Movie Date with the Kids
Friday night Jonathan came and we went out to watch Oz (The Great and Powerful) with the kids. The kids loved it! Praise the fantasy involved in the movie and how it reminds me of why I write fantasy themed novels. A small-time magician is swept away to an enchanted land and is forced into a power struggle between three witches.
Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz. At first he thinks he’s hit the jackpot – fame and fortune is his for the taking. That all changes, however, when he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting.
Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity – and even a bit of wizardry – Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.
Written by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the movie is delightful and I am drawn once more to that land where one can be anything one wished to be. This world could sure make us of an interplanar world where one can rest from the hustle and bustle of real life. Not that I detest this life where I can be also the character in my latest book. Sometimes, there are so many things going on, that I can’t make head or tail of where I want to end up – in fantasy land or where I have three children looking up to me for moral guidance.
One can be so desperately needy that she would trade anything to have the leisure of just not being anything. A career is what everyone covets; but a career is the least I want out of life. Do you know what I want? It’s being alive and carefree. All the characters in my books were not in quest of anything when they encountered their best moments. In fact, they were escaping from such an imposed quest when they chanced upon adventure.
Thus, the movie date with the kids for Oz – the Great and Powerful – became a journey into the self. Life has fewer pleasures when you are under pressure – this is what all young adults will tell you. In fact, my daughter protested upon being asked to choose a course on her senior year in high school. I have to hand it to her – so was I that adamant to make the same choice.
Thank you Disney,
Sandra Ross
