Brainstorming

Discuss the following questions in your group:

1) Are you fond of 3D? In your opinion, what film genres does it fit best and why?

2) Is it always to the good for a film to be converted into 3D? What 3D versions you consider to be better/worse than the originals?

3) What film would you be excitedto see as a 3D re-release?

1. Read Text 8 and fill in the gaps with the following word combinations:

the bogus embellishment, the screening, mainly in colour, spectacular, a rare treat, demonstrably worse, a first-rate 3D conversion, the clarity of the imaging, cutting-edge technology, to dim the picture, another potboiler, the artificiality of the sets

TEXT 8. ____________________________________

(by Peter Howell, published on September 20, 2013)

Normally I stand with rascal pup Toto in desiring to expose false movie magic. Just as Toto yanked the curtain in The Wizard of Oz, so have I often felt inclined to expose (1) ____________ of 3D. Very few films are improved by the process, and some are made (2) ____________, as in the instances of most 2D-to-3D conversions.

And yet I found myself last Sunday afternoon eagerly lining up to see The Wizard of Oz 3D at the Scotiabank Theatres.

There were a lot of other excited people from young children to seniors. One woman showed me the pair of ruby pumps she had brought with her to wear during (3) ____________, in honor of Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz dozens of times in my childhood when watching it on my family’s old black-and-white TV was an annual tradition. I didn’t even realize that the film was (4) ____________ until I saw it for the first time on the big screen at North York’s old Willow Theatre in 1967.

My main motivation for seeing the 3D version was curiosity. Had Warner Bros. spent the money and time needed to do (5) ____________, as James Cameron did two years ago? Or would it be (6) ____________ such as some recent 3D conversions?

I also wondered if the 21^st century (7) ____________ could possibly improve the original special effects performed by gurus of The Wizard of Oz, who managed to turn a plain nylon stocking into the terrifying twister that lifts young Dorothy Gale from Kansas to Oz.

The sepia-hued Kansas opener was sharper and brighter than I’d ever seen, and I was knocked out by (8) ____________. You see the added perspective when Dorothy is peering through the wooden boards of her Aunt Em’s farm, and also when Toto is sneaking out of the basket of the furiously cycling dog-napper Almira Gulch.

The value of 3D conversion really came through as I began to notice colors and details that I hadn’t really seen before, such as how the Wicked Witch comes and goes in an orange cloud of smoke when she makes her dramatic entries and exits. Finally, The Wizard of Oz brings more magic out!

Unfortunately, the vastly improved visuals made me much more aware of (9) ____________: the demonstrably fake flowers, the matte landscape paintings in the background. You can see the makeup on all of the cast, especially the prosthetic lion mask the great Bert Lahr wears as the Cowardly Lion. You can detect where the Yellow Brick Road actually dead-ends into a wall, yet Dorothy goes right up to it as if it runs on without end.

A couple modifications are a mystery, possibly unnecessary.

Why the first portion, memorably in black and white, is tinted to sepia is unclear. And a Gothic-looking hallway leading to the wizard’s chambers is oddly elongated in 3-D so that Dorothy and her trio of pals look like toys rather than life-size.

Happily, this revived version has none of the darkness common to film conversions to 3-D as the polarized glasses tend (10) ____________. It also wisely avoids the technology’s silly, ‘in-your-face’ tricks. The Wicked Witch and her evil flying monkeys don’t fly right into your face, for example, although they now seem even more sinister as they dart and hover above the Kingdom of Oz. The 3-D effects in this gleaming revision are subtle and don’t detract from the already (11) ____________ movie.

The sound was also remastered making the audio crisper, all the better to hear the clever, catchy songs

The real magic of this ever-shining gem from Hollywood’s Golden Age hasn’t been ruined by this adaptation for the film’s 75^th anniversary which took 16 months and 1,000 people to accomplish. Clearly, it was done with care and respect. Simply seeing it on a large screen is (12) ____________.

(http://www.thestar.com)

2. Look through Text 8 again. Which sentence can be used as a headline for the whole review? Suggest your own variant of the headline also.

3. Does the review correspond to the classical scheme of film analysis (see Appendix 3)? What parts are included and what parts are skipped?

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