#kbridge film reviews

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OKAY CAN WE TALK ABOUT RETURN TO OZ FOR A SECOND!?

So I just watched Return To Oz all the way through for the first time, and, as someone who has read almost all of the Wizard of Oz books in the series, can I just say….

What a marvelously accurate representation!?

So Return To Oz is based off the two books in the series following The Wizard of Oz, (The First One). The Marvelous Land of Oz, and Ozma Of Oz. And while it is a far cry from a shot for shot visual recreation of the books, it is a damn respectable representation as far as the parts it did adapt goes. In fact, most of the characters, tasks, and elements are ripped straight from the book, they’re just rearranged in a hodgepodge sort of way that still somehow maintains the sentiment each of them had in the book so authentically I might just give it a medal for most loyal book adaptation were it more linear!!

Pretty much all of the character designs were ripped straight from the original John R Neil illustrations like Jim Henson and Will Vinton brought them to life!! All the main characters, the wheelers, her returning to Oz with Billina by getting lost at sea and showing up on a shore with lunchbox trees and encountering a terrifying princess with an interchangeable head, facing off against the gnome king with her friends getting turned into ornaments one by one, the gnome king coming off as nice at first but then showing his true colors, Ozma, Tik Tok, even down to how jack pumpkin head came to be and the magic words to say that brings the Gump to life with the Alive Powder and getting it from a wizard! So much of it is so on point, even the celebration at the end!!

Of course, there are some striking differences between the two that I think they did either to save the run time, by technical limitations, or to consolidate aspects of the book together for simplicities sake. And you would think that might ruin it for a lover of the book, but I’m telling you this movie was MADE for people who loved the books!!!

Like holyfuck!! Return to Oz was made with so much love and time and effort and attention to detail I could cry!!! Even right down to jack Pumpkinheads outfit!!! They mixed up or left out some important aspects and context, and I have no fucking clue what the whole insane asylum thing at the beginning was supposed to be about, that is probably the most made up and out of place thing in the whole movie to be frank. …… L. Frank…. That is….. 😏 Okay I’ll shut up.

Also can we talk about the whole insane asylum electroshock therapy thing??? Like wtf guys??? I’d chalk up everybody’s childhood fears to the 80’s effects if it wasn’t for that weirdness at the beginning! Also, why does the doctor die in the fire and why is the nurse being carted off to jail?? I feel like I missed something there. Like, I got the feeling we weren’t supposed to like them because Dorothy was afraid of them, and we have hindsight bias about the effects of electroshock therapy, but like, they didn’t do anything wrong or evil or even particularly mean!! Like we know electroshock therapy can scramble your eggs now, (although a modified version has been proven safe and effective and is still used today for some specific circumstances) back then electroshock therapy was just another treatment, they genuinely were under the belief that they were helping their patients! The doctor tried to be friendly and make the experience less scary for Dorothy, and the nurse just came off as a little cold and not good with kids, and sort of firmly told her to lie down on the gurney, but she was never in anyway cruel to anybody, and even risks her life to save the two girls from the river in the thunderstorm in the beginning!!

And in the end they say the asylum burned down, and everyone was rescued except the doctor who went back in for his machines, and they just don’t explain why the nurse is being carted away!! I think it’s implied that it was for having people locked up there and we can hear their screams in the beginning, but once again, that was standard practice by then! And since everyone made it out okay, that specifically implies that both nurse and doctor did their jobs and ensured the safety of all the patients in their care! And once that had been done, the doctor went back in to try to safe this equipment he thought he was using to help so many people, and he fucking dies in there!! WTF!?!?

That aside, I can’t gush enough about the effects, Will Vinton is a god of his craft, and just how unbelievably smooth and creative and expressive the stone gnomes are is just eye candy, and same to Jim Henson with how he brought all the other characters to life so accurately!!!

Also, fun fact, “Princess Mombi”, from Return to Oz, is actually a mashup of two different characters from the books, The Old Witch Mombi, a recurring antagonist who debuted in book 2, The Marvelous Land of Oz, who for years imprisoned Princess Ozma as her indentured ward, except Mombi turned her into a boy named Tippertarius, Or Tipp, for short. And in the fucking end of that book?? THERES A GODDAMN TRANSGENDER MAGICAL GIRL TRANSFORMATION!!! This book was published in 1904 mind you!! No wonder why this series was claimed by the gays so fast. (Unrelated note, The Scarecrow X Tin Woodsman OTP forever, they’re so wholesome,) And by the way, this was the bit where Jack Pumpkinhead comes from. Ever wonder why he keeps calling Dorothy “Mom”?? Well Ozma created Jack Pumpkinhead while she was Tipp to scare Mombi, and then Mombi used the magic alive powder on Jack to use him as a handyman so she could turn TIpp to stone for all the trouble. Tipp turns into Ozma at the end of the book, and I believe Jack refers to Tipp as his father, and so when Tipp turns into Ozma I suppose she then became his Mother. And Ozma and Dorothy are tighter than a pickle jar and Ozma dubs her an honorary Princess of Oz, and are supper affectionate toward one another, giving off some major lesbian vibes, so in that case, as two in love co-rulers, I think they’re trying to say Jack Pumpkinhead has two moms and I’m super here for it.

So if Mombi is a witch, then what’s with the princess shtick with all the heads about?? Well that’s where the book “Ozma of Oz” comes in, which ironically is more Dorothy centric. So Dorothy gets lost at sea while sailing on a ship to Australia for a vacation with Uncle Henry, when she’s looking in the ship chicken coop on the deck, she finds a chicken named bill, they get swept out to sea in a storm, and wash up on the shore of, Not Oz! But the Country of Ev!! They dust themselves off, Bill the chicken corrects Dorothy’s pronouns and renames herself Billina, and they see big letters written in the sand saying “BEWARE THE WHEELERS” And lemme tell you, the movie was spot on with them fuckers. The designs, and the fact they talk big but are generally benign and try to scare people away from the lunchbox trees so they can have them all to themselves. BTW the lunchbox trees are also in the book and I wanna eat them so friggin bad!!!

Princess Mombi/ Princess Langwidere /

Witch Mombi

Anyway! The Country of Ev has a Princess, Princess Lanwidere, who has over 50 interchangeable heads she came across much like Princess Mombi from the movie! Also kept in glass cases, and she also expresses the desire to lock Dorothy away so she can take her head when she’s older. (Side note, Langwidere is the Niece of the Late tragic Kine Evoldo who has a really tragic story and demise of walking into the sea to drown himself!) Princess Langwidere is also narcissistic and not a very good ruler, but aside from her one run in with Dorothy she’s generally a one off antagonist in the story. But her whole deal is so interesting and memorable I see why they chose to combine both the characters together to make a really memorable knock your socks off villainess!

And lastly the Nome King, while still being made of stone with pebbles for the beard, he’s described as looking like a very jovial short Santa Claus, (L Frank Baum REALLY loved Santa Claus, and references him often in the Oz series, and even writes the life and adventures of Santa Claus) And he has a magical emerald belt. There were no ruby slippers in the books, only silver shoes, which magically disappeared when she wished herself home in the last book, but they were lost forever and never recovered.

They also got Ozma’s magical mirror correct, and she looks into it at a certain time every single day to see if Dorothy ever wants to return to oz and she will make it so.

This was such a tender an loving adaptation I demand it be given more love and more credit for all time!!

I! HAVE! SPOKEN!!!

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THE HOUSE (2022)

Did anybody else notice that after Raymond had the first meeting with the architect, he came home with a huge gluttonous appetite. I think this is supposed to symbolize that he's now lost all restraint and is becoming consumed by his appetite for luxury. A desire to consume, and consume, and consume, until his hunger for wealth ends up consuming him.

The fire he obsessed over symbolized the hunger for more. And slowly Raymond fed that fire, peice by peice, everything he used to be, every scrap of his old life, every bit of individuality he had until he became just another polished immaculate object in a big empty house. He became a very nice chair, sure, and perfect to be sat upon when his relatives come to visit. But when they leave, he's just a chair, in a big empty house. Until he too, might one day become kindling on the pyre.

And he stays like this and can never be contented because food and luxury aren't what he's missing. Its the feeling of approval from his relatives that he's actually craving. And the only way he could have ever been sated would be for him to realize that he has the approval of his wife and daughters, and that's all he's ever needed.

But sadly he realized this far too late.

Becoming just another chair, in a big empty house.

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Raya And The Unearned Character Growth!!!!

I just watched Disney’s “Raya And The Last Dragon,” and I was shocked at how bad it was! Just a real flop! And I’d been waiting for this to come out and I was really excited to see it! But somehow just none of it landed for me. And there are some glaring plot holes and down right terrible, if not dangerous messaging!! The thing they messed up the worst has to be all the unearned character growth! Which is saying something because I was desperately searching to find some kind of redeeming quality in the writing and it just wasn’t there my guys. I don’t really post film reviews on here but I just have a lot to say about it so here I go.

The whole thing feels so rushed somehow, we never really get a moment to find something endearing about most of the characters, even Raya comes off as somehow bland and generic as far as Disney princesses go. The only character I really liked and had time to enjoy was Sisu, and she cuts out 20 minutes to the end of this 1 hour and 30 minute movie.

The largest problem is that, the whole movie’s moral theme is about trust, and learning how to trust again, and how everyone is terrible and selfish and only out to think of themselves, and are willing to hurt anyone to just make sure that they and their village stay safe. BUT WE NEVER SEE ANYBODY DO ANYTHING WORTHY OF TRUSTING THEM AGAIN!!! At the beginning the dad is all like, “Let’s invite everyone to a banquet and unite the people!” And everyone comes, and Raya befriends the princess of the Fang tribe, and so she shows her the special magic dragon gem everyone wants and then fang princess backstabs her, tries to steal it, causes chaos where all the tribes try to steal the gem, break it, and unleash evil spirits that turn people to stone! And Rayas dad gets turned to stone!

Sp flash forward, Raya is an adult and finds the last dragon Sisu to help her bring her dad back, and they go on this adventure collecting a colorful cast of members of each tribe trying to get all the gem pieces back together. One is an orphan boy with a boat, one is a big tough scary old warrior man, and one is A LITERAL ACTUAL NONVERBAL BABY INFANT RAISED BY MONKEYS THAT APPARENTLY SWINDLES PEOPLE??? And the whole time Sisu keeps saying “you just need to give people a gift and blindly trust them again!!!” And then they do that in every village and to the Fang princess, and EVERY TIME THEY JUST CONTINUE TO BE TERRIBLE AND TRY TO GET THE GEM PEICES FOR THEMSELVES!!!

And then the big finale was that Raya just has to blindly trust fang princess girl again and everything will magically be fixed!! AND IT JUST DOES!!!

And apparently the fang village leader, princesses mom, might have had some evil side plot to just take the gem peices and sisu that had nothing to do with the princess, but then later fang princess just showed up to take sisu and the gem peices which just makes no narrative sense, in fact, it literally contradicts everything the mom had just said!

And it’s this way throughout the entire film! At no point do we see what these people we are supposed to trust care about, or see them vulnerable, or why they’re terrible, we’re just supposed to blindly trust people with a history of being terrible and backstabbing and untrustworthy, and keep coming back with gifts and offering trust again without any effort on their part, with no growth or admitting guilt, or accepting blame, or any consequences whatsoever for being cruel and terrible!! We are just supposed to literally trust them again and again!!!

It just feels so incredibly rushed, and it feels like its just trying to quickly hit all of the story beats without actually processing what’s going on, why we should trust them, what has even changed, its just all supposed to be hunky dory due to dragon magic I guess, and suddenly all of the thieving selfish backstabbing people are just forgiven and united.

But despite all its plot holes, nonsensical narrative, and unearned story beats, the message is downright dangerous!! It’s telling young children, just trust people indiscriminately without them earning it. And if they hurt you?? Give ‘em a gift and trust them again!! And just keep trusting them and give them an opportunity to hurt you again and again and just keep trying and maybe one day they’ll just stop! You don’t have to make them earn it, or to actually realize the folly of their ways and grow and change, just trust them again! And if you are suspicious after them betraying you so many times, it’s equally your fault that it doesn’t work out between you! And you’re wrong for being suspicious of them!!

It’s like this story about trust was written by someone that doesn’t know how trust works or what it means. Super rushed, super reckless, pretty frustrating!! I will say the imagery was fantastic, it was beautifully made, and I wanted to learn more about these cultures and the dragons, but I was too distracted by the horrible writing to really appreciate them and that was sad! I was really looking forward to it, and it looked like it had the bones of a good movie, but it just got lost in just not caring.

I’m sorry Sisu, but Raya! I give you no stars!!!!