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I had a friend who had done some jail time. I was always very curious about this because I knew that it would be hugely unlikely I would ever see the inside of a cell (knock on wood). He told that one of the most beloved movies by prisoners was Wizard of Oz. This made all the sense in the world. Wizard of Oz is the ultimate escapist fantasy, which betrays the film’s original message. My thoughts after the jump.

Ironically, what people remember most is the vivid Technicolor of Oz more than the sepia toned world of Kansas. We love our family, but the imagination is stirred by everything that happens when not at home, when not in a safe place. And yet that simple message that there is no place like home, that desire to return to one’s family is pretty profound in the movie. Wizard of Oz,...

If I hear “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” one more time, I’m gonna send Dorothy “way up high”—with a kick from my friggin’ boot! Now, before you Oz enthusiasts jump all over me for being such a surly, curmudgeonly son of a witch, I want to profess my love for The Wizard Of Oz and this four-disc DVD set (Warner, $69.92). Allow me to explain my castigatory opening remark. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is a beautiful, seminal, touching song—the first 50 Times you hear it during the Same week. That’s how long it took me to review this exceptional box set, because The Wizard Of Oz: 70Th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’S Edition has more extras than a Cecil B. DeMille picture.

That’s why I’m fed up with “Over the Rainbow”—between the movie and the main menus and the endless documentaries and the featurettes, etc., etc.