Follow The Yellow Brick Road

Went and saw Wicked last night at the Pantages Theater. My favorite song from the musical is Wishing Only Wounds the Heart. Spoke to me somehow... But, no boy talk today! The talent was amazing. The stage design, WOW! I guess this musical is a prequel to some movie called The Wizard of Oz? You laugh, but I've actually only seen the movie once and it was about a year ago.

Some other classic movies *gasp* that I've never seen: Cinderella, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Bambi, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the list is infinite. I do love and own Sound of Music though!

So about a year ago, one of my Gays, who works for a movie studio, asked if I wanted to go see The Wizard of Oz. Apparently this movie is so popular, they spent millions of dollar coming up with some new technology to restore, re-restore, and/or re-re-restore it again. It was so exciting, they had a red carpet event in Hollywood where C and D-list celebrities showed up for the unveiling. Whatever, it's a free screening. And when you say FREE, I say WHERE?!?!

That night, GayPal and I drove looking for the theater and as we get closer to it, the place, literally, is lit up like daytime. I'm under dressed. There's paparazzi shouting names. No one exciting, at least not to me. I guess the actress that plays the Mother in Malcolm in the Middle was the big star for the night. We parked across the street and walked toward the lights.

Ok, now you'd think they'd have a separate entrance route for pond scum like us, but nope, everyone's a star that night! I loathe bright-light attention, especially feeling under dressed with 10-hour-old make up on, but I had to suck it up. It was the only way to enter the theater. GayPal loved the pseudo celebrity moment.

We waited in the overflow pool of people to get across the red carpet. Of course, certain people had to be stopped and photographed. I rubbernecked to see who they were. Hmmm... there are some midget, I mean little people, here. They're dressed in costumes and are posing with that Malcolm in the Middle lady...

Me (not so quietly): "What are the Oompa Loompas doing here?"
GayPal (with a look of horror on his face): "Ummmm, wrong movie!"
Me: "Oh. What are they then?"
GayPal (flabbergasted): "They're the Munchkins!"
Me: "Oh."

Oops, my bad...

When it came to our turn to walk across the red carpet, the paparazzi must have been confused. Is that Lucy Liu? Lisa Ling? Connie Chung (where's Maury?) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon girl? The gal from Karate Kid II? As quickly as I walked across, I kept them guessing.

We get through the entrance and I smelled food. I'm STARVED! As with any other free screening I get to go to, it's always around 7pm. With L.A. traffic, I have to pretty much leave straight from work with no meal time to spare. So as security is funneling the herd of people up a stairway to the theater, I see two people with drinks, slightly hidden behind the stairway. I make a B-line in that direction, thinking there's a cafe or food stand back there. GayPal follows. When we get back there, it was the Pre-party for all the mucky mucks! Free food and drinks galore!! All the Munchkins were there mingling. There were displays of costumes and a glass case with ruby red slipper in them. Hmmm, I guess we crashed the party since we had to squeeze through some railing to get back here? YES! I love free stuff!!

We ate and drank and ate and drank and, of course, people watched. I was so hungry, all I saw was food and ate. That's until we were ushered into the theater, where all the pond scum had already been sitting and waiting. Teeheehee... :)

Once seated, we had to endure some boring speeches from the "important" people. Son of this person had to stand up and get applause. Grandson of such and such was introduce and had to stand up and get applause. On and on. The Munchkins got to each speak and tell stories of the filming and Judy Garland. That part was actually pretty cool. Then a lengthy presentation on the Technology used for v3.0 of the movie restoration. Can we just see the movie?

So I don't know what to say about the movie. I'm sure you've all seen it. I personally don't get the fuss over it. There was a lady sitting in front of me, who literally, mouthed and quietly whispered just about every line of the movie. I swear she had tears in her eyes. People clapped during certain parts and belly-laughed during other parts. I guess it's nostalgia? To me, it was an OK movie. I can do without seeing it again. It's no Wedding Crashers or Phantom of the Opera. ;) But, I can now say I've seen it (on the big screen, no less!) and it did help in understanding what was going on with Wicked. To that, two thumbs up.