The Wiz
So I Netflixed The Wiz and watched it this week for the first time since I was a kid. WHOAH. Very, very strange movie--I've never seen the original stage version but Duncan said it was very different...and I guess it's set in Kansas? Which is sort of weird as well--Kansas is pretty white, isn't it? I will say, I like that they reset it in NYC, and there's a lot to explore there. But why make it so freakishly terrifying? That subway sequence, AAAAHHHH! Good Lord, it is terrifying! Creepy homeless peddler guy with his puppets that get bigger...and bigger...and then start CHASING them, Jesus! And then the trash cans and even the pillars start attacking them! Why in the hell would they make this for kids? That's actually my biggest criticism of the movie--it is not appropriate or interesting for kids (a very cold-feeling movie), and I don't get the G-rating. There are way too many long, boring stretches--what was in the LA water in the late '70s, Star Trek: The Motion Picture has the same problem.
But I don't think it's horrible, and I think its imdb rating (4.7) is way too low. It's got a definite adult sensibility--the part when they reach the Emerald City, with those gyrating disco dancers, is wild! Oz goes to Studio 54. I also liked the reinterpretation of the poppy scene, crack hos seducing them with heroin. (Again, this is for kids?!) The cabs--one of the "external reviews" listed in imdb said something about how this was a joke on how you can never find a cab when you need one in NYC. Uh, I thought it was about how specifically black people have a hard time getting cabs to stop, not that they're never around. (Which is also very clever.) Michael Jackson is fantastic as the Scarecrow--in fact the Tinman and Lion are also terrific. (Sadly, Diana Ross is deadly dull as Dorothy and far too old. Stephanie Mills would've been cute as hell.) Some of the numbers are great--I especially loved the Munchkin number with all those cheering, tumbling moppets. (Although when the first Munchkin reveals how they were "imprisoned"--they were caught tagging the playground and turned into graffiti--I had a sneaking sympathy for Evermeane. Little shits, stop vandalizing public property!)
But I don't think it's horrible, and I think its imdb rating (4.7) is way too low. It's got a definite adult sensibility--the part when they reach the Emerald City, with those gyrating disco dancers, is wild! Oz goes to Studio 54. I also liked the reinterpretation of the poppy scene, crack hos seducing them with heroin. (Again, this is for kids?!) The cabs--one of the "external reviews" listed in imdb said something about how this was a joke on how you can never find a cab when you need one in NYC. Uh, I thought it was about how specifically black people have a hard time getting cabs to stop, not that they're never around. (Which is also very clever.) Michael Jackson is fantastic as the Scarecrow--in fact the Tinman and Lion are also terrific. (Sadly, Diana Ross is deadly dull as Dorothy and far too old. Stephanie Mills would've been cute as hell.) Some of the numbers are great--I especially loved the Munchkin number with all those cheering, tumbling moppets. (Although when the first Munchkin reveals how they were "imprisoned"--they were caught tagging the playground and turned into graffiti--I had a sneaking sympathy for Evermeane. Little shits, stop vandalizing public property!)