Saturday Night at the Movies! 5/7/11

Who cares what picture we see?




Ralph Bakshi certainly would, so we'll just pick this little epic:



    I first saw Wizards thanks to my brother Blake - yes, Blake Edwards, and no, not that one - anyhoo, Blake, who'd seen it in the theater in 1977, no doubt. He took me to a revival theater showing it in St. Louis Missouri where he was attending college during a visit, probably around 1980 or theareabouts - and I was wowed. I then saw the movie several more times on Showtime when it aired later that year or the next. Then a few years after that it came out on VHS, and I rented it to show my movie pal Brad, and we didn't have a good time at all with it, so I marked it as one of those "liked it long ago; doesn't hold up" flicks and went on with my life.

    Then, decades later, in a fit of nostalgia, I picked up the DVD because it was in the sale bin and was a loaded special edition. I watched it again a year or so ago, and found myself enchanted with it again...isn't that strange? But I look on it now as a wonderful post-60's hippy lightshow great-drugs-were-ingested-in-the-making-of-it time capsule of the late 70's. Interesting story - 20th Century Fox were very much behind this little flick, pushing it as a major release in the early spring of 1977. But, they also had, right around the same time, this other little sci-fi flick they had never been behind and which they fully expected to tank...let's see...it was called...oh, that's right. STAR WARS. And when GL's space opera went through the roof, RB's animated fantasy got yanked off the screens it had been playing on for a while to give Star Wars a wider playing field. As a result, Wizards kind of tanked (it might have anyway - it's a little out there for Mr. and Mrs. Middle Aged Suburbia, admittedly) and Bakshi was left out in the cold.

    But that special edition DVD sits ready to give Mr. Bakshi some love anytime, like even tonight if you care to come by...

And til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!