What appears to be a weird and wild little journey, artist Graham Rawle has illustrated a new version of The Wizard of Oz which brings to life a whole bunch of scenes and characters not featured in the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, but included in L. Frank Baum’s book. Over on his website, Rawle explains: “Though many episodes are reassuringly familiar I was surprised to find L. Frank Baum’s Oz richly populated with bizarre and wonderful characters not featured in the film: the Dainty China people, ornament-sized folk made from porcelain who are prone to breakages, and the Hammer Heads, armies of armless fighters with extendable necks and hard, flat heads. There are extra scenes, as well as back story, that reveal the origin of the Winged Monkeys, how the Tin Woodman came to be made of tin, and how the Emerald City only appears green because its inhabitants are made to wear green tinted spectacles.”

It took Rawle two years to put together this new book, and what he did was craft miniature sets, characters, costumes — all of it made from scratch, then altered in photoshop. I’ve never read the original Wizard of Oz, so hearing about these characters and seeing Rawle’s freakingly cool images definitely has me wanting more. You can watch an animated trailer for the book after the jump, and check out some of Rawle’s sweet imagery below. Oh, and buy the book over here or prints over here. Trippy stuff.

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Roy Disney once took part in the TransPac race, which takes you 2275 nautical miles on a yacht, from California to Hawaii, over the course of some ten days (or more). It results in “one of the most coveted trophies in the world of competitive sailing,” which sounded about as exciting to me as saying that broccoli was “one of the most beloved of all green vegetables.” Apparently it changed Disney’s life, to the point that he wanted to share his life-changing experience with everyone else, via this documentary. But rather than race again himself, he spends his considerable money and influence to put together a kind of reality show in which eleven amateur twenty-somethings race against seasoned veterans. “It’s really about the journey,” says Disney at one point early in the film, which is his insurance against the movie’s ending. If they win, he’s got a great, exuberant, happy ending. If they lose he can just say, “It’s really about the journey” again.

The first half of Morning Light consists of the reality-show setup. The racers get several months to train, and we get a tense countdown on the screen, along with a truly awful music score by a group called “Matter.” They practice and fail. One girl goes snowboarding and breaks her arm, which provides at least ten minutes of drama. The racers contribute some of those from-the-heart testimonials, in which they talk about how meaningful all this is (they use phrases like “everything hinges on…” and “…decides our fate”). We also have to wait while the racers watch surprise videos sent by their family members, wishing them good luck and whatnot. But worst of all is the scene in which the fifteen chosen contestants must choose which eleven of them actually get to go on the boat. (The other four are alternates.) It’s not unlike those annoying, “suspenseful” pauses before some “American Idol” or “Next Top Model” contestant gets kicked off the show. Out of the fifteen, there are only two girls and one black guy, and only one of these gets to go on the boat with 10 white guys.

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Earlier this week, Roger Ebert posted with his new batch of reviews one for the indie film Tru Loved, of which I personally know little aside from its opening in limited release this past Friday. Ebert’s review is included among the six currently constituting that film’s dead-even Tomatometer.

The twist is, Ebert admits to only having made it through the first eight minutes of the film before shutting it off. Normally, that’s not exactly cricket, but considering how many movies he’s seen, how many reviews he’s written, how many Pulitzer Prizes he’s won (and occasionally brandished), for him to say within that span of time that “I’m sure its heart is in the right place, but it fails at fundamentals we take for granted when we go to the movies” carries an appropriate heft. After all, he admits that “the rating only applies to the first eight minutes. After that, you’re on your own.”

He has subsequently linked to a lively blog discussion in which he defends his decision, while others chime in (most with careful consideration; others insist that Ebert should quit for such shenanigans). How about you guys: what’s the earliest that you’ve ever given up on a movie (let’s stick with theatrical experiences, as opposed to flippant channel surfing)? Are you cool with any reviewer pulling something like this, so long as they’re open about it? What about when it’s such an illustrious critic as Ebert throwing in the towel?

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But was he ever considering it in the first place? Not long ago it seemed a Lethal Weapon 5 was all but a lock, what with Shane Black writing the script and Columbus Short supposedly in talks to play Danny Glover’s son — but now, according to a recent interview with Richard Donner in the LA Times, it looks like the whole thing might just go away. Thank God. That’s because, in Donner’s world, Mel Gibson has already passed on the project. (And here we thought Glover passed over a year ago.) The director notes, “Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn’t involved. Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be.”

Though “Gibson’s people” refused to comment, the LA Times is pretty confident in their findings. Donner, who directed all four previous Lethal Weapon films, seems a bit “I toldja so” in the interview, regarding Warners decision to follow Joel Silver’s lead: “It’s too bad, actually, because Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, and Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, and myself and Derek [Hoffman, an associate at The Donner Company] had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie. But we weren’t given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it. But Warners chose to go with Joel Silver.” He later adds, “Yes, the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me.”

Of course, Donner could be talking out his rear end … though, on the surface, it seems like a reach for both Gibson and Glover to agree to a fifth film, especially one without Donner behind the camera. But what do you think? Would you actually be down for a Lethal Weapin 5? Or are these guys just too old for this sh*t?

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