The Wizard of Oz

I am terrified of the Wizard of Oz (the old movie) to a point of it being a near-phobia. I don't know why, but I find the movie terrifying and ahve never been able to watch it. I have a vague memory of watching it and freaking out when I was about 4 years old, and I've tried to watch it several times since then, but the wicked witch scares me! As someone who watches horror movies for their comedic value I find being scared of a movie very strange (for anyone who hasn't discovered the joys of bad horror movies, I would suggest a movie night with Fragile, the Cave and The Descent. You'll laugh until you get a stomach-ache!).

So anyway I went through to see Joey and Lara last night for our standard after-work (for them) coffee. It's a tradition I really miss since I don't work more than about once a month for them and when I do it's usually to help one of them out, which defeats the purpose of them coming to visit for coffee. We've started a new tradition of me always going to visit on a Sunday night, and when I go away ti's often teh thing that I miss the most! Back to the point: I saw that we had a new mini-series called the Tin Man. I borrowed it, not quite clicking that it was an adaptation of the Wizard of Oz and took it home with me. And it was very cool!

I only realised about an hour into it that it was actually using most of the original characters, and a lot of strange references to the original movie which I didn't pick up on becuase I could never watch more than 20 minutes of the original (I got the "Lions Tigers and Bears, Oh my!" one but that was about it). And it was really cool! I totally enjoyed it, and just need to watch the third part tonight to finish off. I have no idea if the plot follows the original or not, but I'm pretty sure thay've changed a lot of things, but the most important change for me was that the wicked witch is no longer wearing stripy tights, which was an image in my nightmares for years when I was small! And so now she doesn't scare me!

So maybe I will give the original movie a try one day. But if I ever have children they will be banned from seeing it until they're at least teenagers. It's a scary movie for children!