What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
The Wizard of Oz is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#6)
100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#43)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains (the Wicked Witch of the West is the #4 villain)
100 Greatest Film Songs (#1 - "Over the Rainbow;" #82 - "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead")
100 Movie Quotes: (3 total)
(#4 - Dorothy: "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore;" #23 - Dorothy: "There's no place like home;" #99 - The Wicked Witch of the West: "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!")
25 Greatest Movie Musicals (#3)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#26)
The Revised Top 100 (#10)
10 Top 10's (#1 Fantasy)
I have seen the Wizard of Oz 90 bajillion times. I own it. I watched it during its annual showing on network TV all throughout my childhood. Then, the advent of the VCR made it uber-available, and I watched it more and more often. Then, my younger sister decided she was going to be obsessed with it, and the thing played daily in my house for at least a solid two years. I got so I could singlehandedly perform the entire movie for her and my youngest brother when I was babysitting them. It was very amusing, I'm sure.
In this revisit, I refuse to summarize plot or justify why this film made so many lists. Frankly, if you've never seen Oz, I hope it's because you are living in a cave miles from civilization, or you are just too young to watch things. If you don't like Oz, you must have a heart made of stone, or a heart the size of the Grinch's. This movie has withstood almost seven decades. People still love it. New generations find it and love it. It's an unquestionable masterpiece that belongs on all of those lists and then some. It was a cinematic and technological marvel of the golden year of cinema, 1939. It still has an annual showing on cable around the holidays. They have made countless revisions, including The Wiz. Pink Floyd may or may not have timed their landmark Dark Side of the Moon album to the movie. The tornado is still one of the scariest and most convincing special effects I've ever seen in movies. The art direction and costumes were brilliant, made to complement the stunning color of the cinematography once Dorothy arrives in Oz. It still enjoys millions of dollars in mass marketing. For example, one of the little girls who was in the Grand Rapids Civic Theater's Sound of Music this past holiday season was Dorothy for Halloween. She's 6 years old.
The timelessness of this movie, the fact that it appeals to the imaginations of young and old, the fact that its simplest messages are the most universal, and the fact that visually, it is still one of the most breathtaking and believable films in existence (except the birds in the haunted forest, but no film is perfect) makes the Wizard of Oz a true classic, a true masterpiece, a true and qualified entry on the AFI's lists. It is one of my most favorite movies by default because I've never known a life without it, and it's figured very definitively in my background and history. In fact, I don't think I should have to say anymore. If you haven't <gasp> seen this film, hie thee unto a video store or video outlet and just consent to watch it once, kay? You won't be disappointed, and your inner child will thank you for it. The end.