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As Wicked hit theaters, it's interesting to see Disney's surprisingly long history with the Oz books!

The world of Oz is about to see a new spark in popularity. After two decades as one of the biggest musical hits in the world, Wicked is about to hit the big screen in part one of a two-part epic. It's a revisionist take on the property showing how Elphaba aka the Wicked Witch of the West, wasn't that bad a person and her friendship with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

The movie is from Universal and seems set to become a major box office hit. Yet there was a time when it looked like Disney might get their toes into the property and the history of Disney and Oz is fascinating to see!

The early Oz foray

The early days of moviemaking were tricky, yet was always interested in adapting some beloved books.

Frustration is the overwhelming feeling coming out of watching the entire first season of The Newsroom. Frustration because it has so much potential to be great and yet it overburdens itself, it is an example of writer Aaron Sorkin biting off far too much. What worked was all the stuff about the newsroom, the crafting of a news show, the behind the scenes politics of corporations and the up front politics of our recent history. For an outside viewer, it was of great interest to me seeing the differences between media in the Us and the UK.

The downsides of the show are its often embarrassing sexist view on women (Sorkin should really know better), its ridiculously tawdry, hackneyed office romance, and its overt politicising where characters have the tendency to stand in a circle of people and deliver a long speech about morals.

In the final episode of the...

Though not a strong episode, the season finale of "The Newsroom" was weirdly likeable by virtue of its commitment to sheer rom-com craziness. Because that is, for better or worse, what the show boils down to: A large serving of romance, with a side of news. What happened: This episode used one of the favorite gimmicks of "The Newsroom": Shifting back and forth between a "present" time (in this case, August 8, 2011) and the days or months leading up to that time. Will announces on air that the top story of the evening will revolve around one Dorothy Cooper, a woman ineligible to vote because she doesn't possess a driver's license. Eight days earlier: Mackenzie and bodyguard Lonny find Will bloody and unconscious in his bathroom. After having him rushed to the hospital, they're informed that Will has a bleeding ulcer because he's been taking too many anti-depressants. A possible cause of his gloom?...