRUST ME!" There's just so much incongruity that it begs the question how a film/series was ever green-lit. It's release has also been terribly confusing, being sold as both a movie and a mini-series (failing in both forms). I think that last little insight is telling of the film as a whole: the creators want it to be everything and don't believe in making any creative decisions.

I'm a huge ass fan, so I tend to like anything that's made about the Oz stories. I don't really think there's any bad Oz stories, if anyone's read the original books written by L frank baum, they'll see that it's actually very childish and a little boring, so anything that anybody can add to it I guess or make the stories more fun and exciting, I'm all for it. And apparently so was he. So I love all the different perspectives that people come up with. I know a lot of Oz movies and shows have been poo pooed by people who are die hard and GM 1938 movie fans, but that is not exclusive. I like them all. I like Wicked the book and on Broadway, Oz the Great and Powerful from Disney, Return to Oz from Disney, the animated specials, you name it they're all fun. And this is no exception. If you like Oz, you're going to like this.

This is a very well made film. Fantastic cast and good writing. Both funny and true to the Land of OZ.

Spielt fast vollständig außerhalb Oz. Gute Schauspieler auch in Nebenrollen. Insgesamt aber etwas langatmig. Deshalb nur 4 Sterne

Loved the other Oz films so I just had to buy this one to add to my extensive film collection.

Great product, Great Service!

purchased as a gift for an adult daughter who raved about it so much after she got it that I decided to watch it. I found the show very different to the OZ series altogether and enjoyed the experience. I found the witches to be very entertaining and a great excape for a time.

Love the adaptation from the Wizard of Oz!!